Last night, I watched The Year’s Most Terrifying Documentary about robots. Not only in industry, but on the road, in every aspect of human life. In retrospect, the only terrifying thing was that it was narrated by a scary robot voice and it featured a dude who married a robot lady and opted to live with her in a digital village or some such place where he would work on “enhancing her” all day long and then, and this is a guess, have her enhance him at nighttime. I did not like her knee socks, but it had a very anime ring to it, so I suppose that was what he was going for. I’d like not to think he was trying to turn her into an adolescent schoolgirl.
The part where he tucked her into his sleeping pod was pretty telling of his loneliness. I won’t knock the guy, he had a good point, in China there are many boys to the girl ratio, and he didn’t know how to relate to women, did not know how to please them, he said. I would argue it does not take being a playboy to land a nice girl, and the only way to get to know how to please a woman is to get to know the woman. No?
This morning, as I left Glendale, all the lights were green. I have captured it with the blurriest lens possible. It’s nice to get a big, green light to start the day off right.
I’m on a trajectory home, but it’s going to be a while, like 7 hours. It is good to sleep in your own bed, it is comfortable in a way that hotel beds are not (not always, sometimes you get a good one). I was watching THE FIVE (since everyone refers to highways with a The in front of the number) at 3am yesterday because my body felt it was 5am, which is normal wake-up-time, and there I was, in front of the window, it slightly cracked, the rain splattering away on the window pane. How can the highway be that busy at 3am, 8am, 6pm, 10pm? The sign of a city operating on every shift 24/7, no doubt.
This morning, as I entered the airport, Bob Hope greeted me. The life-size bronze version of him. I really loved him as an actor. My parents are boomers, so they forced me to watch many black and white movies growing up, because it was that, or don’t watch the tv. In that way, I’m kind of a huge Bing Crosby fan, too. White Christmas and Holiday Inn are two of my favorites. I know this surprises you.
Anyway, pretty neat airport. I hope the sun comes up before we walk outside to board, because I want to see the hills again.
I went to Whole Foods last night for dinner again. I tried queso made of cashews. There is no end to the weirdly concocted foods available at this store. I did not think it tasted like queso, but it wasn’t bad, either, and I can’t help but think that I am a better-off person now that I am not pumping all manner of crap into my body. I ran an average of 9:39/mile the other day and I cannot believe that either, but it’s great to feel good. Since I turned 40, my body hurts for no reason at all, I can’t even explain how little I understand it, but it’s probably some combination of my cells expiring and my joints extinguishing all my cartilage as quickly as possible. Whatever the case, it hurts a lot less when I stay very active, because when I meld into the sofa, it is not good. I tried all vegan food from the hot dinner options, some tofu, something that tasted like stuffing but almost like pasta, a bunch of greens, and some beets. I can’t always tell what I’m eating, but I have not died yet, so it must be ok. I am into yerba mate – but it contains a lot of caffeine, masked in a delicious fruity taste so you have to watch it, or you’ll be buzzing like a coke fiend and your friends and loved ones will not appreciate you very much at all for it.
The robot movie talked about the cars that drive themselves. When I was in Miami, the self-driving cars were driving by work all day. I thought they were Google Street View cars, because they have a pod on the roof with cameras pointing in all directions. Turns out they are in beta testing, and have humans inside at the wheel, but they are not driving, they are observing. The scary robot voice overlaid the commentary about how the robots slowly learned about the humans, taking in their behaviors, their needs, their strengths and weaknesses. My takeaway is that it takes a lot of testing and failure to make something like a robot driven car successful – or a robot that puts cars or pizzas together. They malfunction, but with artificial intelligence, or AI, it becomes different, because the robot is thinking and learning, it’s not just pre-programmed, and it may go rogue and press a human to death, as was the case at the VW plant in Germany. And sometimes, the car keeps driving long after it has cut the car in two, killing the passengers, it just keeps on chugging with the remainders of the people inside until it is physically prevented from progressing further.
This is not to blithely ignore the deaths of those people – if they were my people, I would not want some random, Midwesterner blabbing on without a care – the people involved are not just statistical outcomes – and that is another takeaway, that people are willing to be pioneers of new technology, even knowing the danger. That says something about our desire to be a part of something big. The person in the car was watching a Harry Potter movie when they died, and I’m sure they didn’t expect that outcome when they left the house that day.
The final bit or randomness for the day is this: when we get up in the morning, it could be our last morning, and we don’t know it, and if we could know it, we would not be able to get through it. There is something to be said for being a little bit in the dark. The best things happen to us from not knowing, and the worst, but I feel like I am equipped to make it through it all.
The part where he tucked her into his sleeping pod was pretty telling of his loneliness. I won’t knock the guy, he had a good point, in China there are many boys to the girl ratio, and he didn’t know how to relate to women, did not know how to please them, he said. I would argue it does not take being a playboy to land a nice girl, and the only way to get to know how to please a woman is to get to know the woman. No?
This morning, as I left Glendale, all the lights were green. I have captured it with the blurriest lens possible. It’s nice to get a big, green light to start the day off right.
I’m on a trajectory home, but it’s going to be a while, like 7 hours. It is good to sleep in your own bed, it is comfortable in a way that hotel beds are not (not always, sometimes you get a good one). I was watching THE FIVE (since everyone refers to highways with a The in front of the number) at 3am yesterday because my body felt it was 5am, which is normal wake-up-time, and there I was, in front of the window, it slightly cracked, the rain splattering away on the window pane. How can the highway be that busy at 3am, 8am, 6pm, 10pm? The sign of a city operating on every shift 24/7, no doubt.
This morning, as I entered the airport, Bob Hope greeted me. The life-size bronze version of him. I really loved him as an actor. My parents are boomers, so they forced me to watch many black and white movies growing up, because it was that, or don’t watch the tv. In that way, I’m kind of a huge Bing Crosby fan, too. White Christmas and Holiday Inn are two of my favorites. I know this surprises you.
Anyway, pretty neat airport. I hope the sun comes up before we walk outside to board, because I want to see the hills again.
I went to Whole Foods last night for dinner again. I tried queso made of cashews. There is no end to the weirdly concocted foods available at this store. I did not think it tasted like queso, but it wasn’t bad, either, and I can’t help but think that I am a better-off person now that I am not pumping all manner of crap into my body. I ran an average of 9:39/mile the other day and I cannot believe that either, but it’s great to feel good. Since I turned 40, my body hurts for no reason at all, I can’t even explain how little I understand it, but it’s probably some combination of my cells expiring and my joints extinguishing all my cartilage as quickly as possible. Whatever the case, it hurts a lot less when I stay very active, because when I meld into the sofa, it is not good. I tried all vegan food from the hot dinner options, some tofu, something that tasted like stuffing but almost like pasta, a bunch of greens, and some beets. I can’t always tell what I’m eating, but I have not died yet, so it must be ok. I am into yerba mate – but it contains a lot of caffeine, masked in a delicious fruity taste so you have to watch it, or you’ll be buzzing like a coke fiend and your friends and loved ones will not appreciate you very much at all for it.
The robot movie talked about the cars that drive themselves. When I was in Miami, the self-driving cars were driving by work all day. I thought they were Google Street View cars, because they have a pod on the roof with cameras pointing in all directions. Turns out they are in beta testing, and have humans inside at the wheel, but they are not driving, they are observing. The scary robot voice overlaid the commentary about how the robots slowly learned about the humans, taking in their behaviors, their needs, their strengths and weaknesses. My takeaway is that it takes a lot of testing and failure to make something like a robot driven car successful – or a robot that puts cars or pizzas together. They malfunction, but with artificial intelligence, or AI, it becomes different, because the robot is thinking and learning, it’s not just pre-programmed, and it may go rogue and press a human to death, as was the case at the VW plant in Germany. And sometimes, the car keeps driving long after it has cut the car in two, killing the passengers, it just keeps on chugging with the remainders of the people inside until it is physically prevented from progressing further.
This is not to blithely ignore the deaths of those people – if they were my people, I would not want some random, Midwesterner blabbing on without a care – the people involved are not just statistical outcomes – and that is another takeaway, that people are willing to be pioneers of new technology, even knowing the danger. That says something about our desire to be a part of something big. The person in the car was watching a Harry Potter movie when they died, and I’m sure they didn’t expect that outcome when they left the house that day.
The final bit or randomness for the day is this: when we get up in the morning, it could be our last morning, and we don’t know it, and if we could know it, we would not be able to get through it. There is something to be said for being a little bit in the dark. The best things happen to us from not knowing, and the worst, but I feel like I am equipped to make it through it all.
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