About My Cat, AI, and Interacting with People December 1, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.Tags: AI, cat
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I have a rescue cat. I call her Monica, after my niece. For those of you who have never had a rescue pet, they can be a challenge. Monica spent her first two weeks at home under a bed. I shoved her food and water under the bed, and occasionally got to pet her, if I could reach under the bed far enough.
It took me over a year to connect with Monica. It took her weeks to venture from the bedroom, and she still wouldn’t let me touch her. Over the course of several months, she established a couple of favorite places, and I spent hours trying to reach for her to pet her. All of that is behind us now.
Today, I think I have a special relationship with Monica. I have not done everything right with her, but I think the outcome is special for both of us. Whenever I am home, she hops up onto my chair and settles down right beside me. She’ll stay there for hours. She (mostly) lets me walk up and pet her. While she won’t consent to being held, she and I have connected on a level that I could not have imagined when she was under the bed.
Now, let’s talk about human relationships. They are about three orders or magnitude more complicated than those with a pet. You don’t know why a pet (especially a cat) does what it does, but you do know that their needs are pretty basic in the grand scheme of things. You can make an intelligent guess as to those needs. And with patience, and caring, you can reach a good place.
People are much more complicated. You have no clue as to what your colleague, your friend, your lover, or your spouse has on their mind at any given moment. An innocent conversation may evolve into a life’s revelation. It’s wonderful when this happens. Or it may devolve into a stinking mess. And if it does, it’s not their fault, or yours. It happens, and it’s incumbent on both of you to find the way out. That way out may not be the desired one, but you simply can’t walk away from it.
Where am I going with this? iPhone users apparently love Siri, to the extent that they are willing to treat it as a best friend, and even as a therapist. You may laugh at this, or you may nod in understanding. But people want to treat Siri as someone to converse with, in a nonthreatening way.
I am sorry. In the grand scheme of things, an artificial phone assistant is just that. There is no judgment of you, there is only, as we used to say in psychology, stimulus-response. The voice from your phone is not your friend, and is certainly not your best friend.
A pet, especially a difficult pet, is kind of the next level up. I have been told by the rescue shelter woman that some people keep cats for two or three days, and if it’s not what they expect in interactions, they return them to the shelter.
That is wrong, in a fundamental sense. You take on a serious responsibility with a pet, and to give up on that responsibility after a few days is simply a copout. No, worse than a copout, a broken promise. You didn’t really want a pet, a companion; you wanted a fluffy toy to hold. You have not accepted the shared obligation, that the pet would attempt to be a part of your life, to the best of its ability, and that you would do the same.
Now let’s move on to people. You can’t return people to the shelter if they don’t interact the way you want them to. But you can turn away from them. In a few rare cases, that may be the right choice.
But there is something that brought you to that person to begin with. It might be work, or leisure, or a shared interest, or affection. But you can’t turn your back on something you have started.
Sure I can, I hear you say. I do it all the time. I meet someone, enjoy talking to them for a time, then move on. I still text them occasionally, but that’s about it. I can’t take them face to face.
But people are more than just numbers in your smartphone. You take on an even more serious responsibility when you interact with another person. Conversation can be threatening. But if nothing else, it is cathartic.
How can I summarize this? Siri is not, and will never be, your friend. If you think of it as that, you need to rethink your whole life.
Here’s What Universities Should be Telling Their Students November 29, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
Apparently we have yet another example of sports spectators behaving badly in cheering against another team, with racist comments designed to, well, I don’t know what they are designed to do except to insult and put down. And yet another.
I don’t get any of this woke, CRT, alternative facts, or any other type of ideology that may or may not be making the rounds in schools today. But there are unequivocal and universal messages that in a world of confrontation, absolutes, and well, still more confrontation that we must respect and abide by.
Today we face increasing denigration of others based on not what or how they think, but on who they are and what you think they represent. You are welcome to disagree with other people. You are even welcome not to like other people, although you may want to talk to them before coming to that conclusion.
But you will respect them, as fellow human beings on a similar life trajectory. Their reality is just as valid as yours. They are trying to make their way through life, just like you.
If you cannot, you are the one that is less than human, because you have put it upon yourself to treat others less than that.
This is not hard, folks. Simply, if we don’t care about others, we don’t care about ourselves. That’s what you are really telling the world.
My Father Kept a Book November 27, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
I’m betting (pun intended) that the vast majority of you don’t know what that means. It means he was a bookie. He ran illegal numbers. Every weekday afternoon at 4:30, my mother computed the Number, which was based on some variation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and number of shares traded. This was back when virtually all gambling was illegal.
And he was by no means the only one. Most of the blue collar people I knew growing up were involved in the numbers racket in some way or the other. Because there was money involved, it was occasionally dangerous; yes, there was such a thing as the organized mob (although it wasn’t so organized).
Today, gambling is an integral part of our lives. In 1986, as a result of an agreement between the government and Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in Connecticut resulted in a certain level of legal autonomy and the opening of what became the Foxwoods Casino. Other Native American tribes followed suit, and there are a number of casinos on Native lands that are at least affiliated with tribes (there is one near me, just north of Boston – the Encore).
More generally, legalized gambling started with Powerball (1992) and other state-run lotteries. Legalized betting in general occurred by exception, in Nevada and Atlantic City, oddly. In 2018 the Supreme Court ruled to make sports betting legal, and a number of states have developed regulations to implement the Supreme Court ruling. Today, you can legally bet on just about anything in the United States.
Many decry the seeming loss of morals that legalized gambling seems to portend, as well as the potential to cause economic hardship. I have some sympathy for that argument. However, much gambling has occurred well before it was legal. It’s not clear if any more is occurring today, although it is certainly much more visible.
To be clear, I am by education and inclination an applied mathematician. I don’t gamble, because I know my odds intimately. But I don’t mind legal gambling; I consider it a tax that I don’t have to pay, and I don’t.
How Easy Is It to Disappear? October 20, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture, Uncategorized.Tags: Grid, Reacher
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After weeks of searching for Brian Laundrie, it seems that the authorities may have found his body in a nature reserve in Florida. While I am not following this story, the headline made me ask how easy (difficult) it might be to disappear in the modern world. In one of my novels, the protagonist, Jack Pryor, successfully covers his tracks for almost a week before the bad guys find him. After all, many of us have given idle thoughts to dropping off of the grid, at least for a little while.
So I did some research into this for my story. Jack’s apartment was blown up, and he was intentionally disavowed by the government, and forced to live by his wits. He’s a computer guy, so he needed to track down the bad guys online, which made it more difficult.
He was helped by a healthy paranoia, a lot of smarts, adequate cash, and a friend who provided him with someone else’s passport, driver’s license, and credit card. He got on the Internet by breaking into an absent friend’s house, and by recognizing that while his apartment was destroyed, the wireless router still worked. He could protect his online presence using different access points and VPNs for a while, but a concerted effort would find him within a couple of days.
Without the false ID, it would be impossible to rent a car or travel by commercial airliner today. You can no longer use cash for those sorts of transactions. He rented an AirBNB for a week, and stayed there two nights, until the check cleared the bank. He also used the false passport and credit card to travel to Europe to track down his adversaries, and reserved three hotels in the same city, moving rapidly between them.
So in the modern world, this is pretty much impossible without an alter ego, and the documentation to back it up. Like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, you might find a budget hotel and cut a cash deal with the desk clerk for one night, but that’s about it. Reacher has an ATM card for cash withdrawals; he used to carry an expired passport for ID, but that doesn’t work any more. He stays undiscovered mostly by staying constantly on the move, often hitchhiking, even in this day and age.
If you’re an outdoorsman, you might be able to live off the land, using a tent and paying cash for your food. There are tales of people doing that in the mountains for a year or more. But the minute you use an ATM or credit card, you are found. And don’t even think about a phone, cell or landline.
And because the world seems to want to go to cashless systems, you will be found even more quickly in all likelihood. I personally like to use cash for most transactions, because I am cognizant that my credit card purchase will go into a database, where I will get spammed by various offers. But that only delays the inevitable.
If you want to live your life in civilization, you cannot do so anonymously. Most people don’t care, and are happy to provide far more personal information than they receive in convenience. I try to weigh most decisions, not because I want to step off of the grid, but because I think it’s a daily tradeoff.
MightyFine October 5, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
I don’t think “Hawkeye” Pierce ever said that in the series, but it was a staple in the original book. And while I live next door to Maine, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone actually say it. But it defines a group of people that I would like to call out.
Yesterday afternoon I posted word on LinkedIn of a new role I had acquired. By midnight I had twenty responses. Seventeen came from people that I worked with at Compuware, 20 years ago. Three of those former colleagues hailed from our EMEA office, and I met them perhaps once or twice.
That’s really pretty incredible, that after 20 years, so many of my former colleagues not only remembered me, but were thoughtful enough to congratulate me and ask how life was going. I cannot tell you how touched I was.
Compuware constructed a great distributed products company (services not so much) with people who were truly special. Then they killed it. I would work with this same team again in a heartbeat, but that time has passed. I don’t want to name names publicly, but you know who you are, and thank you for being who you are.
I Love What America Can Become September 22, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
Yes, another off-topic post. But I don’t mind my views and personalities to come out on occasion.
I have had an interesting ride in these 60-odd years. I have seen much in that time, and my own attitudes have changed as I understand more. I grew up in a blue collar union household, and railed against it, primarily because I fervently believed that pay and promotions shouldn’t be defined strictly by seniority.
Well, I got educated, and educated some more (three masters degrees and some PhD work), and did reasonably well for myself. But as I got older, I found my thoughts drifting back toward those blue collar roots. There was significant upheaval in the world of work; I tell those who serve me that they work for a living, possibly unlike me.
I think we need the fresh ideas and perspectives that immigrants bring. My own grandparents came through Ellis Island, and while they were largely dirt farmers and coal miners, their children moved on to significant contributors to society and the economy. I don’t care where they come from; our culture will help them achieve the greatness that is almost certainly within them.
So back to America. I am unhappy that we can’t treat all men and women equally, and there seems to be a significant faction that wants America to become a redux of the Donna Reed Show, or Leave it to Beaver. Those times are long gone, and while they reflected society at the time, society has changed. I think perhaps for the better, because we cannot stay stagnant. We will continue to change, whether we want to or not.
I sometimes despair that we won’t overcome those 1950s attitudes. I have good friends, intelligent and thoughtful friends, whose world view is firmly rooted in that era. There seem to be others who have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of that era.
I look forward to the surprises that the future holds. I can’t wait.
Not Cut and Dried September 18, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.Tags: General Milley, Posse Comitatus
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Not at all on topic for me, but sometimes you just have something to say.
I’ve been reading about how Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley took it upon himself to inset himself into the nuclear chain of command during the last weeks of the Trump presidency. Many seem aghast that a military officer would potentially usurp the powers which are the primary (though for various reasons not sole) prerogative of the President.
Many years ago, when I was reading the Tom Clancy novels, longtime Clancy protagonist Jack Ryan served briefly as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in The Sum of All Fears. A suitcase nuclear weapon had been detonated in the US, and the President demanded retaliation. In a Cabinet meeting, Ryan was the only one with the authority to verify that order, and refused. “Give me a name or an organization that is responsible, and I will take them out,” he said (approximately). “But I will not kill a hundred million people because you’re upset.” Now, this was fiction, and Ryan was a civilian at the time, but had been a Marine officer earlier in his career, and had to be well aware of the consequences of his refusal.
I have been a military officer, albeit not a very good one. Yet any thoughtful military member spends some time thinking about their response if they receive an illegal order from a superior. Granted, whether or not any given order is illegal is highly ambiguous, and refusing an order that is later deemed legal is a criminal offense (in wartime, a summary offense). It is up to us as individuals to determine whether we can carry out such an order, and there is no answer that doesn’t have the strong potential to make us criminals. Thanks to Nazi Germany, “I was just following orders” is not a defense.
Now, I don’t know General Milley or his state of mind at all, and I was deeply disturbed at his striding in camo mufti alongside Trump on June 1, 2020 as the police and National Guard gassed peaceful protesters so Trump could have a photo op at Lafayette Square. His doing so provided tacit but clear support of any military intervention in a peaceful protest. It’s not at all clear to me that Milley has since atoned for that unconscionable act, and I don’t know his motivations in making himself a part of the nuclear chain of command, if in fact that’s the way it happened.
And I am a strong believer in the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the ability of leadership to use military forces in domestic law enforcement. In fact, I would take it a step further and absolutely prohibit the use of the military in such actions. I offer two reasons. First, military members are highly trained in warfighting, not law enforcement, and will likely make serious mistakes if used in that capacity (see the Kent State Massacre). Second, we have seen too many situations around the world where national leaders have called out their own military to suppress their citizens. It is a bad look, and it never ends well.
I will say two things regarding General Milley, however. First, in the military the higher your rank, the more your decisions have consequences. Second, there is no correct answer, and however he may have acted, he could have found himself in serious trouble.
So assuming that this tale is true, I do approve of his decision. No one wants war less than the military, who are the ones putting their lives on the line (certainly not the politicians). The fact that war is occasionally necessary is an unfortunate byproduct of the many different motivations of people around the world. The US nuclear arsenal is supposed to be a deterrent against nuclear attack by other aggressors (well, that’s somewhat ambiguous too), rather than a deadly cudgel to be used at the whim of a single person. There should always be someone in the chain of command with second thoughts.
About the Tide of History September 16, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Education, Uncategorized.Tags: 9/11, current events, History
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This story starts about 20 years ago, when my manager at the time Shari Zedeck mentioned that her daughter had entered and won a statewide school history competition, where she was required to research and write about a significant event in history.
She chose to write about Watergate, and by all accounts did a really good job of it. My immediate and visceral response was that Watergate wasn’t history, it was current events. After all, while I was a teen, I remember it well. But it made me ponder on just what history means, an idea that I carried forward into my most recent blog post.
The answer is that if you had a front row seat, it wasn’t history.
So what did I have a front row seat to? November 22, 1963, I was in the first grade at Johnson Street Elementary School, and we were abruptly sent home from school about half an hour early, without explanation. I got home to find my mother in crying in front of the TV. “They killed him.” (I hope you know who).
So the mid-late 1960s, and everything beyond, I at least know second-hand through the news (and the news is a separate discussion). None of this seems like history to me, even if I had to read about it in the newspapers (Pittsburgh Press and Beaver County Times).
Yet one news source made the point that the soldiers killed in the suicide bombing at Kabul Airport were at best babies on 9/11. To them, 9/11 was something that they learned about in school. There couldn’t have been any direct memories.
So what is history? It’s actually a moving target, depending on your perspective of the events in question. The distinction may well be an artificial one, except that current events tend to shape your life, and history is more or less academic. Was my outlook and attitudes shaped by the assassinations and race riots of the 1960s, duck and cover in elementary school (look it up), the Vietnam War in the early 1970s, the gas lines later in the 1970s, and so on? I think so.
Current events take on a certain personal point of view. I wanted to fly, soloed the day after my 16th birthday, was in Junior ROTC in high school, ROTC in college, an Air Force officer for six years. My vision prevented me from being a pilot, but I was affiliated with the military for more than a decade. The Vietnam War, Grenada (bet you don’t remember that one), and Beirut gave me qualified respect for those who served, while recognizing that our policy makers were not by any means perfect.
History does not have a personal perspective; even if I’ve visited historical locations, the events surrounding them remain removed from my experience. That doesn’t make them any less real, but it does mean that they don’t have the same impact.
So take advantage of the current events in your lifetime. I have lived in interesting times, which is both a blessing and a curse.
Cutting Edge Computing 