OT (?) AI (personal) threats...

[Michael Terrell]

On Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 11:52:15 PM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

On 7/18/2023 6:43 PM, Michael Terrell wrote:

[One thing I liked about my PCP (he retired recently) was that he would
always try to answer my questions -- even if it meant digging out medical
texts to pour over in the exam room (while the NEXT patient waited! :< )
]

I had one VA doctor answer a very simple question wrong, after 30 seconds on
the internet. Epsom Salt is labeled, \'\'Not for use by Diabetics\'. He told me
that it dries out your skin. That was wrong, in two ways. It was used as a
laxative at one time, but it affected your electrolytes. The second error
was that it softens dead skin, so it helps remove rough, dead skin. The
resit is revealing healthy skin without risk of scratches or tearing the
skin because it rolls off after soaking.
Then why the warning/contraindication?

The warning on the package doesn\'t say why you shouldn\'t use it. I did some research to find what it does to a Diabetic\'s Electrolytes. With so may disabled Veterans having Diabetes, he should have know about something sold in most stores. Add a little color an perfume, then sell it to women ats bath salts. They would use it, if it dried out your skin.

This was when a new, nuch larger VA
clinic opened about the same distance south of me. I was told that there was
a two year waiting list, but I applied foor a transfer. Two weeks later,
they transferred me to a new doctor. Sadly, she had the same ego. Both of
them were from Inda, and they played their, \"Patients are all low class\'
card to the hilt.
Yes, when my PCP retired, an Indian couple came in to take his place.
\"No thank you\". My experience has been that they have an \"attitude\":
\"I\'m the doctor, you will do what I say!\"

By contrast, my PCP would give *advice*. Then, we\'d figure out what
I was *willing* to do (\"No, let\'s defer the medication route and see
what I can do with dietary changes...\")

He was smart enough to trust my own self-assessment (and, I left him
a back-door where he could bring up his solution at a later date if
I failed to achieve my goal)
She didn\'t last long. After her, most of my doctors are Veterans who worked
in Military hospitals. They show us respect, and ask if we need anything
more than just a regular checkup.
My friend\'s sole complaint is that they have made some \"recommendations\"
and he\'s not keen on accepting that course of treatment (open heart surgery
with an estimated poor survivability). He claims that his refusal of
treatment can jeopardize his continued care (???). So, his solution is
to keep rescheduling appointments related to *that* care...

I often drive a friend to the local VA hospital as the walk from the
parking lot to the appropriate \"sub-building\" is quite a hike for him. I
can, instead, drive him to the door closest to his destination and then go
park the car (and walk back to where he is getting his care).

They have a shuttle at the Gainesville VA hospital, since the parking lot is
larger than the hospital. The Ocala CBOC just got a golf cart to take you
from the from door, to your car.
This is the local VA:

https://www.google.com/maps/@32.1811412,-110.9642396,675m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

Here is one of the clinics I use. This has Wound care, the other doesnt
https://www.va.gov/north-florida-health-care/locations/ocala-va-clinic/

My PCP is at this clinic: https://www.va.gov/north-florida-health-care/locations/the-villages-va-clinic/

My buddy gets care near the rotary at the center of the image.
Note there are only 8-12 handicap spots, there. So, you\'d
have to park \"out front\" (the black strips that look like barracks are
PV covered parking areas) and hike to your destination, through
the building (there may be an electric shuttle, indoors -- but I\'ve
never encountered it!)

If you are \"able-bodied\", it\'s just an annoyingly long walk
(most hospitals, here, are similar examples of sprawl).

But, if you have any health or mobility issues, it can be
brutal. When we walk BACK to the rotary, after his appointment
(I let him sit while I continue the trek to fetch the car),
he needs to stop a few times to catch his breath. Sometimes,
a passing unoccupied wheelchair may come along...
First time I did this, he gave me his handicapped tag so I could park in
one of the handicapped spaces (don\'t know why as *I* don\'t need that).

I was stunned to find it wasn\'t a \"set of spaces\" but, rather, a frigging
parking *lot*! When I made that observation to him, later, he said \"Lots
of guys here with problems...\" and just directed his eyes out the windows
of the waiting room we were in to watch the folks moving by...

[So, Thank You for Your Service}

You\'re welcome.

The VA system has the highest average age and percentage of disabled
patients of any other provider in the United States.
No doubt -- and for \"good\" (dubious choice of words) reason!
They also offer many
services that other hospitals don\'\'t. They also do research in fields like
treating TBI. They created \'The Million Veterans Program\' that requested a
DNA sample, The databse will also take your medical history, to look for
connections to diseases.
IIRC, Martin has made references to a similar program run by the NHS (?)

Of course, with our disjointed private medical services, there\'s no
central agency to coordinate such efforts -- outside of the VA.

[I installed a Reading Machine at this VA in ~1978. It was likely the
only one in all of AZ (we had only built 50, at the time)]
Think about the number of jobs that are largely static in their skill
sets and of limited promotion paths. I suspect all will be targeted,
eventually (talking heads should be the first as they REALLY add no
value! Imagine a Maxine Headroom, Maxwell, Maximillion, etc.)

They are already using the \'Wind them up and watch them walk into the
wall\' model!
Which returns to the original question. If it\'s not YOUR job that\'s being
made redundant, then what reason NOT to exploit AIs?

I created an Expert System\' to help troubleshoot a very complex circuit
board over 20 years ago. That was a low grade AI that got its input from the
test fixture, then listed what needed to be checked on the monitor.
Expert Systems are probably the easiest AIs to \"relate to\". They\'re
intuitive -- even if complex. But, they typically don\'t \"learn\".
A knowledge engineer is responsible for crafting them, relying on
his own specific knowledge of the application domain/problem space.

I.e., it\'s no smarter than the person who creates it.

I did this on a 486 computer, over 25 years ago. The original test software would read voltages but he faiiled to have the proper sign on many of them.. If it was a negative voltage, his failure to look for a negative number failed on every board. I corrected his errors, then started adding more tests, a message on the screen for the current test, then the defects as I found them. One day, the head of thee test line stormed up to my bench, yelling that I hadn\'t tested the board in his hand. I ran the test in front of him, and it passed. I ran it a second time, and it failed the first test. I looked at the board. A 10K resistor and a .01uF capacitor had been switch during the build. It read the right voltage, before the capacitor charged. To eliminate that, I simply copied the first test, to the end pf the software. I had the program updated before he shut up. I switched the two SMD components and sent him to the cleaning room, That board interfaced our in house embedded controller with the rest of a $20,000 radio. The controller used the MC68340. It also used a pair of Dallas 2K*8 Battery backed NVRAM to store the settings These were often a problem, because they left the factory with random data

These systems are also no smarter than the tech who runs them.

But, it can be very thorough -- even moreso than its creator
because humans tend to forget details whereas the AI won\'t.

I\'ve tried to build most of my AIs as expert systems (\"Production
Systems\") that are dynamically modified by a neural net. So,
the rules can change (\"learn\") but, more importantly, a human
can inspect the rules, as they exist at any given point in time,
and understand WHY a particular decision was made/action taken.

The original software simply stopped when there was a problem ,and not tel
you what test had failed. On top of that, there were many errors in the test
software. I politely asked the ET who built it to fix his mistakes. I was
brushed off with, \"I don\'t remember building it. Go away. Fix the damned
thing,yourself.\" Then he bitched when I did just that. He was told, \"You
know better than to tell Michael that, if you don\'t want him to do it.\"

Letting \"engineers\" write code is almost always a mistake. Someone with
knowledge of the PROBLEM space needs to figure out what the code should do
and HOW it should do it as well as how it should interact with the
ACTUAL user(s).

Most engineers should never be allowed to solder, as well.

[I can\'t begin to count the number of times I\'ve \"intentionally\" crashed
programs to point out \"unfortunate\" assumptions that their writers had
made in their designs -- without even having a formal notion of the
problem that they were trying to solve! :< ]

Otherwise, you get code that walks itself into a corner or forces a user
to do X when he really wants to do Y.

[I visited a website, recently, to create an account. I was offered a
choice of authentication strategies, at one point. I opted for the 2FA
option. Then, realized I wasn\'t happy with any of the \"second factors\"
they had implemented. Ah, but there\'s no way to \"go back\" to the point
before you made that choice! And, if you log out and log back in, it
cheerfully returns you to this same point in your account configuration
process. <frown> So, abandon the account and start over again! I
wonder if they have a GC process that periodically scans the accounts
to close out those that haven\'t been finalized in N days...?]

I have had similar results trying to get a new cell phone activated. I got a message that setup was completed. It then deactivated the old phone, but didn\'t activate the new phone. Now, I\'m supposed to call support, without a phone to fix their mess. I tried to use the chat , but the jerk kept telling me that he wasn\'t receiving the information that I posted over 20 time, but he replied to every other message. I\'m about ready to take it out to the driveway and crush it. It was sent to replace a non 5G phone, after Verizon bought the company, so I didn\'t pay have for it. If I do that, I\'ll lose my long time phone number.

Of course, this is true of many things -- failing to consult the
stakeholders about their needs and IMPOSING your own notion of a
solution.

Like when I asked for a computer to store service information, back in the \'80s. Instead of spending a few hundred for a C64 and drive, they dragged in a beat up Atari 850(?) It had some crap ware database, but it took several minutes every time you added notes. The drive soulded like a cement mixer, and it frequently tried to defrag the floppy witch took at least 15 minutes.

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Thursday, July 20, 2023 at 11:13:09 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:

On 7/20/2023 12:33 AM, Michael Terrell wrote:
Here is one of the clinics I use. This has Wound care, the other doesnt
https://www.va.gov/north-florida-health-care/locations/ocala-va-clinic/
Wow, this is a lot smaller! Is it more like a \"doctor\'s office\".
I assume they have less staff and equipment on hand? And, that
there is probably something similar, here? Yet, my buddy goes
to the VA *hospital* likely because they have the more sophisticated
imaging equipment?

[I will have to ask him if there is another, smaller place that he also
visits or if the hospital services all veterans\' needs in the area]
My PCP is at this clinic:
https://www.va.gov/north-florida-health-care/locations/the-villages-va-clinic/

This area has a very high percentage of retired Veterans year round, along with Snowbirds.

I don\'t think he has a PCP but, rather, different doctors for different
ailments. (I know he\'s complained of needing to find a PCP)

Some areas have a long waiting list because of a shortage of doctors, or in some cases they have a handful of patients who need one, but not enough to be allowed to hire another doctor. When I went into the system, you pretty much had to wait for other Veterans to die, as your name moved up the list with each.

This was caused by Bill Clinton, when he opened the system to more Veterans, without adding staff or additional clinics.
They finally updated the VA Hospital in Gainesville. They doubled the number of patient rooms and added some services, but other services are still located at nearby sites. When that got their MRI system, it was installed away from the hospital itself. There is a tunnel under the highway, to the Shands teaching hospital. The MRI equipment was built to open into the tunnel, and it has a removable roof to install or replace equipment.

Gainesville has many tiny CBOC around the area It is a very busy college town and with this being Florida there are a lot of homeless Veterans who move here from other states. This way, they can provide basic care to those with no transportation, or transport them to the hospital, if needed.

I created an Expert System\' to help troubleshoot a very complex circuit
board over 20 years ago. That was a low grade AI that got its input from
the test fixture, then listed what needed to be checked on the monitor.
Expert Systems are probably the easiest AIs to \"relate to\". They\'re
intuitive -- even if complex. But, they typically don\'t \"learn\". A
knowledge engineer is responsible for crafting them, relying on his own
specific knowledge of the application domain/problem space.

I.e., it\'s no smarter than the person who creates it.

I did this on a 486 computer, over 25 years ago.
A 486 was a decent sized machine (as was the 386). And, software
was \"sized\" more appropriately, back then. The bloat that came with
the linsux craze hadn\'t struck -- I ran NetBSD on a 386 with 13MB (that\'s
an M not a G) of RAM and a 40MB disk quite comfortably.

This had 4 MB, and was picked up used at a thrift store for $30. The code was in MS\'s Basic. which limited what could be done .I had no access o a compiler or other language, so I had to make due.

The problem with some techs is that they can\'t parse even simple instructions on the screen. You have to explain thins to them, and answer questions for each instruction. This isn\'t common, but it happens. For instance, I rebuilt a test fixture and added a 10 pole, 12 position rotary switch to simplify testing. Start at one, and do a test, and continue. There were three terminals for a DVM. One was ground, one was positive and the other negative.. I had one idiot who could follow \'Connect meter to + and Ground\' or any other configuration when there were only three. No one else had a problem, but he had an attitude like Sloman in thart everyone else was always wrong. It tested the wiring for the front panel of a Telemetry receiver.

This explains why so many apps \"hang\" or \"go wonky\" (because they don\'t
catch() all errors and just let them propagate until they die)... folks
no longer understand what they are coding and its ramifications.

Many have the attitude that their code should be the only thing running orher than an OS.

(my latest NetBSD INSTALL kernel is 18MB. Granted, it needs to support
as many hardware configurations as possible -- I\'ll build a new kernel
eliding all the unnecessary support -- but that still wouldn\'t fit in
physical RAM in that first 386 system mentioned above)
The original test software
would read voltages but he failed to have the proper sign on many of them.

Ooops!

If it was a negative voltage, his failure to look for a negative number
failed on every board. I corrected his errors, then started adding more
tests, a message on the screen for the current test, then the defects as I
found them. One day, the head of thee test line stormed up to my bench,
yelling that I hadn\'t tested the board in his hand. I ran the test in front
of him, and it passed. I ran it a second time, and it failed the first test.
I looked at the board. A 10K resistor and a .01uF capacitor had been switch
during the build. It read the right voltage, before the capacitor charged.
To eliminate that, I simply copied the first test, to the end pf the

Yeah, one of my early POSTs had to be reengineered to accommodate a
failure in the (hardware) refresh circuitry. You obviously wanted to
run the test as quickly as possible (because the system can\'t boot to
the point of being responsive until then) so you could be back *checking*
written values faster than the refresh interval and everything looks good!

[I have a similar potential problem with \"live\" testing of released memory
pages in my VMM system... you want to check them quickly so you aren\'t
wasting MIPS *and* so you can get them returned to the scrubbed page pool
for reuse but need to make sure you\'ve given the page \"time\" to noticeably
fail]

It\'s only going to get worse. I\'ve had numerous programmers either tell me, It\'s no my problem, I finished that job\" or \"I don\'t even remember writing that program\".

software. I had the program updated before he shut up. I switched the two
SMD components and sent him to the cleaning room, That board interfaced our
in house embedded controller with the rest of a $20,000 radio. The
controller used the MC68340. It also used a pair of Dallas 2K*8 Battery
backed NVRAM to store the settings These were often a problem, because they
left the factory with random data.
NVRAM makes for some delightful thinking regarding POST/BIST/RESET, etc.
You don\'t want to scrub it until you KNOW that it has nothing in it.
So, you need to assure yourself (ideally without asking a human) that
it is *intended* to CURRENTLY have valid contents -- which you must then
check, correct and test. And, barring that, be able to set it\'s contents
to a \"sane\" state so the software doesn\'t act on bogus values.
These systems are also no smarter than the tech who runs them.
They can be made so -- if that is the intent. But, you have to
think about how you interface to the user/tech and what you expect
of him. E.g., the \"check engine\" syndrome is often a lazy approach
to error/fault handling (\"Well, what am I supposed to be CHECKING?!\")

The problem we had with it was sometimes the garbage data from the factory would keeep a board from booting, because it was out of range. The quick fix was to unplug both, and switch positions. In a few cases, you had to replace one. I was able to erase them on one of our oddball EPROM programmers that did 5V only 2716 chips.

Letting \"engineers\" write code is almost always a mistake. Someone with
knowledge of the PROBLEM space needs to figure out what the code should
do and HOW it should do it as well as how it should interact with the
ACTUAL user(s).

Most engineers should never be allowed to solder, as well.

Engineers often think they are more skilled/knowledgeable than they actually
are. \"It\'s just soldering\".

I did my own rework. I had several Ungar Loner irons. Two with small chisel tips, and the thrd had a special 0.015\" tip to solder the MC68340 chips, and others with that density.

When I worked at a Defense Plant in the late \'70s, I was doing QA on the PRC77 Manpack Radio. Soldering was a union job, but they ran into a job they couldn\'t do. Their supervisor knew that I had a business of my own, so he asked to borrow me. The Karen of a Union Rep was glaring at me. The idea of someone from mud level management teaching \'her girls\' to solder pissed her off! The problem was obvious. That company used the old Weller WTPC soldering stations, and they simply didn\'t produce enough heat to melt the solder on a bad audio output transformer. I used two irons and quickly removed the solder, then again to solder in the new transformer. Just to make her eve madder, I reached for the second broad, \"Ladies? I\'m only going to sow you this one more time!\" She was about to explode. She had \'informed me\' on my first day that no man knew how to solder. She had to eat her words, twice..

I let the folks on the line do all of that work for me. First, they are
more efficient at it. But, they also will follow-up with a detailed
inspection (whereas I may just give that sort of work a cursory looking over).
I have had similar results trying to get a new cell phone activated. I got a
message that setup was completed. It then deactivated the old phone, but
didn\'t activate the new phone. Now, I\'m supposed to call support, without a
phone to fix their mess.
The last step of the process should have \"closed the loop\": \"Please dial
XYZ on your new phone to complete the process...\". As such, if any of
the preceding steps had gone awry and NOT BEEN DETECTED AS HAVING DONE SO,
there\'s be no way to know, for sure.

Instead, you are instructed to turn the phone off, then reboot it and attempt to make a call. If it desn\'t work, wait and try it again.

Another phone setup got a server error, but the phone had a number assigned, so I can\'t try again, even though it was never activated.

Motorola really pissed me ff. You can\'t use an Email address with a period in your name on some models.

I tried to use the chat , but the jerk kept telling
me that he wasn\'t receiving the information that I posted over 20 time, but
he replied to every other message. I\'m about ready to take it out to the
driveway and crush it. It was sent to replace a non 5G phone, after Verizon
bought the company, so I didn\'t pay have for it. If I do that, I\'ll lose my
long time phone number.
Aren\'t cell phones wonderful? So many more times you NEED to interact
with the Phone Company than you had to previously! <grin

This is what happens when Itinerant burger flippers move into tech support.

We give out the home phone number when we need to. And everyone wants to
send you an SMS (for authentication, to let you know when your dinner
reservation is ready, to...).

\"Oh, we don\'t get texts...\"
\"Huh?\"
\"It\'s a land line. But, you can CALL us now that you\'ve insisted on
having a contact number...\"

My landline was a Magic Jack, but the propagation delay on my satellite internet is so bad that it doesn\'t work. Hugesnet is now using high orbit, 55 GHz birds. It exceeds 1250 ms at times. Other times it doesn\'t work, at all..

[We have disabled SMS on the cell phones as well. And, voice mail.
They exist for *our* convenience, not yours! So, if *we* want to make
(or receive) a call, we will take steps to do so. But, if YOU think
you can exploit them to gain access to us -- inconvenience us -- at
YOUR convenience, you\'re going to be disappointed! <grin> Sheesh,
all these people jumping to react to each SMS, phone, etc. \"alert\".
I\'m sure Pavlov would be proud of how well you have CONDITIONED
YOURSELF! :> ]

I\'m still a night owl, after working night shifts for decades. I\'ve had calls at 0500, begging for a donation to some liberal politician, or another. I have a long list of DC area phone numbers that have tried to call that Magic Jack for money. It can receive voice mail or text, but it cant uplink voice without chopping it into a string of broken bits and gaps of silence.

Like when I asked for a computer to store service information, back in the
\'80s. Instead of spending a few hundred for a C64 and drive, they dragged in
a beat up Atari 850(?) It had some crap ware database, but it took several
minutes every time you added notes. The drive soulded like a cement mixer,
and it frequently tried to defrag the floppy witch took at least 15
minutes.
I worked with a group that relied on a database that was limited to ~16K
records. Exceeding that limit caused the DBMS to lock up which complicated
efforts to elide contents to get it down below that limit. So, they had
to routinely check to see how many records (rows) they were using and
\"edit out\" records that they didn\'t deem essential to avoid that problem.

Short-sighted decisions to save pennies and waste dollars (like Y2K,
FAT12, etc.)

It makes yo wonder if Dilbert\'s boss makes all of the world\'s business decisions.

40 years ago I found a \'type in\' database program for the C 64. It worked, but it was broken into three very similar modules.
The first was data entry or to change a record.
The second was to look at the records.
The third was to print a report.
You had to load the second module to find the record number you wanted to change, reload the first module to change it, rinse and repeat for each change. He also used letter keys to select functions. I used the cluster of +/- and other keys in one area to quickly scroll through records, add, modify or delete.

I examined the code, to find many sections of identical code, except for the first line or two. I rewrote it to only have a single instance of each major block of code, with the other lines in front of it. Jump to the required spot, then to the main part. I not only reduced it to a single program, but it used less memory. I used it to inventory my components. I had to break it down into groups, but I could find a part in under 30 seconds, (It was floppy based) and update it on the fly. It generated a very nice report, as well.

It could also print out a drawer labels for mu Acro-Mills parts cabinets with the information for a componet. It printed dashed lines to show where to cut and fold it, to drop it inside the clear drawers.

As usual, the IBM croud insisted that only a PC or Mac could do this. I used the Commodore, because I was repairing a lot of them for people.

 

[Don Y]

On 7/20/2023 8:18 PM, Michael Terrell wrote:

[I will have to ask him if there is another, smaller place that he also
visits or if the hospital services all veterans\' needs in the area]
My PCP is at this clinic:
https://www.va.gov/north-florida-health-care/locations/the-villages-va-clinic/


This area has a very high percentage of retired Veterans year round, along
with Snowbirds.

Ditto here. Plus three active bases. (total state population is only ~6M)

[I have a similar potential problem with \"live\" testing of released
memory pages in my VMM system... you want to check them quickly so you
aren\'t wasting MIPS *and* so you can get them returned to the scrubbed
page pool for reuse but need to make sure you\'ve given the page \"time\" to
noticeably fail]

It\'s only going to get worse. I\'ve had numerous programmers either tell me,
It\'s no my problem, I finished that job\" or \"I don\'t even remember writing
that program\".

When you sign a contract to develop a product, \"support\" is something
that is legally enforceable. If you *don\'t* remember what you did,
it will be *you* who pays for it when/if a problem arises.

So, it behooves you to do things in ways that \"make sense\" and document
the reasons behind your design choices so they \"make sense\" when you
revisit it months/years later.

These systems are also no smarter than the tech who runs them.
They can be made so -- if that is the intent. But, you have to think about
how you interface to the user/tech and what you expect of him. E.g., the
\"check engine\" syndrome is often a lazy approach to error/fault handling
(\"Well, what am I supposed to be CHECKING?!\")

The problem we had with it was sometimes the garbage data from the factory
would keeep a board from booting, because it was out of range.

But a sanity check (and integrity check) should be the first thing
that happens before the data is used.

I break my nonvolatile parameters into many groups and implement
checks on each group. So, I can hope that the \"most important\"
settings are preserved even if some of the less important ones
aren\'t.

And, that a glitch in one of the less important settings doesn\'t
invalidate the more important settings (requiring them to be
reset).

It\'s possible (though unlikely with well designed algorithms) that
the NVRAM can randomly power up in a state that *seems* intact.
And, there\'s nothing I can do about that.

But, even after a group of parameters indicates they *appear* to
be intact, I can examine individual parameters to see if they
make sense in the context of the other parameters. Just by
verifying any rules that apply to the parameter *set*.

E.g., a netmask of 0x000fff0f is probably bogus!

The quick fix
was to unplug both, and switch positions. In a few cases, you had to replace
one. I was able to erase them on one of our oddball EPROM programmers that
did 5V only 2716 chips.

Letting \"engineers\" write code is almost always a mistake. Someone
with knowledge of the PROBLEM space needs to figure out what the code
should do and HOW it should do it as well as how it should interact
with the ACTUAL user(s).

Most engineers should never be allowed to solder, as well.

Engineers often think they are more skilled/knowledgeable than they
actually are. \"It\'s just soldering\".

I did my own rework. I had several Ungar Loner irons. Two with small chisel
tips, and the thrd had a special 0.015\" tip to solder the MC68340 chips, and
others with that density.

For thru-hole designs, I would knock up prototypes as it was quicker
than putting together a kit of parts to send to someone else.

But, for SMT designs (esp components top and bottom), I\'d prefer
someone with better eyes and steadier hands... and, the \"real\"
inspection followup instead of just doing a quick visual.

The last step of the process should have \"closed the loop\": \"Please dial
XYZ on your new phone to complete the process...\". As such, if any of the
preceding steps had gone awry and NOT BEEN DETECTED AS HAVING DONE SO,
there\'s be no way to know, for sure.

Instead, you are instructed to turn the phone off, then reboot it and
attempt to make a call. If it desn\'t work, wait and try it again.

Yeah, what is this nonsense about rebooting everything? Blame MS
for getting people to consider that \"normal\". I never wrote \"if
things get hosed, unplug power for 60 seconds...\" in a manual.

Why *should* they \"get hosed\"?

Another phone setup got a server error, but the phone had a number assigned,
so I can\'t try again, even though it was never activated.

Motorola really pissed me ff. You can\'t use an Email address with a period
in your name on some models.

You can\'t use a colon in a filename with MS. Or a backslash. Or...

Interesting to see how folks place arbitrary restrictions on things.

\"Um, why?\"

I tried to use the chat , but the jerk kept telling me that he wasn\'t
receiving the information that I posted over 20 time, but he replied to
every other message. I\'m about ready to take it out to the driveway and
crush it. It was sent to replace a non 5G phone, after Verizon bought
the company, so I didn\'t pay have for it. If I do that, I\'ll lose my
long time phone number.
Aren\'t cell phones wonderful? So many more times you NEED to interact with
the Phone Company than you had to previously! <grin

This is what happens when Itinerant burger flippers move into tech support.

In their defense, it has got to be a nightmare dealing with Joe Randoms
complaining about things that don\'t work and not being able to explain
EXACTLY what they are doing to *create* a problem.

Likewise, keeping machines configured properly, current on updates, etc.
I spend at least a day a week on this sort of crap. (and, it\'s never DONE;
change X and Y needs to be tweaked, etc.)

[We have disabled SMS on the cell phones as well. And, voice mail. They
exist for *our* convenience, not yours! So, if *we* want to make (or
receive) a call, we will take steps to do so. But, if YOU think you can
exploit them to gain access to us -- inconvenience us -- at YOUR
convenience, you\'re going to be disappointed! <grin> Sheesh, all these
people jumping to react to each SMS, phone, etc. \"alert\". I\'m sure Pavlov
would be proud of how well you have CONDITIONED YOURSELF! :> ]

I\'m still a night owl, after working night shifts for decades. I\'ve had
calls at 0500, begging for a donation to some liberal politician, or
another. I have a long list of DC area phone numbers that have tried to call
that Magic Jack for money. It can receive voice mail or text, but it cant
uplink voice without chopping it into a string of broken bits and gaps of
silence.

I designed a box to screen calls so we only tend to hear the phone ring
when its someone we want/need to talk to (and then, only when we are
likely WANTING (or willing) to talk to them! I.e., the phone only rings
for a very select few people after 9PM -- even fewer after midnight!)

[I can\'t do that for SMS so its easier to just disable that service]

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2023-07-18, Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 1:34:41 AM UTC-4, Don Y wrote:
On 7/17/2023 7:06 PM, Michael Terrell wrote:
How could a talking head justify his claim to \"value\" wrt
an animated CGI figure making the same news presentation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYdpOjletnc
Yes, I made this reference to SWMBO and it just went \"woosh\",
over her head. <frown
I rely heavily on tools that are increasingly AI-driven
to verify the integrity of my hardware and software designs;
should they be banned/discouraged because they deprive
someone (me!?)
If an AI improved your medical care, would you campaign to ban
them on the grounds that they displace doctors and other
medical practitioners? Or, improved the fuel efficiency of
a vehicle? Or...

My doctor was on vacation a while back. I had to show her replacement the proper way to apply the triple layer wraps to my legs.

[I.e., does it all just boil down to \"is *my* job threatened?\"]

This could happen, if \'actors\' keep going out on strike:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/
I don\'t think the \"AI threat\" just applies to actors, writers, etc.

A good deal of MANY jobs can be replaced by a \"smart monkey\"...
even moreso by a VERY smart monkey!


Some could be replaced by a brain dead monkey.


We already see \"nurse practitioners\" doing what doctors *used*
to do (though under the supervision of a doctor). Wait until
the *doctors* act under the supervision of an *AI* doctor!
(where does all that \"prestige\" go once YOU are delegated to
that subservient role?)


Like the holographic doctor on Star Trek Voyager? (BTW, it is streaming on Paramount Plus. It is free. if you use Walmart Plus.)

Nurses have traditionally done the grunt work. Sadly there are a few that weren\'t even good at that.I was pissing blood, so I went to the VA clinic, only to be turned away by\' Nurse Rached\' I told her that it was a bladder infection and asked to be tested . She threw a \'Sloman\', ranting that it was obviously kidney stones, and that I couldn\'t possibly know what I was talking about. I made the hour long ride to a VA hospital, only to be told that I had a bladder infection, that should have been treated at my local clinic.

When I had a \'Third Nerve Palsey\' in my right eye, she told be to go buy F..ing eye drops and stpp my f..ing whining. That required seven trips to the VA hospital, an MRI and over six months to heal. If I had listened to her, the damage would have been permanent. I couldn\'t open the eyelid, nor move the eye if I used my finger to lift it. Even two years later, they would occasionally unlock if I turned my head too fast, to look at something closer.

She refused to give me my first Glucose meter, then ranted that I wasn\'t keeping a log to bring to my appointments. I was \'informed\' that it was impassible to use one properly without attending a class. It was sitting on her desk, so I took it, opened the box and coded it. I use the sample to verify it and then tested my blood while she was yelling at me.

A good AI would beat care like that, any day.

Who holds the gold makes the rules. the AI you are likely to get will
be designed to reduce costs, not to improve service.

--
Jasen.
🇺🇦 Слава Україні