Artificial intelligence AI behind the curtain at Chick-Fil-A

 Hello AI Have a Nice Day the Conspiracy may be Real?

Rant warning!!!!!!!!!!

Generally speaking… when I write this blog I do so with the notion that people consider things more often when you offer examples

Than when you flood the space with opinions.  Also there are many times I attempt in not so subtle ways to show  that while facts are important, their meanings are nearly always context dependent or in other words I try to point out that most horses have four legs and a tail and most dogs have four legs and a tail yet when we see a cat it is not necessary to try real hard to figure out if it’s a horse or a dog and it is especially fruitless to argue about such things when we are trying to understand why a cat chases a mouse.  In other cases I make an attempt to play around with the idea that if someone is eating alphabet soup and puts a spoon in pulling out the letters C, A, & R we don’t need to jump to the conclusion that their is a car in the soup.

Could there be a car in the soup?  Well that depends on the size of the bowl and how wild it gets when you pull together all the hot wheels  track and give the kids tootsie rolls and coca-Cola. 

People ask legitimate questions because it could impact theeir lives  for example I likeChick Fil-A  and wanted to know a thing or two about their history.  I was amazed to read that someone who was involved with. The very first fast food aspect of this chain “invented the chicken sandwich in 1964.  That’s what the corporate website says.   It also says the chain uses more Sunkist Lemons than any other organization in the world.  I believe the lemon thing, however, given the length of time people have been eating bread and cooking chicken as a food source it is hard to imagine  that before 1964 there were people thinking.. Can we just put this piece of chicken on this bread and eat it Joe? And Joe says.. “I. Don’t think so.. it’s never been done before and for goodness sake don’t cut those potatoes  that way and fry them.”    Yet…the large language prediction model could easily pick up those “facts” and include them in a paragraph or two.  Okay let’s move on because it will take too long to figure out how we find the McNuggets on a chicken.

So where am I heading here and why is it a rant?

AI iS dangerous.  It is dangerous not because it can replace workers, well it could be.  It is dangerous..not because it pulls facts together and constructs stories  where cars wind up in our soup.  It’s dangerous because

AI is just like government in the hearts and minds of so many people.  

This entry is about my opinion and a plea for a reality check.  

Let’s begin with questions?

What the heck is AI?  

It’s a set of computer code that responds to a set of data input.  The code was and continues to be initiated by human beings that have a purpose.  This purpose is most often to get money by offering attention or the saving of time in an era where most people believe that time is money.  AI is a code that attaches no emotions to doing tasks that humans don’t want to do either because we are not interested or we want to take advantage of the gathered knowledge of many more people than we could connect with in the “normal course of human events.”  AI “lives” on chips made of sand and to this date with the exception of the pet rock such substances don’t appear to be enriched or cursed by the thing we know as emotions.  

Having said this.. then it becomes aimportant to speak of AI not in terms of AI but in terms of “the people developing the AI code.   So instead of saying you will lose your job to AI it is more useful to say you might lose your job because  of the decisions made by the people who develop and promote the cultural value of AI.  

What is troubling to me is that “government” and “the economy” in some ways provides a ready made pattern for the people who are developing AI to “hide behind.”  I’ve talked about this before and recently.. however here we go again.  

There’s a kid who sits on the back of a truck in the middle of summer who makes certain that paint hits the road and makes a stripe so that we can trust others to know how to respect other drivers using this same paved path.   That kid is government.  What he or she does is the product of our decision to pay someone to paint stripes because we believe it’s important and we don’t want to do it or we can’t draw a straight line.  There’s a person who wears a hair net and scrapes left-over vegetables off plastic trays into 55 gallon barrels every weekday between September and June because we don’t want to or can’t take the time to put food together to feed a bunch of kids  in our schools.  That hair net wearing worker is government.  You may rightfully say.. “that’s not what we mean when we claim government is favoring or picking on this or that person or group, and what I am saying is please take a minute  or an hour to make a reasonable effort not to throw out the baby  or the embryo  with the bath water. 

It seems to me that all human lives are more important and valuable than it is to spend energy casting any one of us into some piles and throwing a blanket label on top because assigning meaning to our complicated reality might require searching our hearts and minds.

So there’s the rant… now the below is a virtually meaningless segment designed completely to help this entry get picked up into the large language models  (code developed by people) and thus become black paint in the yellow paint known as AI.  The entry has a loft of words that encompass cultural gravity right now.  See how many you can identify… or come back tomorrow or the next day when I’m done ranting.. 

  

Feeding the Conspiracy and Other things AI is Good For

This entry is possibly full of fake news and designed to be one of those “word find” puzzles.  See how many  words

 come trotting at you just like Roy Rodgers’ horse-Trigger.  Words are a part of our public

discourse, and while some are being left out because it is the right thing to do, it seems that most of the time the unbalanced Supreme Court show bias regarding  the right to choose when and if any words should be banned or long diatribes might be aborted for the sake of time.

Anyway, next week there is an astronomical  event that must be absolutely declared  as global. Warming up their vehicles many people will be headed to Ohio to view the eclipse and some folks are whispering that the eclipse on April 8th will be permanent.  If so would we see strange weather patterns like skies that contain fire and rain which would be efficient  for fans of James Taylor.  Swift actions would be needed if this really happened. The only prediction that really makes sense is that when it is all said and done it is probably a good idea to have an umbrella so go out and look for a fancy one that has a strong fabric around the border.  Control over your umbrella is difficult especially if you are trying to cover a large area and keep everyone safe and dry.  However, if people do get drenched it may be the best plan to build a nice fire.  Arms and legs will get warmer in moments. If you can only stand a little ways away pay more attention to your arms.  Race around but a little attention needs to be paid to the cuffs on your trousers because it’s easy for them to look like somehow they were accidentally  drug.  Companies with big profits won’t care as they will take the clothes off your back while claiming they know all there is to know about science.  Fiction of 100 years ago looks a lot like reality today.  

Hello AI.. have a nice day!

Handful of lovely limericks for St. Patrick’s Day

  A fist full of limericks

In Honor of a Fine Irish Tradition I will be sharing 5 Limericks Today Here’s 1 

We fuel hate with books babies and guns

Some seek answers from hookers and nuns

But as a father or mother

Let’s find some help for each other

And build peace for our daughters and sons

In the meeting barked Congressman Sneed

Here’s the books libraries don’t need

Bill says stop this you fools

Just give enough to the schools 

So all of our kids learn to read

Limerick number three

Some see the whole world as wrecked

Few know just what next to expect

But discomforts we’d squeeze

If we’d say thank you and please

And offer most others  respect

Here’s 4 

Some problems are surely a shame 

We debate both their nature and name

But if we jointly evolve

So many we’ll solve

If we look for new thoughts and less blame

LL5

We have hurdles maybe more than a few

Let’s pick some and find something to do

Let’s share toasts  and break bread

Because the answers aren’t dead

They lie somewhere between me and you

May good luck be with you today and every day

Popular conspiracy theories the latest evidence and thinking

 Conspiracy Theories You can believe

Warning! This entry contains some information that will be offensive to some readers.  

This entry was prompted by recent experiences in hearing, reading, and scrolling past the claims, questions, and shouts, of people on many social media platforms.  These entries, posts, reels, and statements have rambled forth from folks across the planets, however, most of them are promoted by U.S. citizens.  The 4 theories highlighted here are popular and possible and that is the nature of most conspiracy theories.  Are they true?  That’s up to you to decide.  Some of these are “historic”… coming from times in the past and some are current.   Some are far more serious for many people than others.  Okay…let’s get started.

1. A Small Group of People Conspire to Make Most of the Decisions About How our World Should be Ruled

This “conspiracy” has always been confusing as people claim it as something that’s a dark mystery.  Any reading of recorded history tells us civilization—the masses—have always been ruled by a small minority of individuals be they known as kings, emperors, popes, dictators etc. and these people have almost always either been related by blood or by some other means.  Why do millions of Catholics stay away from eating meat on Fridays during lent?  A small group of people secreted away in a room decided that was the way to prepare for Easter.  Did the masses of Catholics know what was being decided?  Was their a vote on the fish thing?  Personally many of us might have voted to stop eating onions or Hostess cupcakes, or maybe beef jerky?  Now driving through for a Big Mac can get you an eternal date with the prince of darkness?  If you believe this you are not alone, however, consider this.  Some of the people in the No Meat” group probably talked about this with some of the fish market folks prior to the meeting so it seems to be reasonable to think that there are groups of people meeting to talk about important things  that will change some lives without most of us knowing about it.  In most of our families people are making decisions that will impact our lives in big ways and we don’t know it.  Most of the humans on the planet  were probably not planned by a committee and some of these people have had a great impact on the lives of everyone living today.   

So the question is…. (See below)

Conspiracy 2.  The World is Really Flat

Most of modern astronomy astrophysics, and space exploration would seem to say “I don’t think so”, but let’s hold off for a minute and ask the real important question—So What?  Would there be any more hate in the world if it were a triangle? Would we understand how to grow better relationships, stronger family and community ties etc. if the world were an equilateral  parallelogram?At one point some significant portion of people claimed that the sun was a god racing a chariot of fire across the sky. Did it make it any less warm and where did the chariot park at night?  There is a lot of stuff on the planet that needs to be disposed of.  There are a lot of greedy people involved in Waste Management.   It would seem that some of these people would be charging  the rest of us to put this trash into a boat or onto a ship and hauling it to the edge to throw out—right? And if not can someone point out the edge because I have a half dozen amazon boxes every month and some potato peels that have to go!

True or false?  (See below)

3. We really didn’t send people to the moon and land there.

Again… science says so, however let’s look at a few things those who disagree bring to the table.  We didn’t have the technology to relay audio/video from the moon to the Earth.  Would someone born in 1890 believe that they could step in a metal tube, sit in a chair, and get from Chicago to Los Angeles in about 4 hours?  Would somebody born in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1955 imagine that yesterday they would be speaking  in a joint vocal/audio conversation with someone from canada, someone from Manchester UK, and someone from Denmark?  Less than thirty years ago most people couldn’t dream of that oh yes and not only that it was done virtually free or for fractions  of pennies.  Yes there might have been a delay in the broadcast… so were the Earthlings seeing it live?  Maybe people didn’t walk on the moon, however, aren’t people trying to get there now?  If you doubt it would you be willing to step onto the next scheduled space flight to see where it really goes?  Have you ever known someone who didn’t like veggies as a kid but eats them now?  

What’s the important question here?  (See below)

4. There is a special mechanism built into modern washers and dryers that disintegrates  and disposes of socks but has a limiter than ensures only one sock from each pair is impacted…

Who hasn’t had a sock disappear?  When we had to knit our own and hall them to the river to beat them against a rock, did they vanish?  Do socks either those in modern times and those in earlier times have the capacity to fly, slide, hop, moonwalk, dance, or belly crawl on their own?  Can they call an Uber  or take the subway?  Yet… every third time you do the laundry are you really shocked when the pair  you are trying to sort doesn’t have a partner.  Didn’t you take them to the washing machine along with those jeans that you hope last just one more time?  Didn’t you toss in a dryer sheet so that you don’t light up like Tesla when you tough the bathroom doorknob on the dry winter  days?  So you were there during the whole process and never saw  the great tube sock transporter kick in and energize  your argyles up to the Enterprise.  

So what’s the Seeking Peace and Joy Conspiracy Here?

Do a small number of people sometimes meet  and have a great influence on your life without you having a say or much control?  The answer is yes  after all two people  in some way got together  or at least their biology did and had a great deal to do with where you started life, what your body might look like, where you might live in your youth and the list goes on and on .. Yep these people  just happened to be your parents and then you can add in your family, your best friends.. etc.. The two actually important questions here (or maybe three) are Now that you’ve been granted this life, how much control over it do you expect and need to be the best self you can be?  How many other people will you need to be independent from and interdependent with? And When will you grow up? … or another words what will you do when the control you think you need is not. The control you think you have?  Trying to take responsibility matching the control you have is difficult however making the effort is important in seeking peace and joy.  

Is the Earth Flat?  No… Human beings by nature  and especially now tend to push things to the extreme.   We have not seen, felt, or experienced the edge.  Is it possible for us to accept the shape of the planet in any given form when we haven’t really tackled the issue of accepting other shapes and forms  of humans?  We judge, we covet, we alter, we put wigs on, and spend time tanning the bodies we are presented with.  Even when we like. Ours we find a lot wrong with other people or we fear them, or we want to be like them.  Why worry about the shape of the planet when we don’t seem to understand the shape of our accountant?  Let’s work on that first shall we?  If we come to a peaceful accepting place with that.. we might find some joy and connection with many shapes and sizes of joyful folks

3. Did we land on the moon?  

We don’t even know where we left our car in the parking lot so judging where someone else is, has, been, or will be, can’t really be something to argue about.  This argument is about trust more than science and the difference between what is happening and what “the government” tells us?  The question we must ask is “who is the government?” And maybe “what will it take for us to trust “them”.  Do we trust (most of the time) drivers to stop at ed lights and stop signs?  The government put those signs there.  When you see a sign saying “bridge out ahead” do you just floor it thinking that’s probably a government conspiracy to keep the next section of road from wearing out?  Maybe in order to find peace and any Joy we all need to figure out what proof  we really need to believe most things and find ways to express that to others so that trust is possible or at least a lot more probable.  If we can’t get to the place where we understand what it takes to trust one another then how can we work on things that are simply good ideas now?  Finding the lines where you can hang on to and say… I trust this…is a very important step in seeking peace and joy…until then ask yourself “did I ever step onto an elevator that I couldn’t see the mechanics of?  Did I ever eat a sandwich I didn’t see someone make?  Did I ever drink a beer I didn’t brew myself?… We can find ways to trust..we do it all the time.

The Washer and dryer “eats socks” You are on your own there… 

Peace and Joy can happen when we find  out what level of control we need to feel secure.  Seeking peace and joy can happen if we choose  the essential questions to ask ourselves and others and then are brave enough to help each other discover what is true for us and them.  If we wish to seek peace and joy it seems we must go places we haven’t been, see things we haven’t seen, agree with some others about what the new experiences were and what they might mean and understand that doing this is worth it.   All of these things seem possible…. 

The sock thing?  Buy only two colors of socks one white and one solid… Then wish your socks well on whatever journey they may be on and while you are doing that accept whatever color and shape your fellow travelers are and wish them well on their journey too. 

How mighty is the pen? It’s fatal.

 The Pen is? Mightier Than Some Swords

So nearly all of us have had the experience of scrambling around to find a pen to quickly sign something or scrawl a number down on a post-it note that we will about half the time find 13 months later wondering “what’s this password for my neighbor’s Netflix account doing in my sock drawer/—and where’s the matching sock for this green and white striped argyle?  But in the process of doing this, the first pen we grab won’t work and instead of walking immediately to the trash and throwing it away..it lives in the pile of stuff on your counter to strike again another day.  

So we find another pen and get thee job done and it’s only slightly stressful, however, we all know that stress kills.  Most heart attacks happen on Mondays and it might not be a coincidence that the added stress of searching for the pen only to have it fail combined with the fact that the pen had the weekend to let the ink dry that last little bit and BAMM!!!

So you say that’s all just random bad luck…well maybe, however, how much do we really know about pens?

Historical accounts vary with regard to where and when pens first became a writing tool for humans.  Most sources say they originated in Ancient Egypt…some say in about 3,000 and others say 5,000 B.C.  How would we know?   Before pens only Cyrus with the tablet carving tools was around to record history or some dude in China could record things so everything was invented in ancient China or Egypt because they were the first to write stuff down. Nonetheless, and None-the -More either these first pens were a strong reed that spread “ink” made of soot and bees wax.  How do we know that?  Well Ancient Chinese symbols showed that there were these soot and bees wax droppings on the lambs wool pocket protectors dating back to the Ming Dynasty.  Okay maybe not… we’re just fooling with chatGPT.   

Okaymoving forward it would appear that these types of devices were used until about 700 A.D. when the “quill” pen came into vogue.  This type of pen is the “feather” type and pen came from a longer word in greek that stood for feather but since ink was hard to come by they shortened it to pen—again just fooling with ChatGPT.  Well it was about 700 and this type of pen (feather) was quite useful.  Swan feathers were the best, however, goose feathers were far easier to come by—Swans are pretty, but they are nasty and don’t give up their feathers easily).  It was in the late 1880’s when a Paton was issued for the instrument we might call a ballpoint today.  Evidence suggests that there were a number of pens like that prior to 1888 where some dude named Lord made his mark.  

Yet, some other thins had to happen to make the pens work better.  There needed to be the evolution  of quicker drying ink as people writing left handed were constantly dragging there hand through the ink and smearing it all over their pages and their puffy sleeves.  

The major advance in pens came late in the 1940’s when the “Bic” pen came into existence. Here was a pen that didn’t require ink wells, would write an estimate of 45,000 words without needed a new one and if you were of a mind to you could draw straight line of over a mile without stopping which one should note makes it even more upsetting when one doesn’t. Write on demand on Monday when you need to get this darn paperwork off your desk while you chug down your second energy drink to get your body up to speed. 

Yet it’s not only the stress that kills.  Year after year about 100 people dieter swallowing pen caps.  Although it adds to the cost of production BIC now manufactures their caps with a hole in them so when swallowed some air can pass through.  Since most major lottery jackpots pay out less than weekly simple math tells us that your chance of dying by the pen are probably at least twice as good as winning the lottery.  

So what does any of this have to do with seeking peace and joy?  

Well journalling is often an activity suggested by therapists and creative writing teachers.  The claims are that it helps to improve or lessen anxiety.  Maybe that’s because if you don’t choke to death on the cap you prove to yourself that you want to and have survived a potentially dangerous event?   Seriously, writing is good  and using your favorite pen can add to the small pleasure of doing that.—unless you try to do that with the world’s largest ballpoint which stands around 18 feet tall and weighs around 180 pounds… Rumor has it they have a giant  being paid slave labor to use that pen to sign all the checks for golf tournaments.  

Of course this is jest, they pay the golfers in tickets they can use to buy those fuzzy dice and huge slinky  toys at the counter before they leave —unless you are the big champ you can buy a CD player for the 24 million tickets you won.  

Ok.. yes if you like the physical motion of writing a pen can unleash the thoughts that will make you feel like you can engage  more fully in life and that is very powerful stuff which can provide you with peace, joy, and a sense of meeting some of the purposes in your life.  What you write can give a message that someone in the future can read and understand how the crazy path of history brought the family to this town etc.   It’s called a legacy and most people want to know that their stroll on this planet had some meaning and if you can’t figure it out..then maybe this writing can provide some clues that the future dwellers can use to figure out why you were here?  For that reason alone pens are very mighty and unless you swallow the cap are a great valuable thing to have because everyone has a story a set of adventures including lessons learned and some triumphs that lift the spirits of people around them.  

So grab a pen or a keyboard  —or use auto-dictate …but read that first… and tell your powerful story..reduce your stress and bring a smile to the face of someone.  Oh and for goodness sake keep the cap out of your mouth if you happen to pull it off the pen.