2. That reminds me. Yesterday, I was talking to Meade and my iPhone (Siri) thought I was talking to her and told me that she was having trouble understanding. I said, "I'm not talking to you, go to sleep," and she sassed me: "I never sleep." So instead of being friendly, speaking to my robot, I dispensed with social etiquette and said, "Shut up," and that time I got what I wanted: silence.
3. It seems to me that we should maintain our interpersonal standards when speaking to impersonal machines (for our own sake, really), but I learned that my friendliness is interpreted by the machine as a desire to engage, to have some lighthearted fun, but I didn't want to be interrupted. I learned that I need to be a bit of an asshole to get the robot to back off. I know the robot has no feelings for me to worry about, but I don't want to be the one who snaps "Shut up." It's doing that to me, and I have feelings.
4. Without music, I was more open to the sounds of the forest and the lake. I was rewarded by swans:
5. What a nutty clamor! I made that video at 7:19, 3 minutes before actual sunrise time.
6. It was another "soft" sunrise — the sun behind clouds and the far shore gently imprecise. At 7:28:
7. With no music to prompt thoughts, my mind cycled though: 1. emptiness (with raw observation of surroundings), 2. remembering what I'd written on the blog this morning and how the different elements related to each other and what meant the most to me, and 3. thinking of the songs that tend come up on my playlist at various points in my run and having a vague version of the song reconstituted in my head.
8. A mellow outlook on a muffled, cottony sky:
9. Mellow? Or bleak? Or possibly even idyllic. It is whatever it is in the gently imprecise landscape of your mind.
Posts
21 comments:
That reminds me. Yesterday, I was talking to Meade and my iPhone (Siri) thought I was talking to her and told me that she was having trouble understanding. I said, "I'm not talking to you, go to sleep,"
I have all those communist devices disabled. I got a new Kindle Fire and it wanted me to activate Alexa. Nothing doing,.
Siri is very useful to me when I'm out and have my phone tightly stowed away. I can get my playlist started, I can make phone calls (including calling the police), I can find out what time it is, I can get directions (while walking or driving).
I decline the option for Apple to store my speech, and I'm willing to risk that Apple is lying when it says it follows that preference.
I frequently tell the Honda computer voice to fuck off. "Pardon?" it says. "You heard me. Fuck off." And thenit goes away.
I frequently tell the Honda computer voice to fuck off. "Pardon?" it says. "You heard me. Fuck off." And thenit goes away.
They never forget...and they never really go away...SKYNET...
Some little jerk in the FBI, keepin paper on me six feet high...
Fingerprint File.. Prescience
forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku
Swans are okay so long as they don't sing.
In the Catholic Church (and elsewhere I'm sure), there is this concept understood and appreciated by some (but not all, sadly) of "sacred silence." Instead of this feeling that you need this constant cacophony of noise and action, like a two-second pause with "dead air" is treated by some on radio as the end of the world, there is an appreciation for silence and calm -- no music, no talking, no rushing -- just a few moments here and there of just sitting there with "nothing" happening.
But in that "nothing" is a whole universe of something.
Ann
The swans you are hearing are Tundra swans. Trumpeter swans are fairly rare except along the coast of British Columbia. Audobon link. Tundra swans are much more numerous and migrate throughout the Mississippi flyway and ultimately to North Carolina. Large flocks can be seen each fall at Alma WI and Brownsville Mn on the Mississippi. Audobon Link.
The greatest "swan song" in classical music is below, at 26:26. Have you heard this, Professor? At least listen to a couple of minutes at that spot. Something happens in this performance that I have never seen at an orchestral concert, and it is incredibly moving.
https://youtu.be/lW-fEnOozfA
Explanation here:
https://www.npr.org/2011/07/18/111667517/sibelius-5th-symphony-a-song-for-swans
"In the symphony's breathless moto perpetuo finale, Sibelius introduces one of his most memorable ideas: a bell-like tolling of chords among the four horns that is said to have come to him after he watched a flock of swans pass overhead. This "swan theme," which emerges from the giddy rush of the tremolo strings, is the soul of the movement, and it's accompanied by a poignant, singing subject given out in octaves by the woodwinds and cellos."
@minnesota farm guy
Yes, back in 2017 — here — I took the trouble to identify the 3 swans of Wisconsin and listen to their calls and decided they must be tundra. I just failed to remember correctly. Got the "t" right!
A trumpeter swan has more of a honk. The tundra swans are nicer!
I just need to fix that at YouTube. I just called them "swans" here.
I have all those communist devices disabled. I got a new Kindle Fire and it wanted me to activate Alexa. Nothing doing
Alexa: "I am never disabled."
@Andrew
Philip Glass's Floe from Glassworks has a similar feeling
.
https://g.co/kgs/95XyRV
Also
https://youtu.be/23oePEVM1nE
I'd much rather hear birds and real life than songs - when outside. And I don't ever want a robot voice to "sass me". Who do they think they are?
Having a voice activiated Iphone is also good when you fall down alone and need to call 911.
We have swans here sometimes in the ponds in the Pinelands.
They used to be cranberry bogs. Being part of a State Park, no one maintains the spillways any more. Sometimes, after some years and a good rain, a spillway will fail and a pond will drain.
The beavers fix it. They work at night, but getting there early some days, I've caught an insomniac beaver on the lookout for intruders.
When you own the place, you take an interest in it.
On a Saturday morning bikepath
I'm wishing Lord that I had tunes
'Cause there's something in a Saturday
That makes a body feel alone
"I never sleep.".
She's always listening, sort of. I wonder if she wakes anytime she hears the word "seriously". Or "misery". Now I'm going to sit here and try to think of words that have a "siri" sound in them. I know that Google responds to "hey, Goober" or "hey, boomer". There's probably a lot more. Alexa seems to have less of a problem recognizing the wake word, but that doesn't mean she's listening any less.
I am abrupt when I talk to AIs and it bothers me. I know that they aren't hurt by it, but I'm afraid I (or our civilization) will eventually fall into a pattern of speaking that way to all others, not just AIs. It will teach us to forget what politeness is.
"Siri-- what party is most likely to be negatively affected?"
More than 200,000 Wisconsin voters will be removed from the rolls
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/474549-judge-orders-state-to-purge-more-than-200000-wisconsin-voters-from-the
@Jon Erickson,
Thank you! I've been at two different Christmas parties all day so I didn't see your comments. I'll listen to those pieces now.
Post a Comment