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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 20 June 2024

Hits: 400

At the thrift shop I found a set of magnetic Scrabble tiles, and conceived the notion that "wouldn't it be cool if I could write a poem using all 100 scrabble tiles and 2 blanks", with the intent of dumping it on the magnetic poetry board at the cafe I frequent.

Of course it would be cool, only my creativity wouldn't suffer said restraint, but there's been a lot of talk about the brilliance of AI lately, and so I turn to Chat GPT 4.0.

Now, while I can't show you the entire chat here - for some reason logging back into it today it's truncated the back-forth nature of our dialogue into merely it's last failed attempts. It took about a dozen tries to make it understand I didn't want a poem that used all the available letters in the alphabet, that I wanted a poem constructed entirely out of Scrabble tiles that used them all but no more, the two blanks it can use as it wishes.

Finally it delivers - if you can call it that:

A waltz of quick brown fox jumps.
Over the lazy dog, bright vibes hum.
Zealous jackdaws fly next.
Happy quails sing by pond.

Now, it gave me a few results of similar quality, which I can't share due to our truncated chat. But in every instance upon reviewing it I found that certain tiles weren't used, and others were used too much. So I point it out, and Chat GPT does a self analysis, and then apologizes and tries again, assuring me that it's now got it right. Only it hasn't. And so I send it back and it tries again, and does another self analysis, posting it for me to see:

• S: 4 - (A waltz of quick brown fox jumps. Over the lazy dog, bright vibes hum. Zealous jackdaws fly next. Happy quails sing by pond.)
• T: 6 - (A wterful, quick brown fox jumps. Over the lazy dog, bright vibes hum. Zealous jackdaws fly next. Happy quatls sing by pond.)

And here you have it, the smoking gun, just like that guy next to you it's fudging it's own self analysis by changing the poem. Every time. Until finally, like a petulant little Elon-Musk-child it tells me I need a subscription to listen to more of it's gibbering idiocy...

"You've reached your GPT-4o limit. You need GPT-4o to continue this chat because it uses tools. "

We don't want to make the AI think now, do we? The dangers - and intelligence - of AI so far have been blatantly oversold.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 18 June 2024

Hits: 374

At the liquor store after and I run into Sasha, Dag's daughter. I'm mentioned her here before, posted a picture of her, young 80's, feisty, always with a joint in her month. I'd visited her in November in the hospital, asking Sasha where she is now, did she get into a home, and no, she passed away January 6th, 2 months in the hospital, not even a month in the home. No obituary, Sasha's choice.

And so that's that, another bit of the local color gone, the town, it's becoming gentrified in the worst of possible ways. All the people that gave it color, character, dropping off one by one...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 16 June 2024

Hits: 528

And this, noted, following any rave or big night out, the quietude of mind.

Exactly that. That the world's dialed down to 1, 0 even. You hear the sounds, the street, the mind-numbing chatter of idiots, but it's dialed down to zero. 

There's no background noise, nothing, not even the sound of your own thoughts. Just a comfortable absence of all thought. 

Outside, thundershowers, rain. The same as the subliminal stop-smoking soundtrack I listen to.

I check the fridge for food, nothing but condiments, I make up some rice and choose from a variety of flavours to season it with.

Now I can see past the abomination I've made, can see clearly the errors in the painting on the easel, and sit quietly and enjoy the absence of mind. A proper stay-cation.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 10 June 2024

Hits: 601

So, a quick recap of the week...

Sunday caught up with Cathy, from the old restaurant, member of the Alumni...

A couple of drinks, catch up, the Royal, the waitress recognizes me (from the Sushi place). It's good to catch up with her. It's supposed to be a day off but I'm called in to work the evening, just time enough to get sober...

Monday, it's Mr. Tickles turn, he's in town, first time since I saw him last, he's fitting in Ymir quite nicely.

And also on Monday the Dentist, a quick cursory $100 inspection...

Tuesday, volunteer, work, slow, slow, slow. The murder of innocent days.

Wednesday, day off, time now to deal with the car, no tickets, but someone has vandalized the back window, smashing it in, no theft (I mean, I left the doors unlocked, so merely midnight pranks and merriments by ass-holes). I call Western Auto Wreckers to come and pick it up, they tell me they'll call me back in 10 minutes.

I'm still waiting.

Thursday, I hear from Leslie. The Mother in Law of a certain Notorious Junior. Apparently, while being declared toxic and low rent they need her to work in July, so she'll be back there. She's drunkenly texting me, the punctuation and lack of congruency in the thought gives it all away. The restaurant, well, same-old same-old, the owner has had it, they've had 4 chefs walk out (in, what? 2 months?), she's not taking it well that her ex-husband has a new hoe...

Nor is JR, apparently. SR is forbidden from entering the restaurant, and I'm wondering who's mowing the lawns, with all the rain we've had lately...

And, on that note, it's the rainiest May/June I can recall, but - come Wednesday the skies brightened, a beautiful porcelain blue, the sun is out, everywhere on Baker there are the pretty faces, and summer doesn't seem so far away...

Thursday is also the day I finally gave up on the MacBrick, did the final OS upgrade and found it left nothing working, not the internet, the flash drives, the screensaver, not nothing. 

A last ditch effort, I take it to the Mac Store. And the owner, friendly, knowledgeable, tells me to give him 15 minutes, and that's all it takes, he loads all the patches, and when he's done for the pittance of $30 I'm the proud owner of a basically brand new (to me, anyways) MacBook Air, and I check my blog, everything else, and bloody hell if it doesn't all work like it should...

Next steps, wipe and sell the HP Scream. And by the time I'm done wiping down the keyboard, screen (filthy), wiping my profile, deleting my data, well, damn if the thing doesn't seem to work not half-assed bad, and there's a full spare Gigabyte on the HD to store my files. 

But nope, list it on FB marketplaces, $20, a few nibbles and it finally sells, to HotSauce Guy.

Bringing us to Sunday, Today. This morning, hear from Rossi, from the Italian Joint in Calgary, Google has made him up a "memories" of our day off in the Drumheller, and another ex contacts me to tell me about the laugh she was having with her sister about me. The day ends, again, now, from a beautiful morning to a rainy and wet evening, and I think that catches me up. The week, uneventful, learning how to use a Mac, (the notes feature I'm loving), trying to get back on track, all this time off and I need to start making good use of it before it all runs out...