Life On A B-I7

You Know Who You Are

“Chicks dig the long ball.”

“I’m just hard working 81 I.Q.”

A Conversation

Recently Donald Trump railed against Atlantic magazine Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg after his reporting of a serious security breach by some of Trump’s high level staff. The reporting itself is not in question, but in the course of responding to the situation, Trump felt compelled to call Goldberg a “sleazebag.” Trump also made derogatory statements about the Atlantic magazine. What follows is a conversation I had with ChatGPT on this subject:

Me:

Is calling someone a sleazebag a nice thing to do?

ChatGPT:

No, calling someone a sleazebag is not a nice thing to do. It’s a derogatory term used to insult someone’s character, often implying that they are dishonest, immoral, or untrustworthy. While people use strong language in heated debates or criticisms, resorting to insults usually escalates conflicts rather than resolving them.

Me:

Do you think Donald Trump should have called Jeffrey Goldberg a sleazbag?

ChatGPT:

Insults like that don’t really add much to the conversation, especially in politics, where discussions should ideally be based on facts and reasoning rather than personal attacks.

Me:

Do you think this kind of rhetoric affects how people engage in political discourse?

ChatGPT:

When political leaders use insults and name-calling, it often shifts the focus away from meaningful discussions and fuels more division. Instead of debating policies or ideas, it becomes about personal attacks, which can make it harder for people to engage in productive conversations.

Conclusion (Me):

ChatGPT seems to have a better grip on civility, if not reality, than, oh, say, FOX news hosts and the current Administration.

I apologize if that ”shifts the focus away from meaningful discussion”.

Be Nice to Strangers

Learning how to be nice to strangers will pay off later in life when you are living in a memory care facility. It never hurts to cover your bases.

Touching Paper

I briefly flirted with the idea of building an eLibrary using Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) rather than continuing to buy the print version of books. After a brief trial run, I concluded that eLibraries are not for me.

As an experiment, I downloaded ADE and bought a book. The first observation I made was I had to increase the font size in ADE to maximum just to make the book readable. The next observation that jumped out at me was there is no turning pages. One of the pleasures of reading a book is physically turning the page as you progress through the author’s work. There is something uniquely satisfying about that.

There is no substitute for holding a book in your hands and turning the pages one at a time, underlining, tagging, and just plain being present with words that you can see and touch. The book is always there for you. You don’t have to carry a device with you. A device, especially one like a MacBook, is a pain to haul around. Yes, there are eReaders out there that are designed for that purpose but I’m adverse to owning another electronic device, in particular a single purpose one. I feel like one device should be enough. (Not counting the ubiquitous cell phone.) I realize this makes me sound like a Luddite. I’m not. This website is built using a MacBook Pro and sophisticated editing software.

At last month’s book club meeting I sat next to a fellow that had a large format eReader on his lap. A dozen books were displayed on the library shelf in addition to the one we were discussing. He never opened the book we were discussing, he just sat with the eReader on his lap, very proud of the titles staring me in the face, or so it seemed to me. I had the print version on my lap, tagged, ready for discussion. When the chance arose, I opened my print book to one of the tags that marked a favorite passage and shared the words with the group. I guess I’m old school.

As a final deterrent to building an electronic library, the digital editions cost almost as much as their print cousins. Unless you are going to stick to what your library offers electronically, which of course does not include everything in the print world, there is little difference in cost between an electronic library and a print library.

I’m going to continue touching paper.

Am I Human?

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to create an X account. My idea was to post content that would provide a different picture of Elon Musk than the one normally projected on that platform. When I got to the Turing Test, I couldn’t pass it. Honestly, I didn’t try all that hard.

I may try again. On the other hand, I don’t really want to try again. I’m truly not anxious to bring the cesspool that is X into my life.

MAGABOTS

Elon Musk is using bots to turn negative survey results into positive stories.

FYI: Bots generate votes that originate from a single IP address, or a very few number of IP addresses. For a vote to be a valid indicator of public sentiment, there must be a one-to-one correlation between votes and unique IP addresses.

It won’t be long before Elon shows Donald how to use bots to make it appear that his MAGA base is larger than it actually is…

We are beginning to live in a dystopian world. 1984 is coming.

Who Will Save Us?

Either Republicans in Congress will save the nation or they won’t. It’s as simple as that. There are other solutions, much less desirable…

Turing Test

Can today’s AI engines pass Turing Tests that websites use to identify human users? The answer to that is most likely yes. This creates a serious problem for humans when it comes to identifying fact from fiction. If an AI can pass today’s Turing Tests, then an AI is capable of having a super abundance of influence over public opinion. Perhaps every social media post should be accompanied by a clickable IP address which allows the reader to view the number of posts coming from that address and the user type owning that address. That too is capable of being spoofed. Are there any reliable answers?

Zermat

Zermat is a magical place. There wasn’t a lot of new snow so we had to stay on piste. Off piste would have required a guide anyway. We skied both the Swiss and the Italian side of the Matterhorn. It takes an entire day to circumnavigate the mountain.

Mr. Tux

I remember two, maybe three winters ago, I was driving from Salt Lake City to Phoenix, I had my traveling companion Mr. Tux the cat with me. We were somewhere south of Page Arizona. I decided to spend the night in a teepee on the Navajo Reservation. All was well until about 2 A.M. I woke up and realized that my furry companion was no longer by my side. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and put on my down coat. Did I forget to mention it was December in the high desert and the temperature outside was in the mid-teens? I found my flashlight and went hunting for my cat. I was distraught. My mind was filled with any number of bad outcomes that might have befallen my buddy. What in the world would make him want to leave a warm teepee in the middle of nowhere and wander about in an unknown wilderness? I kept asking myself that, as I navigated larger and larger circles around the teepee, shining my flashlight and calling his name.

I walked around the teepee in ever larger circles for about twenty minutes before I stumbled upon my boy. Of course there is no way of knowing… but I think he was glad I found him. I picked him up and carried him back to the teepee with me. I’m going to assume he was happy I found him because he made no more attempts that night to exit the confines of our (somewhat) comfortable encampment.

That is the night I realized that I loved my cat more than I had imagined. I still do. I have no plan to spend the night in a teepee any time soon, but if I do, and if Mr. Tux is with me, I will be keeping a very close eye on him.

Hunter S. Thompson

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a ride!”

I’ve crossed the country twice on a bicycle and I plan to do it again. I’m skiing better now at age 71 than I have ever skied in my life. That’s living. Of course I won’t be able to ride 3,000 miles on a bike or rip a black diamond forever. But I will continue doing both to the best of my ability until I fall down and can’t get up.

Welcome to 2025

It’s the start of a new year. I can’t recall feeling more excited about the year ahead than I do now. Invigorated is a good description. Who would have thought that at age 71, one could look back on their life with some pride and also look forward with an expectation that even greater things are in store, but that is how I feel. Another wonderful thing about this year is I feel I have some powerful intentions that are not only worthwhile but are attainable. I’m excited about putting in the work to get there. All of this while we are facing a trying time as a nation.

America is changing before our eyes. Sometimes it feels like no one is aware of what is going on. Democracy is dying and is being replace with rule by the rich. Whatever benefits the wealthy is the new political policy. The irony is that this change was made possible by the people that will benefit the least from this transformation. I’m not going to dwell too much on this reality going forward for two reasons. The first is there is nothing I can do about it in the short term. The second is because we will come out of this, it will take time, maybe even more time than I have left, but we will come out of this.

Perhaps that is the reason I feel optimistic about my own future. This national crisis has given me the freedom to focus on myself. My future is up to me and no one else.