Now there's a story

Someone pointed it out to me just the other day that the world ended somehow when Covid-19 happened. Not from the pandemic itself but somehow society went into lockdown one way and came out of it another with no explanation. I tend to agree with them. Once upon a time life had evolved on a celestial plant named Earth. All living things maintained a natural balance. Life was fine until humans evolved to fuck everything up. I certainly don't defend the human race, we're a broken species that cannot be left unsupervised. Other life throughout the universe is avoiding us and maybe we're under observation but we're hopeless and cannot exercise a single redeeming quality for the sake our own survival. Stupidity ensures survival. It's simple. Nature exists in balance with every system establishing coexistence to maintain the balance. This works, it's worked for millions of years before the idiot sapien creatures and God willing it will continue to work after the idiot sapien creatures. People don't know balance, it's in our bipedal genetics to never be balanced. We think our primitive consciousness is far superior to all living things and that gives us right of dominion but people are the dumbest living things in the known universe. A wild animal, quadrapedal, gracefully runs across an open landscape, majestic, fierce, free and either pursuing or being pursued by another wild animal, quadrapedal, gracefully across the great plains. Neither are aware of the hole in the ground up ahead. One of them strike it, their footing offset, they tumble in motion, quickly regain their footing and the pursuit continues. The human idiot, barely bipedal, stumbles carelessly and clumsily ass over face. Spills hot coffee upon their torso after stepping out of the overcrowded coffee roastery where they stub their toe on the uneven pavement stone protruding. Society celebrates this monumental event across the great plains of social media. Take a stand. It's your opinion, people either agree or disagree. White folk owe no tribute, no apologies, no compensation, nothing. Racism, extremism, sexism, fundamentalism. These ugly realities are survival. Why are we determined to ignore them?

Don't be distracted by the shining light being emitted from that mobile entity of evil you hold in your hand. Fight for what you believe. Disagree, on everything. Ask questions, on everything. Read more books, ebooks are not books, audiobooks are podcasts. Read the damn words printed in ink in paper. A single word remains etched upon the desolate remains of the dead planet named Earth as discovered by interstellar travelers either in space or in time somewhere in the not too distant future. 

ANUNNAKI.

Now there's a story...

I needed some time off, Annual vacation time. People always ask with the innocence of insensitivity, "how was your vacation?"

This time around my reply being I feel like Harry Potter returning from Hogwarts to stay with the Dersleys. That's how severe my Stockholm Syndrome feels. Hogwarts, the world of magic, the Weasleys, the Malfoux, quidich, even Voldamort's shenanigans are more pleasant than dithering around the suburbs of London with cousin Dudley. It's time to take a break, step back from the digital trauma social media enables. Social media pages breeds online hatred because the online world is a toxic environment. I have no need for social media toxicity. I have direct channels of communication with the people with whom I want to communicate. Social commentary online is not discovering inner peace for me. The doom scrolling is my enabler. I'm closing it down, again. By reducing my digital footprint, and it's the same as one's carbon footprint, I can redirect my energy to more positive things without toxicity. There are interesting people out there. I recently listened to Jaron Lanier on a podcast. There are islands of useful resources scattered throughout the vast expanse of the online cesspool. It's healing the cracks. It's been a peculiar time, as far as peculiar times go. I'm not a practitioner of magic, I don't need to be but if I were my conjuring would be of the natural world, Radagast. I respect animals, people not so much. Two little birds eat from the discarded cracker biscuits in the parking lot outside the Spar where I stopped to purchase lunch. Sunshine of the winter morning is peaceful. I sat observing two male birds circle each other and circle the discarded cracker biscuits, each would in turn partake in the indulgence of a morsel and each would in turn fend off the other from the buffet. The instinctual behavior of nature intrigues me. This micro telenovella playing out in the midst of an ignorant human environment. Alas all was over, the birds flew off, cracker biscuits quickly abandoned and forgotten with the arrival of a giant Bridgestone tyre entering the parking space and crushing them into the rubber tread pattern. I strongly recommend taking time to observe people like they were the subject of a nature documentary. Sadly applying narration to cctv footage is not Discovery Channel material and more sadly neither is home video found footage uncovered in a serial killer's residence. Isn't that interesting, people will film and study everything else but each other because that's just too creepy. I neither condone nor condemn such proclivities, society is far more broken than wildlife voyeurism. I'm suggesting people take a look around more, see the world in which we live, emerging from the digital depravity into the peace embrace of nature. Then again, by my observations, the woman exiting the vehicle is far too high strung and far less interesting than the Bridgestone radials attached to her vehicle. I do not view the world through a person lens. As Agent Smith explained to Morpheus: 'I'd like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.' Says a man in a suit. I see life as shared time on this planet. The universe and everything in it was here long before us and will be here long after is. Our lives pass through in the briefest of moments. Having shared my tale of friend of human, a feral feline befriending and sharing lunch with my work colleague I next encountered a wayward traveller of flight and fancy. The little fella hitched a ride perched upon the wiperblade of my windshield. My guess he was tired and befuddled by the morning traffic jam that a windy few miles got him out of the bustling city slum and into the calm scenery of suburbia. I watched him fly off toward the treetops, all is well with the world. I love real magic.

Now there's a story...

There are stories out there not posted on blog feeds, message boards, status updates. There are photos captured not as seflies, check ins, profile pic, avatar. There are video clips not live streamed, uploaded to YouTube, monetized. Boxes of VHS, CD, DVD, cassettes and photo albums find their way to charity shops and junk sales. Handcwritten journals, notebooks, the margins of text books, letters and postcards discarded or forgotten. There is a growing curiosity for life before the internet. Now there's a story. The irresistible temptation to produce and disrupt a nostalgia project popping up in online services ads. Content finds a way. A mate shared a post on our chat page, a lifelong dream come to fruition. The milestones and memories over a couple of decades and a humorous honourable mention from the 2000s of a fishing trip that ended with the fuzz, an arrest and handcuffs. I'm still not allowed to go fishing.

Now that's a story...

The Middle Finger Society - My dog made the list

What AI got wrong about international grooming gangs and domestic pet care.

The activities of my dog interest Interpol, officially. There is a satellite overhead dedicated to monitoring his nap times, dietary intake, who and what he barks at, his movement patterns across the front yard and back yard are being analyzed for comparison. Black vans with tinted windows park in my street at different times of the day. Poor pup is paranoid, or clueless as he's kind of an idiot by canine standards. The constant scratching at a "skin allergy" is more likely him trying to remove the tracking chip the animal shelter tagged him with because now some secret government agency is listening and documenting the frequency of him snoring and farting when asleep. And why is my bow legged mixed terrier shelter dog of barely average intelligence climbing the ranks of international watchlists?

Ask Google, it's AI made the mistake.

'The dog stinks, he needs a bath.' I was thusly informed. I haven't the time to schedule bath time with man's best friend on a sunny weekend afternoon so I Google it. Hey Google, Grooming parlors in my area.

Did you know. AI has a track search history function storing every keystroke you make, saving all the data for law enforcement monitoring and doesn't tell you it's doing so, and you can't turn it off. AI assumes the end user, that's us, is permanently lying, cheating and stealing so every search is run through algorithms designed by Judge Dredd. There are no pseudonyms, there are no finger errors, there are only human interests. The machine never gets it wrong, people get it wrong. AI doesn't search exclusively to the general expression but it also searches each individual word in the phrase. It does this to track suspicious online activity. The machine never gets it wrong, people are evil. Because the world is pure evil constantly defiling the puritan sanctity of the internet all searches need to be explicitly correct and and accurate. Boy howdy did things escalate quickly.

Hey Google, Grooming parlors in my area.

This is your first warning of suspicious content searching violating the service terms and conditions of safe usage and may be reported to the relevant authorities.

Wait, what? 

Hey Google I meant grooming parlors in my area for dogs.

This is your second warning of suspicious content searching violating the service terms and conditions of safe usage and may be reported to the relevant authorities.

Wait, no, Jesus H this AI crap.

Hey Google, I'm looking for grooming parlors in my neighborhood, it's for my dog, he's dirty and he stinks. I don't have the time to groom him. I require the professional services of a grooming parlor.

Thinking...

There are several professional services listed in your area offering grooming services for dogs. Please provide more information to refine the search such as age, sex, weight, height and a brief description.

Okay, this is getting weird...

Those government raids portrayed in movies are overrated. Obviously my dog is not being detained or interrogated or groomed but my fictional Google search was inspired by actual stuff; Monday morning work memos. 

As my ongoing love/hate career slowly meanders passed the half way mark to retirement I'm often reminded how my healthy cynicism and borderline mental instability have walked beside my on my journey to planned obsolescence through employment redundancy from planned operational downscaling leaving me, the "OG" of analog, technologically unviable. How does a corporate succubus successfully suck all passion, joy, enthusiasm, intellectual property and the basic human desire to continue living from each and every employee plugged into their consumer abyss feeding it an infinite stream of capital revenue?

Monday morning work memos. These emails read like Chris Hansen's transcripts for Dateline with a corporate letterhead. The language is subtle and uncomfortable. Sentences of false assurances dripping with the sleazed innuendos desperately coercing the reader into willful compliance. I feel the need to take a shower after reading them. And while I cannot disclose any of the lecherous content without the real cyber police kicking down my door to cease my workstation and deport me to a detention facility where unpleasant things happen to unpleasant people I can share my honest opinion of how creepily similar current AI produced business communication is to current communication used for non AI human trafficking grooming. simply put, the gushy wording wants me to agree to everything, agreement without question. Agreement without reading the fine print, terms and conditions, disclaimers. My generation is the reason those models exist; I read the Apple Agreement, still haven't agreed to it. 

Enter the man in a black suit. He never introduces himself. He never speaks. He asks me nothing. He says nothing. He gives me nothing. He takes nothing from me. The man in the black suit does not exist. My dog still has a guilty look on his face. Upon the fringe areas of society rests understanding; I sat not more as I need not. Some time over the weekend if the weather is fair I shall bath my dog, he still stinks.