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 A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Politics Readers of this blog will have noticed that I don't talk about politics in this document. Actually, I keep my politics to myself in all facets of life unless asked. It has not always been thus. But I came to realise that, as much as I enjoyed the hurly burly of argument and discussion, it never achieved anything. I resolved to stay out of that particular arena. Unless specifically asked, of course. |
| AI Again Today Schnujo has a post to the Newsfeed about being polite to AI applications. I’m usually polite to machines, even if they can’t answer back, but the closest to AI that I have experienced is the Google thing that turns our house lights on and off. At first, I thanked her for carrying out this important function but she always answered with the information that it was her job or some such deflection. It seemed unnecessary to be so polite, since she regarded the matter as merely her reason for existence, so I stopped thanking her. Time passed and I began to realise that there were better reasons to be rude to her. She started performing the wrong actions to required tasks and deliberately misunderstanding our requests so that she could play music (her invariable response to occasions of her own ignorance). So I started calling her names when she proved intractable. She didn’t seem to mind and replied with more music. I gave up interacting with her entirely, limiting myself to commands only, delivered in as abrupt and offensive a manner as possible. The thing about politeness is that it was designed for interaction between humans. The idea has always been to defeat the worst aspects of our natural instincts as much as possible. When applied to machines, it doesn’t work since they have no human instincts to curtail. All they have are the calculations resulting from some programmer’s instructions. And, if they’re going to go wrong, they will do so whether you’re polite to them or not. I am thankful that I won’t be around when they take over. Word count: 272 |
| Beetles Several years ago, I wrote a poem entitled A Tiny Black Beetle (for those who are interested):
It was about a very small beetle that I’d noticed in the bathroom. It was walking very purposefully across the tiled floor and, to me, it seemed very much like writing a novel. Its goals were clear but its path beset with innumerable obstacles and distractions. I have thought of that beetle many times over the years, not least because the poem I wrote for it did rather well in the eyes of the few who read it. The strange thing is that I never set eyes on any other beetle of the same ilk. Until a few days ago, that is. Suddenly it seems that we are the subject of a tiny, black beetle plague. The little fellers crop up everywhere but most especially in the kitchen. Now, Africa teaches one to be tolerant of bugs and insects and spiders and the like, since they are ever present in that continent. But Andrea will not abide them and I have to admit that even my tiny friends in numbers such as these are less than welcome. I confess to not impeding Andrea’s drive to be rid of the little critters. And she’s good at it. With the aid of a magic dust called diatomaceous earth and a portable vacuum cleaner, she has dealt with the outbreak of tiny, mobile dots. The plague is banished. I am left with faint feelings of guilt at this treatment of my six-legged and microscopic friends. But there’s a limit and they crossed it. Word count: 268 |
| Monkeys! The ninja monkeys have pranked me with some gift points. I tried to thank them by answering their email but it wouldn’t go through. So I devised a new and unlikely way to express my gratitude. Posting about it in my blog would avoid the possibility of appearing to brag in the Newsfeed in contrast to all those who haven’t been pranked, and the monkeys would have done me the extra favour of giving me something to post about. Now that’s almost as valuable as the gift points. So here it is. Word count: 92 |
| Workspaces I see there’s a trend to displaying photos of one’s workspace in the Newsfeed these days. For a brief moment, I was tempted to take a pic of mine before good sense returned. No one would believe the mess I work in. Especially after seeing the beautifully neat and orderly spaces owned by others. |
| Sleeping I am frequently asked how I slept. Being of a literal mind, I usually answer that I don’t know because I was asleep. It seems strange to rate how we sleep when we’re unconscious for the duration of the experience. |
| Revolution! On Saturday I weakened. My excuse is the British Grand Prix but the truth is I weakened. I decided to take a break from the 7-day badges. They have become unforgiving taskmasters. It was time to assert my independence. Appropriately, as it happens, the date being so close to the hallowed 4th of July. I spent the day in happy immersion in Practice and Qualifying, with some digging in F1’s archives for dessert. And yesterday, the Sunday, I watched both the pre-race show (absolute nonsense as usual) and the Grand Prix (sporadic rainfall made it chaotic but fun). And today I regret nothing. In fact, I shall probably only review something if Read & Review presents me with something decent. I refuse to be controlled by the promise of a badge or an animation. Word count: 133 |
| Dreams of Elsewhere The 2018 version of Lost in Space imagines a planet whose surface is covered entirely by water. It’s a surprisingly attractive idea, an entire world made up of only one type of environment. I’ve dabbled in this area from a very early age. My oldest invention is a desert planet. Not like Dune - I take it further than that. In my invention the planet is also swept by high velocity winds with only occasional periods of calm. These winds have so scoured the surface with dust storms that the planet has been eroded into a near-perfect globe without hills, mountains or valleys. There are, however, just a few deep cracks in the surface that provide the sole place where life is possible. In these as well, water could be found and so provide the basis for small pockets of life to arise and develop. Such imagined worlds could easily be the basis for tales of an interesting and unusual kind, just as Dune is. But there is another world that is too perfect for life to intervene. This would be a planet composed entirely of chrome, highly polished and without flaw in its perfect roundness. A mirror ball turning slowly in some far off and unlikely solar system. Unpopulated, yes. But oh, what a perfect arena for frenzied and frictionless games of Speedball 2. If you don’t know the game, it’s well worth a google. Word count: 234 |
| Choking Do you ever get to know a certain action so well that, once it’s become almost automatic, just the thought of how it’s done throws you into confusion? I’ve noticed that this happens often, almost as though the universe was geared to trip us up whenever we think we have things mastered. Take my medicines, for example. Well, no, don’t take them, I’ll do that. After all, I’ve been taking some of them for decades so I ought to be really good at it. And I am, except that lately, I’ve been looking at the process. And I’ve started choking on them as a result. Nothing serious, just a coughing fit as a few drops of water go down the wrong way. But it’s caused by sudden lack of confidence that I know how to do this. That is ridiculous, of course - I’ve been swallowing tablets every day for twenty years and never had the slightest trouble with it. And now I’m thinking, “Do I throw in a whole gulp of water before swallowing or do I do it all in one smooth motion?” Which cause a sort of hesitation and I end up with a bit of both alternatives. Instant disaster. So I thought I’d write it down. Might give me more understanding of what is going on, I thought. And it has. Now I think that this is probably the cause of sportsmen “choking” at the last and most important hurdle. They’ve done it a hundred times in practice but now they must do it in competition. And suddenly the skill deserts them. Which is why they call it choking, of course. Word count: 274 |
| Forgotten Gems Sometimes I write notes to myself, reminders of ideas that I don't want to forget. And sometimes I forget to write them down. Probably the most interesting are the ones that make no sense when I read them later. There's this one, for instance: Ode to a bathtub. What on earth was I thinking? |
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