Well, I have a corollary to Moore’s Law, called Michael’s Law. It goes, “The more in a hurry you are, the slower your computer and the Internet will be.”
Maybe my law only applies to me. Perhaps there’s some computer god assistants somewhere watching me. Seeing me hastily scramble to the computer to search for information and then flee because I’m running late, the assistants notify the God in charge. “Michael is in a hurry. He should have left three minutes ago but he needs to look up the address on his computer.”
“You know what to do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Just like that, my computer is bogged down, no reason given, leading me to curse the machine and the internet and my service provider, and the app being used or the website I’m trying to reach. It isn’t their fault, of course.
It’s interesting, like a school paper. Doesn’t tell me the day or my favorites, sunrise and sunset. Told me a news summary and the weather.
A number of things prompted my choice. I’ve been using GPT4 via Bing for about two weeks. Getting into dialogues with it is interesting. Meanwhile, Creativindie.com used GPT4 to write some science fiction. Here’s a sample.
Beneath the cathedral of indigo heavens, where constellations danced like divine jewels, a solitary figure traversed the twilight realm. The forest, an intricate tapestry of shadows and whispers, bore witness to his journey. His gait, a melody of steps whispered into the hallowed earth, carried him onward like a specter of dreams.
The air, heavy with the scent of ancient secrets and verdant life, caressed the wanderer’s face. Gossamer strands of otherworldly mist, entwined in the tresses of nocturnal blooms, played with the edges of his cloak. Above, the moon, a luminous pearl suspended amidst the cosmos, bathed the world in ethereal opalescence.
The wanderer’s eyes, twin oceans of liquid azure, were imbued with a tale of a time long forgotten, and his heart resonated with an unyielding determination. He bore the weight of an untold legacy upon his shoulders, a mantle woven from the threads of fate and chance. His destination shimmered like a mirage on the horizon, a promise, a whisper of hope as ephemeral as the morning dew.
End GPT4
Any thoughts?
Let the record establish that this is Friday, March 17, 2023. Sol spread sunny wealth across the winting land at 7:20 and twelves hours later, sunset takes place at 7:20. It’s an Ashlandia equinox. It’s St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t celebrate it as I once did. Not even wearing green…yet. I’ll don green fleece, I suppose.
Personally, in another sign of life and progress, my niece’s 38th birthday is today. She has three boys of her own now. It’s one of those holy-cow moments.
I have Harry Nilsson and “Jump Into the Fire” from 1971 in the morning mental music stream. This is because the drummer on the song, Jim Gordon, passed away this week, 77 years old. Suffering some issues, he’d murdered his mother and died in a medical and psychiatric prison.
I feel like a good day has begun. Stay pos. Coffee has been tested and approved for my consumption this morning. Of course, I’m self-regulated – inspector, tester, approver. Now strong checks and balances built into this system.
It was how long he waited for Microsoft to update.
MS updates always seem invasive. Waiting for it to do its thing is the norm. This is helpful, he reminded himself. New features. Updated security. Bugs fixed.
But he was on a writing schedule. This was twenty-nine minutes of not writing, of sitting and stewing, impatience and irritation growing, while the computer did its thing. Icons didn’t appear on the taskbar. No notice was given about how much longer was required or what was going on. All he could do is sip coffee, tap a finger, and wait.
Eventually, it finished. When the browser finally opened after twenty-nine minutes of waiting, it displayed a message.
He wasn’t impressed. MS had to make up a twenty-nine minute deficit before their updates would start saving time.
Rant over. Back to the normally scheduled program.
“That’s it,” my wife said. “I think my computer is dying.”
K has some Apple Power Book variation bought years ago. I believe it was 2014. Uses it every day. Apple is her style. All she’s ever used as her own computer. This is her fourth.
“What’s it doing?” I asked from across the office.
“I can’t control the cursor. The touchpad isn’t working. It’s going all over the place.”
I walked over. “Show me.”
She talked me through what she was trying to do (answer an email to Jan about Jan not making it to the book club tomorrow because her husband has a new heart problem) and showed me how the cursor ‘just takes off’.
Wasn’t just taking off. It was scrolling down. “That looks like a scrolling problem,” I said. Reaching over, I pressed the down arrow. It wouldn’t go because it was pressed in and stuck. Sharper pressure released it. The scrolling stopped.
When something in his home breaks, his first step in his troubleshooting and fixing process is to turn it off. He allows it to stay off for a few minutes before turning it back on. It’s surprising how often that works.
In my twenties, I was working in a computer center. Pretty low-level lights, and warm. The computers were red, about seven feet tall and four feet wide, with black and silver fronts thick with instrumentation. I had a clipboard and was going about, busy checking readouts.
An alarm went off. Reaching up, I hit a large, square black button at the top of the machine before me. Almost instantly, I realized I’d made a mistake: that was the off switch for the entire computer center. I pressed the button again, thinking that if I was fast enough, it wouldn’t go off.
Another alarm began sounding. A female voice said that the system was shutting down. Groaning and cursing emerged from all over. My supervisor, a female a few inches shorter than me, came over. I told her that I’d accidently pressed the off button. She was all smiles. “It happens.”
“I can turn it back on,” I offered.
“No,” she answered. “We’ll just call it a day.”
As everyone packed up and left, I went back to the broad, flat expanse of my desk. Binders of fanfold paper were stacked on my right. It was my plan to go through them. A male co-worker came by and mentioned that he needed to find someone to sweep up the computer center “because the cleaning crew was coming in”. I said I’d do it. Finding the broom, I went through, sweeping piles of paper coffee cups and sheets together. As I did, I mused, weird to clean for the cleaning crew.
Michael Seidel, writer 