"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

Mens Abdita said:
My daughter insists that the state is caller Lowa. She's seen too many maps without serifs.
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Tahoma font is your friend.
Unfortunately, Uncle Microsoft chose Arial as their default font for years. Then they switched to Calibri. Neither was a serif font.

We had a Director at my engineering company who did not have a technical degree and who wanted all reports submitted to her to be written using Arial, because she thought it looked nice. I always submitted mine in Tahoma, because my topics always required Roman Numerals.
If you are trying to specify a "TYPE II" material, you do not want any chance of somebody reading it as "TYPE 11"

Sorry. Been retired several years now, and the topic is still a hot button for me.
 
Mens Abdita said:
My daughter insists that the state is caller Lowa. She's seen too many maps without serifs.
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I noticed that earlier this week when I was updating a March Madness Bracket. I wrote "Iowa" like this, without serif, and didn't like it at all. I couldn't go on without first putting a little horizontal stroke at top and bottom of that bare vertical stroke. :rolleyes:

- GT
 
Al is going to be a co-worker for me, not a replacement (yet). Meaning, I am going to have to start using it every day in my work. Getting training on it starting this week. 12 one hour training sessions. I guess they are getting serious about it.
 
jc57 said:
Al is going to be a co-worker for me, not a replacement (yet). Meaning, I am going to have to start using it every day in my work. Getting training on it starting this week. 12 one hour training sessions. I guess they are getting serious about it.
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Nice April Fools post!
 
I plan to retire next year anyway (I'll be 70). I don't think AI will replace me before then, but if it does, well, I will just be retired a little earlier.

I don't do April Fool's jokes.

There is actually some benefit for me from it. I do some fairly complex technical stuff. I will sometimes come up with a solution to a problem but my hurdle is to convince management that it is a good idea and we need to implement it. I can get AI to "write up a management summary of this and sell them on the idea" and it comes up with nice corp-speak.

Plus you know how ideas that come up from the bottom are usually nixed but any hare-brained scheme that comes from executive levels are implemented with no pushback? Well I can use AI to say "That expensive tool you bought and told us to use? THIS is what it recommends" - so they'll believe it, and because they have bought into it, an AI approved approach will get full consideration. It's not just idiot me, but super-genius AI recommending it.
 
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I don’t know what the developers of AI are doing to prevent it from diverging from reality, rather than converging on the truth. Every single piece of AI generated content I have seen contains inaccuracies. It draws on existing information already on the internet, seemingly without having the capacity to judge if that information is correct or not. The lazy or uninformed use the AI content, without knowing enough to spot the inaccuracies, and it winds up again in a document on the internet somewhere, to be drawn upon by AI in future queries. It seems like the inaccuracies would get perpetuated and compounded until all you get out of AI is unreliable junk. The problem is that unless the user has a thorough understanding of the subject matter, they can’t spot the inaccuracies.

I have to assume they are trying to do something about it, but based on my attempts to use AI for what I do, anyway (also technical), it doesn’t seem to be working.

Of course I may also be completely misunderstanding how AI actually works.
 
sf fanatic said:
Well there’s nothing like being awakened by your bed shaking and pictures rattling at 1:41 AM. First report was a 5.1, then a 4.9 and finally a 4.6 on the Richter scale. Anything over a 4.0 definitely gets your attention and you just hope it’s going to stop SOON! It did and no damage other than a few frayed nerves. Now for the important stuff, keeping me company two more from across the Pond. Have a steady day folks! 🤞😀
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Earthquakes in your area in the last 24 hours. Looks like the epicenter for that 4.6 was near Santa Cruz. There always seems to be a cluster of microquakes near Clear Lake due to the Clear Lake Volcanic Field. (Queue Jimmy Durante voice "Hot-Cha-Cha-Cha-Cha")

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jc57 said:
Plus you know how ideas that come up from the bottom are usually nixed but any hare-brained scheme that comes from executive levels are implemented with no pushback? Well I can use AI to say "That expensive tool you bought and told us to use? THIS is what it recommends" - so they'll believe it, and because they have bought into it, an AI approved approach will get full consideration. It's not just idiot me, but super-genius AI recommending it.
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I feel like this section of your post is a perfect encapsulation of why AI is proliferating, and why it is a terrible idea, on a practical level, to let it proliferate.

And if you have any questions about how the executive levels could fall for this bull****, then I will refer you to the (peer reviewed) study from Cornell, published February, indicating that the people who are most receptive to "Corporate Bulls****" are the people who make the worst decisions. Researchers studied "The Corporate Bull**** Receptivity Scale" and found that, sure enough, the people who actually buy into the bull**** are literally the people least able to differentiate between meaningless word-salad and reality based statements.

The executive level folks who buy into corporate bull**** are naturally the ideal demographic for AI since they can't differentiate between computer hallucinations and reality.

If you want a non-academese article about the study: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/23/corporate-speak-study

(Edited to star-out profanity. I was using it as that _IS_ the technical term used in the study, but I feel like it doesn't belong on the Porch. No one complained, I just realized I had been swearing and wanted to fix that.)
 
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I believe it. Using the default interactive settings, I have never seen more of a suck-up yes-man than AI. I want factual answers, not incorrect things presented with complete confidence, then when you correct it, it says "Good catch! You are so right to call me out on that! I WAS completely and utterly wrong! You clearly know a lot about this topic". Geez, just shut up. I don't need a calculator with a personality.
 
I just had a large maple tree in my back yard pruned and when I looked at it I was somehow reminded of the haunted trees in the original Snow White. Must just be me.
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Gr8 lunch today, with cake & ice cream for desert.
Birthday of one of the residents today ... her ninty-seventh.
She is much older than I will ever (likely) be ... at least while still counted on the census 😇👍
Apparently, her mum made it to 103. 😳

(no thankee. 71 has more than enough "ow". I need to reach 82. My doctor told me if I didn't, she would kill me. 😰 She too nice to go to prison for murder.)
 
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