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.

National Fake League has begun again!

 A new season and a new opportunity to rig games. My movement to reveal the hidden layers of scripting in the NFL continues!

I was watching a preseason game yesterday (Eagles vs. Bengals). Third quarter, last minute of play in the quarter. The play happens and the quarterback, under pressure has to dump the ball. After the play, the booth guy says, "and we have a flag." OK, that happens. But the call that we hear is "illegal formation" (or possibly "illegal motion," I wasn't paying total attention). Then they showed the replay and it is clear that there was a holding penalty at the end of the play. The hold was right in front of the official (heck, the defender raised his arms after the hold and looked at the official with that "wasn't me" face) and then the flag flew. It was obvious from the timing and location of the flag that it wasn't a pre-snap penalty. It was a hold, clear as day.

No mention by anyone in the booth. In fact, no speaking. Cut to comemrcial.

Eh, I will pass

With all the fuss about AI recently (most of it made by me...you should see the living room) I decided to turn my gaze inward and try to figure out my resistance to interacting with the future rulers of earth.

What follows is a series of observations, not a cohesive essay, so bare with me (I'm not wearing pants).

I have, on my phone, a couple of these apps that present a human voice and mechanical mind. Thing is, the spoken word component is a lie. All one ever needed was a written-to-speech converter. This is nothing new https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/ . Heck, go back and watch Wargames -- the WOPR (nicknamed Joshua) communicates in written words but the synthesizer converts it to speech. It isn't speaking. So let's get that out of the way. The computer is still running and still running like a computer. What we have is really just a spoken word interface for a text based search engine.

See, that's the thing. Underneath it all, the "AI" is just a search engine and a predictive language engine. There is no thought or consideration. It is just as easy for me to type in a search as it is for me to speak (unless I'm driving). And while the results can be combined and read to me, all we have is a program that mines for info in the same old way.

Some of the more advanced interfaces attempt to refine their approach, but really they are all just running an algorithm to recognize words, create searches and then put the information together in sentence form. And you can "speak" back to them. But what do they do with the words you say? Bottom line is that the system is recognizing words and phrases and assembling words and phrases in return. But none of it is real. 

Our approach to language is that we master spoken word communication first. We speak before we can read. The written form of the language then spends a lifetime trying to catch up. We develop inflection, intonation, pauses, body language and all sorts of things that allow us to communicate in the spoken sphere even without the specific use of words. We can pick up on sarcasm, or lies, flirting or fear and we recognize the limitations of written language in capturing the meta data of our conversation.

Computers are native to the written language. That's all they know -- words and phrases and their semantic position and value. Not only do we lose the emotional context when we type, but a computer is incapable of recognizing and including spoken word tools when it tries to transfer its data to the spoken word. 

But we forget that the computer can't pick up on subtleties, choose to omit, or lie or spin and we project our expectations and our emotional content onto what the computer presents. So when I sit down and speak with my Gemini, while it might sound understanding or might make me feel better, it isn't really doing anything intelligent. It is Eliza for a new generation. In truth, spoken natives (humans) and written natives (computers) will always be separated by this rift.

On another note, I was shown this thing called "Grok" yesterday. Grok takes still photos and turns them into 5 second videos. I was able to see a video of my mother (A"H) when she was younger. I saw a "video" of me as a baby. And you can set it to be normal or funny. But the bottom line is IT NEVER HAPPENED. We are recording over the past because we think that a computer's revisionist vision of our past is preferable as it is in motion. We are dissatisfied with the fact that in the past, certain technologies didn't exist so we are inventing a more technologically gifted past which then creates a false version of our own histories. We can't even believe our own photos anymore. This isn't only about the distant past. I can show someone a "video" of a wedding from last night and that person will assume that the video is an actual recording of  the events of last night. But it might have no basis in any truth but it will look authentic and might lead people to draw conclusions, pass along stories or perpetuate the lie. And how can it be disproven?

I just sent a letter out to the student body as composed by AI. Next I'll send out one that's actually useful

Garbage time

 I have a demonstrated record of saving the world. I gave you all my sage advice here and I stand by it. But I'm no one trick pony. I am willing to trick ponies many times! So here is my new way to save the world.

If I recall correctly, we have a space station. We keep it up in space somewhere and from it, you can see my house. We are also hoping to be able to build more space stations and maybe a staging area for travel to other places, like space and stuff.

Also, and here's a fact you can take to the bank, the sun is large and has a strong gravitational pull. The bank doesn't care, but you do you. I would assume that science types could figure out how to move space stuff into a trajectory that will eventually have it crash into the sun -- or to be more precise, burn up as it nears the sun. And because space has no speed limits, we can develop a slingshot or some sort of cannon that shoots stuff towards the sun at really high speeds for fairly low cost because we don't care about safety and such.

So here's the plan -- we make a stripped down space hauler and load it up with trash, then we send it up to the space station which then takes the trash and fires it into the sun. Bam. No more garbage problem. The sun won't mind because it is a mass of incandescent gas a gigantic nuclear furnace and has no feelings that matter.

But, you say, it is prohibitively expensive to fire stuff into space. What if we compressed our trash so much that a lot fit on the spaceship? Then we wouldn't have to make that many trips. And what if we found a way to turn some of that trash into a fuel that would serve the propulsion needs. How tough can that be? Lots of stuff burns, so just burn lots of stuff. The ride doesn't need to be smooth as the rocket can be unmanned and remotely piloted and reused.

So basically, we can get rid of our garbage (and the pollution that incinerating it would create on earth), energize our space program and save humanity.

You're welcome.

Radio, Radio

I like radio. In fact, I like radio so much that I went to school to study radio. And you know what I did? I studied radio and it was glorious. I practiced being on the radio, learning how to run a radio station, editting material for the radio, and even producing a live show and conducting interviews. I was a radio junkie par excellence.

But, as the talmud often asks, "why radio?" This is a fair question, and, as with most such questions, it goes back to childhood trauma. Not so much trauma as craziness. Yeah, that's the word.

I went through all sorts of crazinesses as a youth, and one I remember, and I have no idea how or when it started, was a fear that I was the only one left alive and awake on the planet. Yes. That was a real fear of mine. I needed to be back home and in bed before my parents went to sleep. I was afraid that I was all alone. Really, that's what it boiled down to -- I hated being alone. So when I went down the block to a friend's house (yes, to play D+D...shhhhh) and my parents said that they were going to sleep early, I left while it was broad daylight and sprinted home so as to be there and safe. Crazy, I know.

Until one night, when I turned on the radio. It somehow reminded me that while I was lying there, all alone, there were other people alive and working. To know that I could turn on the radio and hear people who shared the night with me was to connect with reality and to be part of something. It restored a sense of well being. Maybe that seems grandiose but it actually was that life changing for me. So I really got into listening to the radio and I felt a kinship with it.

In college, I started out just being a guy. A guy who had some friends but hadn't found his calling. Then, sometime in my sophomore year, someone invited me to the radio station. And that was that. I again felt like I could connect with people -- other employees, radio devotees and other hangers on. People called in to tell me that they heard me; I was the voice in the night representing all that is still alive, their beacon. Even in the depths of 3:30 AM, I was alive and so were listeners. Some called in and that was always weird, but hey -- alive!

No, I am not invoking any Bon Jovi song. Radio didn't save my life. It just validated my neuroses so, yay radio!

A book review for the 9th of Av

 Strange choice of topic, I know, but I spent much of yesterday reading Noa Tishby's "Israel" and I wanted to sum up my thoughts about it.

It isn't a bad book. That's what I'm saying on a bottom line level. Now to the specifics.

First, super to you, Ms. Tishby, for writing this book. It has the potential to do good. So, yeah.

But here's where I start getting critical. First off, the tone of the book betrays that the author doesn't know what kind of book she wants to write. Her use of slang and catchphrases already makes her prose look dated, but it also screams of patronizing younger readers. Here's a remarkable fact, youth of the world, Noa Tishby knows what "AF" stands for. Isn't that grand? And that she uses it repeatedly; that makes her cool, right? She uses "cray" so she must be in touch with youth culture, right? Feh. She doesn't know for whom she is writing this, struggling to balance the tongue in cheek with the historical. This just waters down its factual power.

Also, I wasn't keeping count, but I found at least 3 errors in the text. One was an internal contradiction, one bespoke an ignorance of the bible and one flawed historical reference. And the transliteration and translation of some of the Hebrew was horrible. If the book wants to be taken seriously as a reference guide, then its facts must be above reproach. But if I, a guy sitting on a couch, trying to avoid humanity, can spot easy mistakes, others can. And if I find 3, I worry that there are 30. It is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. How can I trust the rest of the work if I can find mistakes in it?

She also doesn't seem to know if she is writing a memoir of her family, a series of shout outs to her friends and colleagues, or a work of historical significance. She bounces between voices, foci and subjects, often addressing the reader directly in a way that undercuts the ability to take the work seriously.

Her facts are great. She does break down history into understandable chunks, but this reveals another area of difficulty for the author. Tishby is an avowed and unapologetic leftist (as it relates to Israeli policies). She does try to acknowledge her agenda and balance with a presentation of both political sides, but every time she does this, it seems that she simply points out why the right was right and why all of her left-leaning stances have been disappointed by reality. But she still tries to keep to the left.

This is a book that could unite disparate elements of Israeli society (or the American diaspora Jewish society) and is a book that could have been so much better had the content been handled more competently. It has stuff I haven't read before (historical facts that, if they are accurate, are very important in presenting the Israeli position) but it also wallows in the whole "my family was awesome and I have suffered in between all the stuff I have accomplished so I will speak for everyone and say, my family was awesome. And also, the people I quote from our conversation also wrote books that support what they told me personally because I'm a celebrity in Hollywood"

At first I wanted to hate this as a self-indulgent piece of promotion. Then I wanted to look it because it brought a good organizational scheme and some valuable facts to the table. hen I wanted it to be done because I got tired of her bouncing around, paralleling her family's existence with that of the state of Israel.

So, is it a good book? Yes and no. Worth reading, especially on the 9th of Av? Yes, but maybe take a salt suppository before you start.