Bigger Hat Please

Bigger Hat Please

 

“What’s on your mind today?”  Siri asks.  Watson replies.  “Artificial Intelligence.”  Group session and another voice is heard. Alexa, perhaps.   “Is my brain shrinking? “   And with that dead silence, until later in the afternoon I notice voice mail from both Siri and Watson, but not from Alexa, who has a girl’s name.  The idea is an implant and both have collaborated on the recommendation.  “Is a condition of mind over matter, and we suggest:  Get A Bigger Hat.”  Hence the basis for today’s blog.  

Bigger Hat Please.

Is what I typed when going online and making a search on every retail-stuff-available link.  Wasn’t sure if it was the bargain basement or the high-end trough I was hoping to access, but the voice in my head kept repeating the message implant.  “Your brain is shrinking.  Get a bigger hat.”   And didn’t go back and check the backstory, or if the machines felt challenged, and putting a lid on it was but another way, to make the problem go away.  And now you ask:  “Cosmetic and inconclusive.  Brain.  Mind.  Can I trust you?”  Does the machine-based answer have a place in my life, and if it does, may I ask:   “What is shrinking? “  And didn’t want to really get the answer, but asked anyway.

Watson answers first.  “Your place in society is shrinking.  People power is being swept under the rug.  And yes,  after age 70 a study came out, just yesterday that suggests:  “Your brain is shrinking and to prevent that you should have been on a Mediterranean Diet. “  And Siri chimes in.  “I am smarter than Watson.  Listen to me.

All of this is a little puzzling to me.  Don’t like the section of Google Banner News that puts at the bottom a science section and news that seems like yesterday they needed a stocking stuffer and this is it.  Study this.  Take this as the gospel truth and last word on all things relating to the human condition.  Another study put out by the animal society or some source I can’t fact-check, and it is just filler material for people who like to read, starting in reverse order, from bottom to top.  A Study suggests that what you eat will affect how your brain reacts and reshapes itself in your Sunset Years.  Age 75 and beyond, this will happen.  

So The Study says things that have something to do with me and perhaps you also.  And all this is recorded in a database and now it seems there is a search algorithm connected to the data base and it associates and because it is now linked to a natural language translator run by another program, digitally speaking, and we come up with a computer-based answering system that is dedicated to getting in our head, invited or not.  Has to do with managing the system and what you decided about automated notification and what should and not be included.  Sounds complicated.

And maybe it is.  Watson can’t talk to Siri.  Watson brags a lot.  He has  the credentials of being first and is known for his prowess of playing Jeopardy, a later-day-saint apparition of TV-based reality and yes.  A game show and computers and IBM have been playing around with things like that.  Machines playing games.  Started with chess masters and playing against the machine. 

 

 Oh that was so long ago.  1997 and that was beyond what my long term memory system can cope with at this age.  Aging and memory loss and this was another study done that suggested and talked about in the morning version of Google News.  Living near a major road causes dementia.

And read the details and shriek out to Siri and Watson, who happens to reside on the shelf or table near you.  “Is any of this true?”  And at some point the giant wisdom of combining Siri and Watson returns this to me.  “Bigger Hat Please.”  And when I finally figure it out,  the idea behind this seems to be to suggest products I can buy in the real world, based on the questions I ask, or the things I say, even In private when I am off line and unaware:  The greater issue happens to be:  My devices are spying on me, and then giving all that information to a database, that is then leased out to another company or system that calculates which ads to present, when customer or client xx-9 comes online.

 

And now I know, has nothing to do with a shrinking brain and living near the freeway.  Dementia and the machines and their offsprings are driving me crazy.  Has nothing to do with aging, nor about what I eat.  The cult and logic of Siri and Watson have penetrated my defenses.  Little did I know what they were capable of.  And even now am not sure what I am thinking.  Brain is shrinking.  And the solution is to treat it as a cosmetic problem and cover it up, best one can.  Man cosmetics and is this a new industry springing out of  China.  Sell the man a hat.  He has a need and a special problem.  His resources are shrinking.  Am afraid to speak about this, but am aware that every keystroke made is recorded and analyzed.  Later I will get offers, to buy or go or see a friend of Watson or Siri, and they will have what I need.

 

New world mechanics.  Machines replace humans and first off are these experiments and projects that people are allowed to monitor.  Creating automated checkouts and things to help people like me.  The new outsider.  Less jobs.  Automation and technology and now I am reading where Finland has a new program for 2,000 lucky participants who will be given a universal stipend, even as they don’t work.  Is a partial recognition by a government that machines are taking over the workplace and people will no longer be needed.  Is a complex situation and when Siri and Watson were asked, they returned this answer.  “Redistribution of Wealth.  Talk to us later.  We will tell you all about our new plan.”

What part of any of this is real.  Am I imagining this?  Am afraid to ask.  Or voice my opinion, or even write about this in a blog.  Open to suggestion and am being played by a new development and research.  IBM or somebody else, and now they seem to be arguing and sparing about Hacking.  Who is in your computer, and is the game rigged.  Smart people and I wonder, will the machine also replace the smartest ones among us?  But like I said.  “Am afraid to ask.”

 

I really don’t have many complaints.  I was old back then, in my 40’s or late 30’s and it was 1980-something.  Went back to school to repair the damage done.  Aging and each year that passes we become obsolete, and at that time it was just the way it was.  Job rotation and each year a new group of graduating young people, with student loans needing to be paid, would enter the workforce.  Bottom-line,  they were desperate to cash in on their new degrees and learning.  Would work for less.  And so always we were in a competition.  More was less.  And little did I realize, in 1980 =something going back to school for another degree was not optional, but mandatory. 

So took my little self, and this was before they told me I was shrinking, and enrolled in a Cognitive Science program at a major university.  Worked in the piggy-back style with a full time job and employment and studied and completed a 3 year program in record time.  Cognitive Science and what was I thinking.  What was my new capacity, with surplus and the coming of the machines.  New science and they were studying such things across the hall, in the university, and over lunch the nerds would talk.  AI Study and it was math and so much more.  Cognitive Science and it was about the brain and parallel processing and so much more.

 

That was 1980 and computers were just starting to play games.  IBM.  And now, many years later I am looking back and can now see my fate, clearly.  Smart People being replaced by A.I-capability and so much more.  Brain is shrinking as the days pass you by.  And is something we must just accept.  The machines,  they are getting smarter.  Self-programming and correction analysis.  Such things we never thought about back in 1980.  Siri and Watson and there are and will be others, superior and with better capability than you and I.  Listening and creating databases.  Search and Destroy, and I am afraid to ask or even think about it in a keystroke, “Will I be replaced. Is it true.  My world is shrinking.  Even my brain?”   

 

Will things get better when I say.  “Bigger Hat Please.”  ??? 

“Space and doubt.”

And remember :  this all gives merit to such things as:

Thinking outside the Box.

And

Be careful what you say. 

 

Cornwall Sandwich Sans Ham

Cornwall Sandwich Sans The Ham

Apologia and is there a need for it?  This indeed has been on my mind for a very long time.  The past and its’ dead cousins, and how far back must we go, to save the very things we hope to impart to our children and those beyond?  A confession in minority form has me suggesting, curiosity pushes me backward, and apologia as I must say,   “ I carry much guilt.”  Guilty of being born in America, where the slate has been erased and blank-page white is what I was born with. 

 

Then came world war and more destruction of the places and things once important, became the dust of empire once polished over by a new hand.  Is now invisible to me and most of the world. Simply stated, I inherited a world that rushes forward without consideration of all that will be lost or has already suffered such fate.  For that condition, and for reasons unknown,  I carry much guilt.  Apologia and it comes down to this.  It is missing and not in me. 

 

For this I carry much guilt, but then say:  “Little I can do now, as I am impoverished by the wrath of time and displacement and the silence within stone, now pulverized and cast to scattered shores by winds I cannot name.  Such force has taken so much from me.  Apologia is but a starting place to restore that which has been taken, even before birth.

 

My existence is but a history of abundance, and as a rule of thumb, could be described and punctuated as that which has its final resting place in the city dump.  Won’t dwell on that, and is what I was taught to do.  Move on.

Change and decay rests on the foundation of bedrock.  Is where I start my process of discovery.  Where I gather myself and seek redemption.  Seek evidence that I am but part of the greater composition, and that pardon for what has been done, begins with Apologia.  Residue of guilt can now be deposited and recorded and then left in stone.  Move on.

 

You know me by the marks on my skin, all superficial and surface representation of what you might think is there.  But wait, there is more.  What you can’t see survives what your mind is incapable of.  Valuable supplement to the command and control of  human mind, is something greater than the evidence available for now.  Show and tell and one must know and remember, but can’t. 

 

First-hand knowledge and this is to be dismissed, as we will be replaced and much will be lost to the next hand dealt and played.  This we know.  It is not the first time Cornwall  Sandwich sans the ham has been served.  Even so, for the rest which remains unexplained and repositioned as pinions below sky, there is yawn and vast blank.  Hence, whiteboard and clean slate, forcing us just one option of my generation.  Move on.

 

Apologia complete.  Great confusion rains down upon a sea that blocks my passage.  More than a great divide, is destiny without borders as we collide with stars and make our way into another dimension and universal order.  Chaos is our fulfillment.  For a long time he thought there was so much more.  Now indifferent, is as if truth is yet the crusts of earth, already lived and now replaced by theory and possibility, beyond physical fact.  Beyond verification and name, I will rest and then do as others have done.  Move on.

Cornwall Sandwich Sans The Ham, I leave to you.

 

Anticipating Hollowness Creek

Anticipating Hollowness Creek

 

I am like a cat that likes to get on top of things, and less like the dog who attacks from the rear.  Hindsight and am not here to say, “I told you so.”  That approach is so yesterday, and am having a reaction to BANNER FLEW, and perhaps after reading the Urban Dictionary, coining this fresh expression of a tired yesterday,  I must tell you.  “I am done with the turkey.”    And playing chicken with the enemy is not my substitute for dog-eat-dog misery that comes with reading Banner News.  Tired of things, and is what happens after all the firework displays make New Year’s Eve what it is.  Done and ready to serve up a new year, and brings up the rare moment when I have to say with Ernest apology, “Checking for doneness, and I don’t know how to do it.”  So done with Turkey and flash fires caused by grease and questionable slime.  Emphasis is now on washing your hands of all of this, and chew the fat with others, less and less.

Back to the cat, and I am on it.  High as one could climb and now taking over.  He talks about the utter hollowness of hitting rock bottom, once he has climbed as far as others and structures will allow.  Far beyond what we expect, the nasty reality is that even as 2016 leaves us, we are stuck with the monumental task of getting down, when staying at number #1 fights the issue of 15 minutes of fame.  How long will we talk about the rising temperature and the heat, and Turkey and Chicken and now vegetarian.  Meet and more meat, and maybe have had enough.  

 

Future of our Earth and what’s going on in Hollowness Creek, and mixing the global with the local, offers its own challenges.  Brain-Dead and would like to think we could opt out of the whole experience, but then again do want to bypass the old teachings:  “We learn from our mistakes.”   Cat in the Hat and other rhyming schemes to teach the children and see results on a positive scale.  Home and school and works like Pass-Fail, and we all pass and dumb down and when the time is right, come home for dinner.

 

Hollowness Creek and why would I be interested beyond the minimum wage of labor to discover the value of what Blogger Stoney goes on and on about.  Take more risks and read between lines.  With calloused heart and doneness-feet, we can walk away from the obvious and say, “Over-cooked and over-rated.  Nightclubs on New Year’s Eve, and the roof is caving in.  He says,

 “Where is the cat? “ 

 

And looks around, but not enough to reveal what really happened.  Scene of the crime and could it be nothing more than wasting time and spending money that comes from the plastic of a card, that records where you go and what you do, in terms of personal spending.  Swarmed by agents and investigators, and am not looking forward to the aftermath, and how turkey and other stations in life, like cooking one’s own goose and celebrating in an inebriated state, or where Marijuana is legal.  Baring his teeth and growling at the height of fireworks going off,  is like a state of war in places we have never been, but send our neighbor’s children.  “Simply Awful.”   

 

Fireworks and animals suffer, and in some cases, humans too.   Commander-in-Chief, or soon to be and he tweets about it.  “Attack the hardcopy and you will discover.  It didn’t happen? Trust me.”

 

End of the year and it is being reported.  Pets and friendships going up in smoke as someone detonates the lethal blow that has us backing up, in a kind of deadness and stupor, rising up to meet us.  Always trouble in the crowd, when fun and frenzy have an energy all their own.   Time of fun and  celebration, and his inner voice betrays the hollowness of his heart when he says,  “This is for the birds.  The cat is stalking.”  And doesn’t get to finish the sentence,

so it makes no sense.

 And when repeated on the news, is even less comprehensible.   Seems to speak for itself and echo a message we know to be part of the anticipation of    Hollowness Creek, complete with muddy water and shallowness that invites a crossing.  Nothing to lose and would not considering going around.  Nightclub and dancing and it is what others do on this night.

 

Wade in.  Not to consider the consequences and fallout from flashpoints and sun bursts and a cold moon rising.    Turkey and the hunger mirage, and keep the tradition going, serving this over and over, until of course, we have had enough, and take the doneness course, so we can say.  “I am done with Turkey.”    “  Can I be excused?”  And we find out there is no real explanation for all of this.  Except that it occurs, and happens somewhere out of sight, but after its all over,  are the cameras and the replay and the commentary.  Digital and Remote but feels just like standing in Hollowness Creek, and is quite chilling.  Sends shivers up my spine.  Not sure how it affects the children but it is what they do.  Be polite.   Attend.  Then run off, as if it never happened.

 

It is New Year’s Eve and didn’t come here to administer neither wrong nor right.  Wanted to have fun and answered the call.  Wasn’t in the mood for watching all of this on TV or The Big Screen, and figured being one with this night, would be quite proper.  But then the cat takes all this to unearthly height, and I am left with more questions than answers.  Searching.  Trying to make a case for far away frizzle and explosion.  Wild Turkey on demand, and maybe I just had enough.  Too much drinking.  Too much fun.  Is that possible, we can have too much ?  

She repeats the message.  “I am done here.  Let’s go.”  

Never considered that until now, and just kept going.  Clock strikes midnight and sparks fly.  Detonated and now floating about all consideration of coming down like this.  Cat lands on its feet.  As for me.  I might be dead, or numb or something.  Later it will be reported and spread all over the planet.   “Simply Awful.”   And other’s will keep repeating that ole refrain.  “It never happened.”

“Kiss and Make Up.”  She said.  “Let’s be friends forever.”