Tag: blogging about our blog

AI in America – A Critique

As someone who has worked in IT for… well, almost 30 years now, I have generally embraced new technology as it arrives. Certainly there have been trends in the industry that I have not been enthusiastic about at all, such as the domination of the software market by subscription models which require you to pay a monthly or a yearly fee. That trend has also led to software makers not selling software on a CD anymore, and that led to computer makers not putting CD-ROM drives in computers anymore. I am not a fan. I also dislike the trend that makes devices smaller and thinner at the cost of said devices not having 3.5 mm headphone jacks or ethernet ports or even many ports at all. It means that to connect things that used to be quite standard (like a printer, or a network cable) you now have to buy an adapter or a dock of some sort (unless it’s Bluetooth or wireless). And that’s annoying to me.

But the hands-down worst thing (in my opinion) that the technology industry has embraced in recent years is AI, or as the orange moron in the White House and his sycophants like to call it, SI [I don’t particularly care what he calls it and so I will continue to call it AI and risk the ire of Trump and MAGA everywhere]. There are a lot of reasons I dislike AI: it has been vastly oversold to the public in terms of what it can actually do accurately; it is costing a truly gigantic amount of money and so far has not shown much return-on-investment (in fact it seems to have all the makings of a big financial bubble); the technology is supposed to put a lot of people out of work, and many companies are already using AI as an excuse to trim their workforce; far too many people in the industry are pushing uses of the technology out without thinking of the constitutional, ethical, and legal implications of what it does (not to mention them not having any real plans to deal with the rapidly mounting instances of misuse of the technology); and finally, the tech CEOs and billionaires pushing all this absolutely DO NOT have the best intentions towards democratic societies, civilization, and the overwhelming majority of the human race. They are out for themselves and don’t care about democracy. They want to accumulate as much money and power as possible before everything falls apart. So no wonder they have embraced Trump so quickly. The speed at which data centers and AI-based surveillance technology is being pushed out in the United States should absolutely be cause for alarm, and not just because they cause a host of environmental problems as well as consume obscene amounts of electricity and fresh water. They also play a huge role in the domination of cultural and societal narratives on media and social media. That’s why some people freaked out so much when Ukraine destroyed Russian data centers. The attacks showed that much of the traffic on social media (and probably millions of Elon’s followers, for example) are actually bots. Traffic and number of followers determine things like ad revenue for social media platforms. The guy who used to go on and on about how he wanted to get rid of all the bots on the social media platform he wanted to buy actually benefits from millions of bot accounts on his platform because they pay monthly subscription fees to get blue checkmarks and as long as he gets paid and they drive the messages that he agrees with (and they most certainly do) he won’t do anything about them.

Also, AI has become such a huge part of surveillance technology that the cameras that use AI to help identify license plates (known as ALPR or ANPR cameras generally) have inspired a whole new social movement that is very anti-surveillance state: websites (such as deflock.org) dedicated to showing you exactly where the cameras are located; helpful instructions on how to fight the companies trying to put up the cameras in your community; some folks are just cutting all the cameras in their community down; some people are using expandable foam insulation to disable the cameras without even having to remove them; some people make signs with very long poles to block the cameras. It’s fascinating to see the creativity as well as the fact that people are all across the ideological spectrum in their opposition to the cameras.

But despite this encouraging collective effort against AI surveillance, some of the kids are not alright. There seems to be a growing trend in which young people are using AI for virtually anything and everything. And their parents, for the most part, have no idea what their kids are doing with AI. Kelly and I personally overheard a conversation in our little Vermont town between a parent and their tween-aged kid in which the kid insisted that AI was their friend. Kids, at least broadly, do not have the ability to determine the difference between real emotions and the emotions simulated by a chatbot. They don’t have the experience and judgment to question the answers AI gives them. And they certainly don’t realize that chatbots are basically intended to agree with you all the time because the designers made them that way to encourage more use. So AI will tell you that you are right even when it comes to encouraging destructive or suicidal behavior. Even AI bots specifically designed for mental health purposes have failed when dealing with suicidal users. Parents of tweens and teenagers who become emotionally dependent on AI bots, as well as those with younger kids should try to be wary and informed when it comes to AI and their kids’ interactions with it.

So if you want to use AI to do your homework for you, or if you want to hand your creative impulses over to it and let it do all your writing and thinking for you, be my guest, but don’t expect me to support you by enthusiastically embracing the technology and the slop that it generates as “literature” or “art” or anything of the sort. I think it’s crap. And I think that techbro billionaires would LOVE to not have to worry about paying salaries and benefits to human beings if they could just buy robots or AI tokens to do all the work instead. But I will keep insisting that my books and music and movies be made by people, and I hope society will ultimately agree with me.

-Geoff

Today in History – John Brown Leads Raid on Harper’s Ferry

On October 16th, 1859, abolitionist John Brown led a group of followers in an armed attack on the U.S. Armory and Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Brown had hoped the attack would spark a slave revolt across the South, or at least cause many slaves to join him at Harper’s Ferry. But it seemed nothing went as Brown had planned. By the morning of the third day, October 18th, U.S. Marines under LT Israel Greene (overall commander of Federal forces opposing Brown was Brevet Colonel Robert E. Lee, the future Confederate general) stormed the engine house where Brown and the last of his men had fortified themselves. Of the 22 raiders, 10 were killed during the raid, 7 were captured and later hanged, and 5 managed to escape. Brown himself was badly wounded but survived to stand trial. Brown was tried in Virginia state court rather than a Federal court largely due to the intervention of Governor Henry Wise and the ease with which he convinced President James Buchanan. Brown was convicted after the jury deliberated for less than an hour. On November 2nd, 1859, after Brown gave a statement that became known as his “last speech,” he was sentenced to death by hanging. Due to Virginia law a month had to pass before the sentence could be carried out. In the intervening time, plans for a rescue were made by some abolitionists, including Thomas Wentworth Higginson, but none were carried out. That month Brown had hundreds of visitors, wrote over 100 letters (most of which were immediately published), and hundreds of letters were received by Brown, Governor Wise, and others connected to the trial. Brown’s trial was the first to be reported in newspapers around the entire country (even the West Coast) due to the recent completion of the transcontinental telegraph. Although newspapers everywhere reported on the event, only a few papers actually had reporters present, and at least one of those reporters went to great lengths to hide his identity from locals. Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, the first person to ever be executed for treason in the United States. His funeral would take place on December 8, 1859, after his wife Mary had traveled with Thomas Wentworth Higginson and others to retrieve the body from Virginia and bring it home to North Elba, New York.

Kelly and I took a trip to northern New York in late November 2024 and had the opportunity to visit the Brown farm and see his grave. Note the snow already on the ground in November.

The grave, using the headstone Brown brought from Connecticut that had previously belonged to his grandfather who died in 1776. After that grave got a new headstone, Brown brought the old one to his New York farm.
Statue of Brown by Joseph Pollia that was erected in 1935.

As I get back into the habit of posting here in our blog, I will put up more pictures from our little day trips like this.

– Geoff

Some thoughts on the state of America

One of the things I have missed about regularly posting on our blog has been the ability to really work out my thoughts in writing, which is ordinarily not something I get to do much anymore. We don’t use social media much these days, especially since Elon Musk bought Twitter and then proceeded to wreck it. I am still on Twitter (I steadfastly refuse to call it X), because there are still good people on there and I refuse to let Elon and his troll mob chase me away. Kelly is on Instagram a good bit. But Twitter is not designed to really let you express yourself eloquently when you have to pay Elon money to write anything more than 140 characters long. And he has enough money, he doesn’t need any of ours.

The 2026 midterm elections are now less than a month away, and I am admittedly a bit apprehensive about what will happen. All hyperbole aside, this election is going to be immensely consequential because it may present the only chance the American public has to stop Trump and his enablers in Congress before the 2028 presidential election. Without even going into whether or not the 2028 election is going to happen and whether Trump will put himself on the ballot, I am just not sure how much damage will be done to the country by November 2028 to be confident that we can wait until then. Trump’s first term was bad enough. But after having four years to plan how they would do things differently if they returned to power, Trump and his supporters have been rapid and methodical in their destruction of America’s reputation on the world stage, in the erosion of our civil liberties, in the sheer scale and variety of the virtually open public corruption now happening, and in the reduction or elimination of countless Federal programs and departments (much of it through DOGE) that were designed to serve the public good. It will take decades, possibly generations, to repair all of the damage that is being done, and I think we don’t even know or understand the full scale of it all yet.

The Republican party essentially no longer exists except to support Donald Trump. It has become increasingly authoritarian and even less willing to tolerate dissent than before, which hardly seems possible. I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that Trump’s popularity of late has weakened considerably, but I worry that the Democrats, particularly among their leadership, may not measure up to the crisis that is building. Supposedly they are planning for all sorts of possible problems that may happen concerning the midterms. I sincerely hope so. I have great confidence in local and state officials here in Vermont. My confidence in the Democratic party at the national level is less than I would like. And I worry that there will be voters that, although they don’t like or trust Trump and his party, they may not feel great about the Democrats either. And that needs to change. People desperately want to see real results. I know we do. People need to feel like it is still possible to save our democracy and that the Democrats are able and willing to do so. I think that is what people want and need to hear.

-Geoff

Hello, and long time no blog

Well, it occurred to me today that it has been a very long time (two and a half years – yikes) since either of us have posted anything here on the blog so I thought I would do something about it.

We have been steadily making changes and improvements to our house here in Vermont. The two most notable things done in the last year or so are 1) the clearing out of all the overgrown invasive species in the front, side, and back yards, and 2) the addition of a solar panel array to the house.

The solar panel array as seen this fall. Note also the lack of heavy vegetation in the yard.

So once I can remember how to properly post everything, I will put up some more posts.

-Geoff

Our Holiday Card, and by the way, GOOD RIDDANCE to 2020

Well everyone, today is the last day of 2020, and I have to say Thank GOD it is finally coming to a close.  This has been a tough year for virtually everyone*, and for some people it has been just horrific.  Kelly and I have managed to make it through the year without getting COVID (at least as far as we know) and we are both still employed**.  But we did lose one of our beloved fur-kids – our little Thumbelina: the princess; the Khaleesi; the mighty little Emperox of our universe.  We miss her and still often think about her.  

2020 melting onto a dumpster with a fire raging in the foreground. There is a night sky in the background with COVID virus particles falling like snow, one of which is on the moon.
See the blazing dump before us fa la la la la, la la la la.

Continue reading “Our Holiday Card, and by the way, GOOD RIDDANCE to 2020”

Some thoughts on Confederate Memorial Day

Today is the anniversary of the death of John Wilkes Booth, the man who murdered President Abraham Lincoln.  And it is also the anniversary of the surrender of the last large Confederate army in the field at Bennett Place, North Carolina.  I assume that for the latter reason (although I have known at least a few people who argued it was for the former), today is also Confederate Memorial Day in Alabama, the state where I was born.

Continue reading “Some thoughts on Confederate Memorial Day”

The garden is doing pretty well so far

In my last gardening post, I had promised to put up more pictures at some point to show how things were progressing with the garden.  And so here is the progress report.  Today was a gorgeous (but hot) summer day and I was out in the yard doing some work, so I thought I would take some pictures for another blog post.

Continue reading “The garden is doing pretty well so far”

Hello there, Canada

In the last two days something interesting has happened here on our humble little blog.  We’ve had 978 hits from The Great White North.  In 48 hours.

I wish I could tell you that something one of us had written was brilliantly funny or had gone viral, but somehow I doubt that’s the case.  While both days were fairly international and we did have visitors from around the world and, indeed, our total hit count was more than just the Canadian total for both days, something’s up.

I have a theory.

Continue reading “Hello there, Canada”

Sometimes words just aren’t enough

At some point I will write a proper post, but our reaction to last night’s episode of Game of Thrones, particularly the last 7 minutes or so, can probably best be summarized like this.

This times one thousand.
This times one thousand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of Kelly’s Twitter friends beat us to first use of this GIF, but it is still one of the most appropriate ones out there that I can find.

Anyway, I need more time to process it all.  The episode would have been outstanding and highly important even without that last few minutes, and with it, it is absolutely one of the most consequential episodes of the entire show so far.

-Geoff