Artificial intelligence

In terms of my particular work, there's nothing worse than those days when you're chained to the laptop all day long, as the minutes tick by and the deadline fast approaches. But there's nothing better than when you finally get to the last page, and you do your final spell check, and update your table of contents, and ship the thing off, knowing that it's as good as it can possibly be. Even when that happens at 10:10 on Sunday night, it's still a happy moment of euphoria that will carry you through to the next mad deadline crunch, which you can only hope will happen on a weekday.

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So that was Sunday; and now it's Monday, and I'm now the proud owner of this:

Yes, I'm listening to everything you say,
but you have nothing to hide, right? 

I had to replace my phone recently, and I got a Google Pixel 2. Unbeknownst to me at the time (any excuse to say or write "unbeknownst"), Verizon was offering a free Google Home Mini with any Pixel purchase, and it arrived in today's mail.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's a fun new thing in a pretty box! It was free! And we'll have so much fun talking to it and telling it to play music and look up random facts and tell us when the puck drops. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that it will become (if it isn't already) a surveillance device that will report on my every thought and conversation. I've read 1984, and this is how it starts.

I actually thought about just leaving it in the box. I could donate it somewhere, I thought; or we could just sell it on eBay. But curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it, just to see what it looked like when I plugged it in.

It's a very cute little device, and when you plug it in, four tiny lights flash the now-familiar Google colors (red, blue, yellow, green). It's cheerful and fun to look at; it's like Christmas in June. But after I set it up, I didn't know what to do with it. My son started testing it on state capitals, and then I threw it some multiplication questions. When I was 9 or 10, I dreamed of something very similar to this--a machine or a robot that knew everything and that could offer the sum total of human knowledge, just for the asking. State capitals, multiplication tables, and the weather, all in a a little round package.

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Last year, I had to write a white paper about data lakes. I don't know very much about databases, relational or non-relational, but that didn't stop me from writing all about them. One of the things that I learned while researching this topic is that when you build a data lake, you don't need a use case for the data you're collecting. You can just gather any and all data, throw it in your data lake, and then figure out later how to use it, and why. That's kind of terrifying, isn't it? With the right kind of data repository as the backend, your Google Home device, or your Alexa, or your Apple Home, could just collect data on every question you ask it, now and forever, store that data indefinitely, and then eventually figure out how to use it, presumably against you.

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I don't know very much about algorithms, but I do know that algorithms control how search results are compiled and returned. The day after I received the Google Home device was primary day in Maryland, and I wasn't sure where my polling place was (it changed recently), so  I asked Google, and it suggested that I should visit the Board of Elections, in Virginia. Based on the weather forecasts, it knows that I live in Maryland, so there was reassuring proof that it doesn't know everything. It does, however, know that the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup, because everyone in my house has asked it "Who won the Stanley Cup?" at least ten times.

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It's Friday now, day 5 of sharing my household with an AI-enabled speaker that actually speaks. I like asking it to tell me jokes; and of course, the daily reminder that "the Stanley Cup was won by the Washington Capitals" (passive voice; another algorithm quirk, I'm sure) will never get old. But I'm keeping it at an arm's length for now. As helpful as it might be to get a quick Spanish-to-English translation (or the reverse) or to get the weather forecast without looking for my phone, I'm still not convinced that it's not spying on us and reporting my every idea to our Google overlords. By the time I finally unplug it, it might be too late.

Washed and clean

Tuesday: I intended to start writing yesterday morning, and then the morning got away from me. Yesterday was the first no-school day, so our morning routine has changed a bit, and I thought that I had more time than I actually did. It's always later than you think. Well, it's always later than I think, anyway.

So now it's 7:15 (AM). Cloudy, with silvery pale sunlight and dense humidity, and it feels like a morning at the beach. I’m keeping track of the time this morning. I’m on top of things.

And now it’s 9:15 PM. Today was a back-to-back meeting day. I'd planned to go outside and take a short walk between meetings, but a sudden heavy rainstorm derailed my plans. And then within ten minutes, the rain stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, giving way to intense, mad-dog-and-Englishmen noonday sun and the smell of ozone as the pavement dried. The air was dense; so humid that it was just short of condensation back into rain. The grass and trees and shrubs were jungle-green and dewy. You know how sometimes a garden or a lawn goes from lush and verdant to sloppy and overgrown, all in the space of minutes? The whole world looked like those few minutes. I walked in the sun as the rain dried. Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the office, and then the rain started again.

The rain stopped, again, and I finished work, came home, made dinner, and went swimming. The pool water has been warming gradually, from icy to chilly to tolerable to just right. All of this is to say that it feels like summer, finally.

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I use spell-check, but only as a fail-safe for typos. My eyes aren’t what they used to be—when I was younger, no typo had a chance against me. I’ve noticed something with Word’s spell-check feature. When you spell-check a document, and spell-check doesn’t find any errors (this still happens fairly often—I’m pretty good), the pop-up reads “Spelling and grammar check is complete—You’re good to go!” Not only confirmation that the spell-check has done its job, but a congratulatory exclamation point. But when you run spell-check and ignore any of Word’s grammar or spelling recommendations, the pop-up reads “Spelling and grammar check is complete.” Full stop. It comes across as a little bitter,  a little truculent. No “good to go,” no exclamation point…it’s as if Word is washing its hands of you.

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It's Wednesday now. I'm at a Wednesday night swim meet, with no job. Not as in unemployment, just no swim meet job. This is very rare for me; very rare indeed. Rumbling thunder cut the meet short, and there was a mad scramble to clean up the pool as quickly as possible before the rain started. A friend and I, both of us long-veteran swim parents, were walking toward the parking lot to stow our handbags so that we could come back to help clean up, and we saw the meet manager walking toward us.

“Let’s say ‘Good night, Lois—see you Saturday’ and keep walking, just to see what she says,” I said to my friend.

“Awesome,” she said. We executed perfectly, and then cackled like idiots when she fell for it. Then we all cleaned up together, and I thought about how lucky I was that I got to go home over an hour earlier than I expected; and even luckier to clean up a swim meet with these people, who I love and whose children I love; all during my beloved summer.

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So as I mentioned once before, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And as I also mentioned that last time, I won't really compare the President to a stopped clock, because he's not right anywhere near twice a day. But he did the right thing today, so he deserves credit. It doesn’t matter that he did the right thing for the wrong reasons; it only matters that it was the right thing. Hopefully, most of the children will soon be reunited with their parents.

RAICES

No, but if you hum a few bars, I can try to play along

Wednesday, June 6: I was just going to write a sentence, which I'm not going to write, because you shouldn't put certain things in writing until they actually happen.

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Remember how I was singing along with "Evacuate the Dance Floor?" And then remember how that song was stuck in my head for a damn week afterward? No?

Well let me tell you all about it. I sang along to that song one too many times, and then it was stuck in my head for a damn week. And if that was the end of that story, then there'd be nothing else to say. But that is not, as it happens, the end of that story.

I'm extremely susceptible to the curse of the earworm; and sadly for me, the songs that get permanently lodged in my brain are not always songs that I like. "Evacuate the Dance Floor" and "Just Dance" and "Badlands"? Fine. "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Where do Broken Hearts Go?" and "We are Never (Ever Ever) Getting Back Together"? Not so much.

In fact, just hearing one or two bars of a bad song at the wrong time are an almost-certain predictor of an earworm that will last at least 24 hours, and often as long as a week. It's like the aura that some migraine sufferers experience. It's like that vaguely feverish malaise that within hours morphs into full-blown flu. By the time you recognize the symptoms, it's probably too late.

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Sunday, June 10: So now It’s a rainy and unseasonably cool Sunday afternoon, and I’m just a few miles north of Baltimore, driving southward on I-95 after an overnight trip to Philadelphia. As always, I feel duty-bound to point out that I’m not actually driving the car that’s conveying me home. And I’m not online, either. I could write on my phone, but I’ve never learned how to type fast on a smartphone. On a real keyboard, though, I can type like lightning. I can barely see my fingers--that's how fast they're moving.

I’m beginning to resign myself to the likelihood of a cool and rainy summer. My swimming friends and I have been steeling ourselves to the icy water, because we’re determined to swim and if we wait until the water warms up, we won’t get to swim until July. I’m learning to like the cold water, though I’d take warm over cold any day. But once you get used to it...

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Friday, June 15. You might have read or heard somewhere that the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup (this, of course, is the thing that I couldn't put in writing). My friends and family in Philadelphia, even the die-hard Flyers fans, all congratulated me last weekend, as if I’d scored the game-winning goal. The last time I lived in a championship city was 1980 (Phillies, World Series), and I'd forgotten how much fun it was to be part of a joyous collective celebration. And I'm really happy for Alexander Ovechkin, the world's greatest hockey player. I know that he's a Putin supporter, but how can you not love this face?

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Speaking of my favorite Russians, I finally finished with the Count. I haven't read any reviews of A Gentleman in Moscow, and I wonder if any critics commented on the relative lack of suffering in the book. After all, it's set in Russia, beginning in the 1920s all the way through the mid 1950s--Suffering Central. Without giving too much away, the main character, Count Alexander Rostov, was in 1922 placed under permanent house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel and remained there for over 30 years, eventually becoming the headwaiter of the Boyarsky, the hotel's renowned restaurant. Early in the novel, he is removed from his luxurious, expansive suite, and sent to a tiny room on an upper floor. He has an unpleasant encounter with a Bolsehvik aristocrat-hater.  Soviet-style bureaucracy encroaches on his beloved Boyarsky, even its famous wine cellar.

But no one starves, and no one ends up in a filthy cell in Sukhanova. A few major characters disappear, though, lost to the gulag; and the reader always feels the Stalinist menace hovering over the Metropol and threatening all of its occupants, including the Count and his adopted daughter. I might write more about him next week. Once again, Stalinism and all of its totalitarian relatives seem particularly relevant right now.

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Stalinist menace or not, the weather has finally turned and it feels like actual summer again. The Count wasn't beaten or starved or sent to Kolyma, but he was held indoors for 30 years, never stepping outside, even during the summer. And right now, on the southern border of the most fortunate country in the history of the world, there are hundreds of children, separated from their parents, and held indoors in prison-like conditions for most of the day.

I have no idea why some people, or some countries, or some times in history are marked for suffering. I'll probably never know why, at least not in this life. All I can do is to not forget the people who suffer, and try to think about them and pray for them when the sun is shining on the pool water in just the right way and all is well in my particular part of the world at this particular moment. 

GIrl-on-girl crime

Sunday: I have a busy week this week, and will be away next weekend, so I could just not write anything, but I have a more or less continuous once-a-week-at-least streak underway and I feel compelled to maintain it. It's Sunday, and I have to do some actual work for my actual job today, but I thought this morning that if I could choke at least a single paragraph out of myself, then I'll have a start for the week. And then I realized, as I wrote this, that this IS actually a paragraph, which I DID choke out of myself, so I DO have a post started. Mission accomplished!

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But really. There's so much to write about, in life and in the world. I could write about a certain hockey team, but apparently, I'm now a sports superstition person. This is why I've been carrying my least-favorite red handbag since the end of April.

Or I could write about media bias and the double standard that so-called conservatives always complain about. This week, they're actually right. I think that Ivanka Trump is a silly, shallow, stupid, and yes, feckless person. I think that her thoughtless little Instagram post featuring her beautiful self holding her beautiful baby was insensitive to the point of cruelty. And I also think that Samantha Bee should be fired.

I'm probably not the most impartial observer here, because I find Samantha Bee even less likable than Ivanka Trump, if that's possible. But that word used to describe a woman is beyond the proverbial pale, and it's even worse when a it's a woman who says it. Like Ms. Norbury said: "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores." And worse.

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To the two girls who flung side-eye at me as I walked and sang along to Cascada's "Evacuate the Dance Floor:"  Keep walking, ladies. Nothing to see here. Worry about yourselves. Maybe go and do something useful, like learning CPR. Because what if that beat actually was killing me? Did you think about that?

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Tuesday: I read two stories today, one that made me sad, and one that made me even sadder. And I can't help but think that the two are connected. I'm not sure why.

I don't care much about shoes or jewelry, but I have always loved handbags, and Kate Spade's were exactly suited to my taste when I first started to earn enough money to buy a real, grown-woman handbag. In the mid to late 1990s, before I was married and had children, I owned at least 10 Kate Spade bags and wallets. I still have one tiny evening bag; all of the other original nylon Kate Spades from the late '90s are gone (they were beautiful, but not very durable). Kate Spade once wrote or said something about how in the Midwest, where she was from, a woman chose a handbag because it was pretty and she liked it, not because it was a status symbol or the must-have accessory of the moment. Ironically, her simple nylon black-labeled bags became the must-have accessory of the moment; and I won't pretend that I have never been interested in having the must-have thing, just because it's the must-have thing. But the real reason why I bought Kate Spade handbags was because they were pretty and I liked them.

Sometime in 1998 or 1999, I came home from work one night, so exhausted that I took off my shoes and my coat, and fell asleep on my couch, still in my work clothes. A few days later, I was paging through a magazine (I used to love magazines) and saw a Kate Spade advertisement, in which a young woman, just home from work, was sound asleep on her couch, still in her work clothes, her Kate Spade bag sitting on the floor in front of her couch. The young woman in the advertisement was pretty, of course, but not intimidatingly beautiful. Her apartment was colorful and book-filled and cheerful and just a little shabby. It was as if someone had taken a photo of my life, and then made it a little bit nicer and prettier and more glamorous than it really was. And that made me really happy, just for a minute.

Now I wish just for a moment that I'd been the scrapbooking type of girl who cut ads out of magazines and saves them. I also wish that there was some way for Kate Spade to have known how much her work, and her ideas, and her inspired, down-to-earth but completely original vision meant to me and so many other women. Maybe she didn't know. Or maybe she did, but whatever she was suffering was so awful that she couldn't find solace even in her great success and tremendous accomplishments. I'm so sorry for her family, and I hope that they and she will find peace.

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National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. 1-800-273-8255.

Guided tour

Summer swim season is officially underway. This means (among lots of other things) that between my normal weekly work newsletter, the weekly news update for the government project, weekly emails to the swim team, and this hot mess, I'm writing four once-a-week bulletins. It's hard to keep it all straight. By July, swim team parents will be reading about IV&V and SharePoint development; while government IT people will get to read all about 15-18 boys' freestyle results. Everyone will learn something new. Everybody wins. 

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I had to correct a recent Instagram post because of a typo in a hashtag. This was not the result of carelessness or poor spelling skills (as if) so much as failing eyesight.  And it's only going to get worse.

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So that's a lot of writing about why I'm not actually writing this week. Instead, enjoy this photo tour of the scenic Twinbrook neighborhood in Rockville, Maryland. All photos taken with my old Samsung Galaxy S7, which I just replaced with a Google Pixel 2. Maybe I'll tell you all about it. Next week, that is. 

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A mailbox shaped like a barn, because why not?

Click here to find out why
I have no idea what kind of bird that is.  

No parking sign: One of the few indicators that the neighbors
of Twinbrook might not welcome the daily office worker invasion. 

Flower walk

A trailer with a cat face. Again: Why not?

Neighborhood watch. Someone probably
called the cops on me. 

A Little Free Library!

I read somewhere that bamboo, once it takes root,
cannot be eradicated, so I hope these people actually
 like their bamboo. 

Hand-painted storm drain next to Twinbrook Elementary School.