The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

February 2019 Haiku

March 8, 2019

February 1 (Friday)
Kid’s fever broken!
Hurray for feeling better!
(And, I pray, good sleep.)

February 2 (Saturday)
Beautiful day out
Playing at park with kiddo
Soaking up the sun

February 3 (Sunday)
Wife’s birthday ‘today’
Cake, gifts, and calling her old!
Fun was had by all!

February 4 (Monday)
‘Innovation’ work
Get to code what I want to
Looks cool … works awful!

February 5 (Tuesday)
Donuts out? Yes please.
Later that day – still donuts?
Fine. Yes. (No control.)

February 6 (Wednesday)
Signed basement contract
We’ll have a finished basement!
It’s gonna be sweet

February 7 (Thursday)
Next level cold temps
Sniffle, and my snot freezes
Jealous, Phoenix fam?!

February 8 (Friday)
Another week done
And what do we have to show?
Seven so-so tweets!

February 9 (Saturday)
Note to future self
When someone talks to my son …
Don’t answer for him!

February 10 (Sunday)
Home Depot morning
Picking stuff for the basement
Surprisingly fun

February 11 (Monday)
This code should be fun …
Teammate’s territorial
And we’re on same task

February 12 (Tuesday)
Storyboarding time
South Park references abound
(“Step three: profit” jokes)

February 13 (Wednesday)
Gave a speech today
Did it go over well? Not so much.
Is it over? Yes.

February 14 (Thursday)
Happy Valentine’s
May you have candy and love
Or, some GREAT candy

February 15 (Friday)
Dad and son trip time!
Kid and my first solo trip
Flying to Phoenix

February 16 (Saturday)
Hanging with cousins
Kiddo eats up all the fun
Happy times for all

February 17 (Sunday)
Ostrich farm today
Strange, smelly, and lots of fun
Kiddo fed a goat!

February 18 (Monday)
On the flight back home
Sat by kid seeing first snow
(Poor desert child)

February 19 (Tuesday)
Back at work today
And hey! Guess what! Hard problem …
Still a hard problem

February 20 (Wednesday)
Approached with idea
It would be fun and scary
(For now, it’s an IF)

February 21 (Thursday)
Read about toy fair
How can I convince my wife
That I should attend

February 22 (Friday)
Weeks with no Monday
Always somehow feel longer
Black magic work stuff

February 23 (Saturday)
Sleepy little boy
No swimming for us today
Instead: more nap time

February 24 (Sunday)
Basement clean up time
Prep for it getting finished
Where to put this STUFF

February 25 (Monday)
PT for kiddo
Neat how they take household stuff
To make kid ‘workouts’

February 26 (Tuesday)
Kiddo shrieks at me
I shriek back in faux surprise
Laugh, laugh, laugh … Repeat.

February 27 (Wednesday)
Kiddo took some steps!
Real, honest to goodness steps!!
Go little monster!

February 28 (Thursday)
Imagine, please, a world
A world without violence. Strife.
A world that’s … BORING.

Category:

Weekly Wacko

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Attn: Ellen (3/6/19)

March 6, 2019

Front

Ellen389a

 

Back (apologies for my handwriting!)

Ellen389b

 

The text of the postcard is

Dear Ellen,

General Grant National Park is the drink ingest National Park.

[] True
[] False

Please respond.

Sincerely,
DumbFunnery.com OR @DumbFunnery

Why am I doing this?

 

Category:

Attn: Ellen

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Taking Advantage of Your Local Dumb Dumbs!

March 4, 2019

I read an article called “China’s AI Awakening” because I find AI technology amazing (side-note: I fear for humanity, seriously) but here was a funny paragraph in the article.

Across the capital, in fact, I notice a remarkable amount of interest in artificial intelligence. In one restaurant, for instance, I find a machine that takes my picture and then supposedly uses AI to determine how healthy I am. This seems completely impossible, but the machine says I’m in great shape before suggesting that I have plenty to eat.

I think the world is RIPE for a new variation on magic elixirs, and the new-fangled magic elixir is technology as a whole, but AI, deep learning, machine learning, whatever label you want to slap on something that isn’t actually any of those things.

I remember hearing on the radio a thing about this automaton that played chess, and was incredible at it. And this was around 1790. It turns out that there was actually a person hidden underneath this automaton and it was controlling the machine. There was actual intelligence and craftiness put into the design, but only about 10% was that … and then it was 90% smoke and mirrors. I think the new age charlatan will come to your house (electronically or otherwise) telling you that here’s this special $10,000 toilet that’ll tell you how your diet is based on monitoring your … um, output. And really all it will do is make beeping noises and light up some little buttons and then say something which is OF COURSE true like, ‘you should probably eat more veggies, dude.’

woman holding teacup

Psst. Smoke and mirrors is corporate speak for bullshit.

Or maybe it’ll be a smart watch for $5,000 which is really just a Garmin but with some apps loaded on it that do things like say, ‘Based on your heart rate we have detected that your genetic history is … mixed.’ And you’ll go, ‘oh wow, thanks watch, tell me more!’ and it’ll say some bland stuff that applies to that 70% that’s in the middle of the bell curve and someone who’s actually FROM Africa, and their whole ancestry is straight up Africa will go, ‘the hell? What’re you saying, watch?’

My point in all of this is … technology is cool, and terrifying, and be afraid of it when wielded by corporations or governments, but be skeptical of anything you as an individual can afford that tells you it can do wonderful things.

But anyway while you’re here I’ve got this app I created where you take a few quizzes and it’ll match you up with your soulmate. It’s just $99 a month to have the app and the only reason it’s not like one shot and you’re done is because, well it’s pretty technical I’d hate to bore you with the details. But just imagine that soulmate. Pretty great, right?

Category:

Du Jour of the Week

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