[Warning: Spoilers]

Well, the Devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal,

But he stopped himself at a greasy spoon to gobble up one last meal.

There he came across a bus boy slopping up crumbs with a filthy rag,

And said "See, boy, I bussed myself; cleaning up is in my bag!"

The bus boy shrugged, handed him a tub with a shake of his floppy mane,

"I dealt with the cook, I dealt with the host, dealin' with the Devil is no real pain."

So Beelzebub, he grabbed that tub; the lad's eyes glowed with joy,

The cook came out and ripped a belch and shouted GET BUSSIN' BOY!

The plates went a-flyin' and the Devil he was tryin' to find in a boy a wedge,

But the plates kept a-comin' and the Devil got stuck on a crusted table ledge.

"If I can be so bold, I'll win your tub of gold," the boy said with a mighty sneer.

Then the fat men shouted for another round of pie and the Devil, he knew fear.

The boy set to scrubbin' while the Devil began blubbin, the boy's rag as fast as wind.

With one last swipe the boy showed his might -- then said the Devil with a voice of tin:

"You won my tub, you lanky schlub, but the Devil will have his due!"

Then the host smacked the Devil with a greasy copy of the slop shop's menu.

POOEY ON SURGE PRICING

News Item: In 2025, Wendy's will begin experimenting with surge-style pricing, increasing prices on menu items as demand increases throughout the day.

In response, I offer this scenario, suggested by the 1980 film Popeye:

Popeye: Bunch of carrots?

Mr. Geezil: No, no.

Popeye: You ain't got to carrots? What are those, prunes?

Mr. Geezil: POOEY ON CARROTS. Canned broccoli.

Popeye: I am in the mood for carrots. I need me vitamins.

Mr. Geezil: POOEY ON CARROTS. Take spinach.

Popeye: If I wants spinach, I'll axe yez for spinach.

Mr. Geezil: So, why didn't he say so? For you, each a dollar.

Popeye: How much is the broccoli?

Mr. Geezil: Nickel, maybe dime.

Popeye: And the spinach?

Mr. Geezil: Dime, maybe quarter.

Popeye: Then how come carrots is a dollar?

Mr. Geezil: Dollar fifty. You buy what I don't feel like selling, it cost you two dollars.

Popeye: [Begrudgingly takes offered carrots, tosses a coin.]

Mr. Geezil: Uh uh uh uh, no, no, this is a nickel!

Popeye: I pays what I feels like payin'.

Godspeed, Future Disintegrator

The J.C. WIlber building was built in 1892 and replaced in 1955 by the Tregoweth Brown Building.

The cornerstone of the building, as we know, was the home of Michigan J. Frog, until he was discovered by the nameless, hapless fellow who thought a singing frog would bring him fame and fortune, until near insanity and poverty drove him to hide the frog, case and all, in the cornerstone of the Tregoweth Brown Building.

It's now 2024. The Tregoweth Brown Building is set to be demolished by the ACME Building Disintegrators in 2056, only 32 years from now.

So it's a fair bet that Michigan J. Frog's next handler has already been born.

Godspeed.

As usual, Dennis' response on Facebook is perfect:

'Tis Done

There's a lot to write about, of course. And I should do it now. But these two are just starting their adventure together.

So more later.

Don't Let this Be You, Instructors

 

Honestly, this could have been me earlier this semester. And by me, I don't mean me as a student, but me as an instructor.

Turnitin flagged a student essay as likely partially created by AI. I gave her a zero but decided I wanted to hear from her before going any further.

Turns out she had used Grammarly to check her work. I had her turn in her un-Grammarlied essay and graded that one -- which netted her a 98 percent score on the paper. She used Grammarly because English is not her first language -- something I completely understand. But clearly in reading her draft, she has enough talent as a writer that the problems she has with English aren't a major concern.

No report to the academic integrity office. I wanted to hear from her first, and to find out the extent of the AI use.

So, I'm going to emphasize this: Talking with students about AI use, especially when papers are flagged as AI, is important. I'm not sure if the student in the news story had a talk with her instructor, but clearly the result was a zero and academic probation. Knowing what's going on, and helping a student see the pitfalls and concerns, will go a lot further than automatically slapping on the penalties, especially on a first offense.

Visualizing Artificial Intelligence's Shortcomings

Though this fellow talks about the advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence, specificallly ChatGPT, in a programming context, what he says has wide application as we try to figur eout how to use AI in English composition and the pitfalls it can present to our students.

The crux of his argument is that ChatGPT has helped him bridge small knowledge gaps, but poses problems when he relies on it to help him bridge larger gaps in his knowledge and experience.

First, he says through judicious use of ChatGPT, he's been able to unlock "skills and opportunities that might not have been possible without it." He quickly learned that when he encountered a gap in his programming knowledge, ChatGPT was a quick way to get hints on how to fill the gaps. The AI hints also prompted him to learn more to fill in the gaps he noticed in his knowledge. The hints from ChatGPT worked in tandem with the knowledge and experience he already has as a programmer to fill in those gaps: He could see how ChatGPT's suggestions worked.

So, good use of AI here, which he illustrates thus:

He adds: "You might know most of what you need to build something or achieve some task, but maybe there is some part you are lacking that completely blocks you from getting it done. ChatGPT can help break through those barriers quickly and poit you in the direction you need to go."

He goes on to say: "Where I think it is not as healthy is where you are relying on it to substitute for large gaps in knowledge."

He illustrates these "traps" as follows:

When confronted with a programming problem he had some familiarity with but not near enough knowledge to tackle, he presented the problem to ChatGPT -- which provided a solution that didn't work. When he "pressed" ChatGPT that the provided solution didn't work, the AI suggested a different approach that would have meant sweeping changes in the overall program and customer interface.

It was then he realized he had more context for the problem and impact of the suggested solutions than ChatGPT had. He set to work without AI and found a solution that worked without the sweeping changes ChatGPT suggested. He asked ChatGPT about the solution he came up with, and asked why the AI didn't come up with the idea: "It said essentially that my approach is tailored to this specific situation, whereas ChatGPT was generally going to go for a more general solution."

"Having context of the problem and the system in general allows you to search for solutions where a coding assistant might miss them," he adds.

His experience has application to use of AI in English composition. We have artificial intelligence assistants in place already (spellcheck, Grammarly, predictive text) that can help us fill in the little gaps. Often enough as we use these assistants, we decide it's easier to learn the logic behind the suggestions and get things right the first time. I used to misspell antenna on a consitent basis, with spellcheck helping me out. It wasn't until I wrote the word out a hundred times longhand that I trained my brain to spell the word correctly. So using these simple AI tools to help us fill these little gaps is useful, and leads us to learn so we avoid making the mistakes in the first place.

When it comes to using AI to write outlines, or to help brainstorm, I see that as an acceptable application. We still have to look at the outline and see how it works with the assignment requirements, or look at the brainstorm suggestions to see what makes sense in context. But when we or our students rely on artificial intelligence to bridge bigger gaps in our knowledge, we see ChatGPT and the like stumble, and often stumble bigly. Even worse -- relying on AI to fill those larger writing gaps robs us of creating more elegant solutions we could come up with if we put in the effort ourselves. But that means researching, vetting the research, brainstorming and outlining and writing and revising on our own. That initially can take a lot of time, and maybe we don't have the time. But if we rely on AI as a time boost, we lose in the learning department. We don't become better writers, who become more familiar with common pitfalls and problems and solutions and aren't able to recreate them on our own.

Kudos to YouTuber Joshua Morony for this content, and inspiration as I look to fill my tiny knowledge gaps as I try to help my students -- and myself -- avoid those big traps.

I Give You MALK!

From the "I Saw This Advertised on YouTube and Thought it Was A Joke" department, I give you actual MALK.

Not a joke.

But clearly branded and advertised by an entity unfamiliar with the health benefits of Vitamin R.

I realize, of course, as an older, out-of-it COW MILK DRINKER that I am not their target audience. And that's okay.

But there are almond and oat milk drinkers in my family. Who might laugh at buying actual Malk, but that's beside the point.

Of course, I have to realize this episode aired in the far distant past -- 1995 -- so why I thought they might hesitate at branding themselves MALK seems silly now. 1995 is ancient history.

Or maybe it's a clever bit of marketing? Getting oldies like me laughing about Malk until I buy some and discover its qualities and then spread the word to my fellow oldies?

Nah. Someone just said "Malk. That's a good name."

Careful: Humor May Be Dangerous

So our daughter is getting married next Saturday. I've been doing a social media countdown, using mostly marriage-related bits from The Simpsons.

This was Saturday's seven-day warning. Which prompted a little concern from our future son-in-law:

I don't think he was offended, but it's a good reminder that what I think of as funny may not translate to his family. So I'm going to have to be on better behavior.

For the curious, Lisa is marrying a carrot because the kids are teasing her about becoming a vegetarian:

Edward R. Murrow: In Other Words, Shaddap Shuttin' Up!

NOTE: I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this book I'm reading on Edward R. Murrow.

At a career nadir, Murrow delivered in part this speech at the Radio-Television News Directors Association in Chicago in 1958:

"I have no tecnical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vinyard that produces words and pictures. You wil forgive me for not telling you the instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented, or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you grater wisdom or undestanding that you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other . . ."

I think, right now, it's necessary for that reminder, particularly to those shouting the loudest on the internet.

There are times to speak. But most of the time should be spent shuttin' up and doing some hard listening. And not listening to react, but listening to understand.

No More Giants

I'm reading in Bob Edwards' biography of Edward R. Murrow, "Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism," and came to his report on the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Part of it is on the universal praise he heard of President Roosevelt from those at the camp, and others:

If I've offended by by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I'm not in the least bit sorry. I was there on Thursday, and many men in many tongues blessed the name of Roosevelt. For long years his name has meant the full measure of their hope. These men who had kept close company with death for many years did not know that Mr. Roosevelt, within hours, would join their comrades who had laid their lives on the scales of freedom.

Back in 1941, Mr. Churchill said to me with tears in his eyes, "One day the world and history will recognzie and acknowledge what it owes your president." I saw and hear the first installment of that at Buchenwald on Thursday. It came from all over Europe. Their faces, with more flesh on them, might have been from anywhere at home. To them the name "Roosevelt" was a symbol, the cvode word for a a lot of guys named "Joes" who are somewhere out in the blue with the armor heading east. At Buchenwald, they spoke of the president just before he died. If there be a better epitaph, history does not record it.

What his tory also doesn't record is that we've had a president of the United States who could fill Roosevelt's shoes in the last twenty years; perhaps even longer. Hearing former President Trump yesterday denigrate the alliance that came out of World War II and would leave countries open to invasion and perhaps annihilation if he's re-elected, is something I hope others will remember.

I understand this is a recording of Murrow's report, delivered by Murrow about two years after the original radio broadcast.