twenty-four years later

 My experiences have become history. What I see when I close my eyes is now fodder for history textbooks. Students in high school hear my stories as if they happened in another country, in another lifetime.

As time passes, our memories bcome distilled down to the essence, the few and striking facts that stand out and which we enshrine in our long-term memory, rife with sensory details to make the scene complete. But it doesn't seem like that's fair.

Twenty-four years -- longer than a lifetime, almost a quarter century. How much are we allowed to keep hurting? When are we supposed to move on or forget, because in some ways, I can't do either. Look at video from the Hindenburg disaster; it looks like it was recorded at another time. Even video from Pearl Harber -- it still looks separated by years. But look at the video from 9/11. It could have been recorded yesterday. Cars look pretty much the same. Buildings? The same. The quality of the recording? It looks current. It is easier for the past to become part of the past if we can distance ourselves fom it and consider it archaic. This is why, when we recall religiously significant dates and events, we are driven to picture ourselves as being part of the event so it does not become an empty ritual recalling a distant and irrelevant past.

Do we want to keep living with 9/11 as current events? Isn't it, though? Aren't we still living in the shadow of 2001? But at the same time, High School students see the day in the same way that they look at any other ancient history. We have moved on so now the question is, how tdo we want to hold on to it and do we want to keep it fresh so that we feel the pain acutely, or should we let it become the dull throb that we get used to over time?

I look at the sad moments of my life (dating back to the religious ones) and I see that tere will always be this tension between embracing the now and living as part of a heritage and storied history.

I don't know if I want to remember, but I have been brought up to know the importance of not forgetting.

Hey Lifetime, you want this?

 Idea for a story --

grandfather, from the old country, constantly talks about going back "home" one more time to revisit his childhood etc and makes his kids promise to take him before he dies. Then he goes blind and the doctor says he doesn't have much time. His kids look at the bank account -- no way we can afford a trip to "home" but what if we just go to the "little X" neighborhood in [insert random American City here].

Then hilarity ensues as they try to keep the old man in one neighbor hood and when he wants to travel to the countryside to his childhood farm, they have to pay extra to rent a junky car because it makes the rental place look shlubby. Then they take the worst roads and hire actors to play roles in the country side, and also back in the city. Finally the "trip" has ended. Bonding has taken place and a the generations are reconciled. Redemption occurs and a heart is completed. Mysteries solved and there has been positive character growth all around. We discover at the end that the grandfather knew from the get go that it was a scam. The old country is not and hour and a half away bay plane, especially one which didn't require passports. But he wanted them all to feel useful and reconnect with their heritage. Maybe after learning about it and recreating it, they may want to go visit. The kids say that they knew he knew but that he, realizing how silly this all was, respected the effort and would not collapse the charade. Their goal hadn't been to trick him, but to get him to confront his childhood (trauma? mystery? Don't know, maybe to win a bet or meet with a person or a lawyer to resolve some legal, financial obligation -- wait, how about "they had earlier promised their late mother that they would get him to face up to...) by visiting so everyone gets what he wants.

It plays as a family friendly (possibly holiday) film. Mostly comedy but with a few emotionally stinging scenes so the adults will understand the depths and authenticity and the kids will see the broad and clear binaries of "happy and sad" flipped around in an innovative and educational way.

You can't spell Daniel without AI. I can, but soon, no one will

During our pre-first day meetings, the faculty were given a session on the use of AI. Some new(er) sites and technologies were discussed and we were tasked with trying them out. So I did. There was one resource that could make quizzes. I live on quizzes -- they are more frequent than full scale essays and easier to grade than single-page responses. I usually use 2 kinds of quizzes, vocabulary and reading. So I went to the website and put into the "resource" the entire (public domain) text of a particular book which I enjoy reading, and I asked the AI to make me a reading quiz (short answer). It came up with a bunch of very interesting questions. I asked it for an idea map which it constructed using only the text of the book. Rather than see this as a boon, I am worried. As the short-cut apps improve, there will be less reason to have to read the text. I work hard at explaining to my students that the summaries available miss stuff, but this trainable AI will miss less and less. I looked at the quiz and was comforted to know 2 things:

1. The questions I ask appear to be spot on as the AI came up with the same ideas

2. There are details more insignificant and less necessary than the ones I ask about.

I also found that the AI system could make very simply inferences but did not have the breadth of knowledge to explore deeper concepts. There was room for me to introduce external concepts into the classroom, ones that AI could not import, but that might also be temporary, as I could train the system on my notes, or on external (approved) resources which will bolster my specific point of view about the text. I also noted that the AI could not distinguish between "new vocabulary" referring to the reading level of the English words and the fact that the text included invented words. But on the whole, this could easily generate passable reading quizzes and book summaries.

Then I asked a different system to make a multiple choice quiz for a specific unit of a specific vocabulary book that we use. I did not provide the text. The system found the text and the unit and crafted a multiple choice quiz. It wasn't the style I use and it didn't have the trick answers I like to lay down as mines to trick those who do not read or study thoroughly. Could I refine it to cover multiple units? Maybe, I guess. Could I tweak my prompt to tell it the style I want? Probably.

All in all, this could be a real time saver for me. Except that I would then not be refreshing MYSELF by rereading the text or poring over the vocab book -- test item creation is its own form of study and I, as the teacher, miss out on that opportunity when I outsource the quiz making to the skynet.

Do I go to my classes and tell my students about these resources? Heck yeah. But wouldn't I, then, be providing for them a way to get around having to study (in the case of the literature quiz, at least) because the internet can provide a more guided set of summaries than a static "Spark Notes" can. Maybe this should be the new mode of teaching a book. Tell students to use a resource to generate a brain map, or practice quizzes or chapter summaries before reading that chapter and then let them try again after reading it. I'm not sure yet, but we are driven by the results we want to see and I have to come to terms with what skills and habits will be essential in the future and then shape my approach to address those needs.

AI can replace pre-teaching. AI can replace quiz making (and, in some multiple choice cases, grading). AI can replace note taking and essay generating. What can't AI do that I can, and that I bring to the classroom? Maybe, bringing humanity and the love of learning to the classroom. Or maybe it's that I can balance a hockey stick on my nose.

Well, AI? Can you balance a hockey stick on your nose? Yeah...you run away. Dan, FTW.

Brain sells

I have a limited number of brain cells. I'm not saying I can count them, but my finite skull cannot hold the planet sized brain that might allow for knowing everything. So the fact is, I don't know stuff and I have had to forget stuff. But what confuses me is how my brain has decided what to keep and what to forget.

I was driving in this morning and I recalled a conversation from some point in high school. My friend, Alon, was telling a story about his brother (whose name might be Jared but this, I don't remember). I recall the punch line and precisely what he reported his brother said. I shan't repeat it because it is a bit off color and might embarrass the brother (whom I have never met) but I remember it. I can't remember a huge slew of stuff I need on a daily basis -- names, dates, phone numbers and directions. I have brain cells that are used up remembering stupid sports trivia, cultural references, stuff I learned in college, and childhood traumas, so they are tied up and unable to be allocated to recall where I put my glasses. Spoiler alert, you put them in the laundry. Don't wonder why. Things got weird, deal with it.

I believe in a memory much like a line item veto. I should be able to choose whether or not I remember a fact (I can then choose to qwrite down the things that I don't intend to waste brain space on). That way, I can voluntarily forget that I once had a peanut butter sanwich at the house of a girl whose name is Michelle, and whom I went to pre-K with. I have no more details about this event and it has never served me as anything useful. But I have it -- a full blown memory which is a complete misapplication of resources. I don't know Michelle's last name, or why i was eating a sandwich at her house. I was, I'm guessing, 3 years old. Or maybe 4 or 5. Whatever. I was little. Stop grilling me about it.

What else do I remember? The combination to my locker in high school (34-24-14). I assume I won't need that. A conversation I had with a school friend named Stu about how to hold your hands when running around in gym. 10 or so years old. Unneeded. How about the name of the first podiatrist I saw when I was a teenager. Or the pediatrician's office I used to go to and the huge container of multi-colored Tootsie Rolls. I remember the SRA's and the colors and how I always came in second to Leora. Argh, why can't I wipe that one and reuse the brain cells to help me understand bitcoin? 

Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find

Just a note on AI that came to mind this morning:

AI is an echo chamber. The voice we put into it drives the response. Ask why "Why is X better than Y" and you will get a raft of paragraphs and sources.

Then ask "why is Y better than X" and you might very well get an equal and opposite set of proofs.

Now this is all well and good when one is trying to muster sources to support a conclusion he has already adopted. But using this method when constructing a prompt proves dangerous when one doesn't realize that this is what is going on. When a person uses a prompt like this without considering that it is an echo chamber, one will mistake the AI generated response with an authoritative voice supporting a position.

The individual runs the risk of confusing an echoic response with an objective collecting of facts. But the wording of the prompt excludes the viability of the other side -- it reinforces the belief that the answer produced is all there is.  The person does not need to consider any other point of view because the LLM has spit out the words which support the view looked for in the prompt.

If we aren't aware of how we ask a question, we will not be aware of potential limitations on the answer.

I get the sense that this could be changed into a good speech on repentance and asking for forgiveness but I'm in a secular mode right now.

Coffee Talk

I like coffee. Hot, iced, room temp, I don't care, as long as it has the important attribute of being coffee. Not a drink made with coffee, and not coffee adulterated by sweetener and lightener. If I could find a way to avoid having to add water, and just chew roasted, ground beans, I might do that.

I like the dark and the bitter. I like coffee that fights with you even before you drink it. I want a cup of coffee that I will remember, long after I have thrown out the cup, realized that it wasn't my cup and that it wasn't supposed to be thrown out, fished the cup out of the garbage, washed it thoroughly and left it to dry, only to have some guy bump it off the counter and have it break so it gets thrown out anyway. Like long after that.

I want the coffee that eats like a meal.

But, and this is important, it is my belief that each of us can only ingest a specific amount of caffeine in his or her lifetime and once you get past that amount, you are in team-foul territory. I reached my personal point of no caffeine in the summer of 1999. I was drinking about a gallon of iced tea a day and suddenly couldn't sleep. Weird, right? So I switched to decaf. Don't hate me, haters, While I can ingest a small amount of caffeine (in the form of chocolate, generally) I try really hard to avoid drinking hi-test coffee. Sometimes it might have no impact, but it might also give me the jitters, the sweats, the unquenchable appetite and the cravings and that's a game of chance I'd rather not play.

So, yes, I drink decaf (it does have a little caffeine in it, but so far, not enough for me to decide to move to Postum) and I like it. Dark, bitter decaf is what I'm all about. This has put in the position of trying out different coffees to find the right decaf for me. For a while, I have been drinking Keurig pods -- they are pretty good but they take exactly the kind of effort I am worst at: "effort." We have a coffee shop in the school building (don't ask) and I often get my coffee from there and the premade, room temperature decaf is wonderful (as is the fresh triple decaf espresso in a little cup). But go to the store and the options are more limited.

I first ran into the Chosen Bean a bunch of years back. Cold, bitter, delicious and more expensive than any coffee has the right to be. Also, not carried by most stores so hard to find. I started ordering it by the box from California and it came packed in cold packs and only occasionally spilling all over everything. I found that they had 2 formulations, one of which was a concentrate that I was supposed to water down. No thank you. I just drank the concentrate. Mmmm Mmmm good. But I couldn't afford to keep drinking it and still be able to pay for luxuries like oxygen so I backed off.

Then I found Coldbruh with its pseudo-hipster name and its Sunny-D vibes. It is in squeezie-bags guaranteed to dribble all over me no matter what I do. The flavor is not as strong or complex as the Chosen Bean but this is available at a local store and it slightly less expensive than the Chosen Bean stuff. It also uses the "Swiss Water" method.

Here's what I know about the water situation. From what I recall, to get caffeine out of coffee beans, you have to rinse them with water and who knows what else. Apparently, doing that sucks out other important flavor crystals so decaf lacks some of the flavors and crunch of regular coffee. But water that has absorbed all the other nasties can still suck out more caffeine without bothering with the other stuff. So coffee people get this water that is already full up of other stuff so that the water only attacks the caffeine. It's like science or something. But both the Chosen Bean and the Coldbruh (and Power Coffee Works in Jerusalem) use this method. It is, clearly, an expensive method. Remember, American Cheese is cheaper than Swiss Cheese. So there's that, but who wants to put cheese in coffee?

Then I heard of another brand, "Stok" with a line over the O. It was significantly cheaper but it was available at Shoprite and I practically live at Shoprite so this looked like a major win. I'm willing to ignore the line over the O in the same way I could look past the man-bun on the Coldbruh. I drank it. I don't know if it was the lack of Swiss water, or the fact that it was slow brewed, but the coffee lacked any will to fight. It wasn't bad, per se, but it lacked depth and character. It just wasn't that great. I looked at the ingredients (DECAFFEINATED COFFEE (WATER, DECAFFEINATED COFFEE), NATURAL FLAVOR.) and I noticed that the drink has 3 carbs per serving. I have no idea where those carbs are coming from. Look at the ingredients. What is providing carbs? "Natural Flavors"?

And as I finished the first 48 ounces, I noted that the bottle says, "Coffee Beverage." What the heck is a coffee beverage as compared to coffee? And with those ingredients? Do we have to call it "cofee" so that it isn't held to the standards of actual coffee?

Those are my choices. I also drink a lot of decaf (not herbal) iced tea. Don't get me started on decaf tea.

War of the Words [sick]

 I had heard that there was a new movie available, and I'm not one to say no to a very small group of movies that I can't fully define. But this one boasted an incredibly low score on Rotten Tomatoes so the promise of a horrible movie got me.

I took a look: War of the Worlds (and I didn't hate the Tom Cruise version). Ninety minutes. But it seemed like more. A lot more. Like it would never end.

First, the good news -- the story telling technique was interesting and was a great comment on our reliance on technology and social media. But the reality of data collection was downright scary (if a tad unrealistic).

Now, the rest. Ice Cube is really the worst actor I have seen. Maybe ever. I have seen worse from non-actors, but this is a guy who is supposedly an actor. He was just bad. But this is appropriate because he was playing the absolute worst hero, ever. An unlikable jerk who doesn't know if he wants to keep his glasses on or take them off. So he just yells.

The effects were a small cut above an Asylum flick. The plot, pacing and writing were miserable and, worse, illogical. Continuity wasn't even attempted. The product placement is so thick that there was placement WITHIN other placement.

I saw this on Amazon Prime Video and it was offered with limited commercial interruptions. Too limited. There needed to be more interruptions.

One thing to look for -- go to about 1:06 and watch Mr. Cube's mini rant. That is actually good stuff. Then slog through the stock footage hit parade and listen carefully at 1:16:45 (approx) after he punches the thing. You're welcome.

It was a compelling movie in it own way -- I can admit that. But at the same time, it was infuriatingly bad, with a story that made no sense. I think I caught COVID by watching it.