I managed to sleep through to five o'clock this morning
which was something of a result. I woke to find Treacle was at the foot of the
bed fast asleep, and seemed to be OK. I let sleeping dogs lie, got up and did
my morning round. I made toast as I do, watched a bit of telly then sparked up
the Internet. And rolled my eyes. People were on the Star Trek Facebook pages
asking what was special about the number 1701. Other people were on the Hitch
Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy page asking why everyone was talking about 42.
More and more Facebook pages devoted to specialist
interests are being overrun by those who don't know the first thing about said
specialist interest. And it is not just Facebook pages... I had an email of
advice on Wherigo geocaches this morning from some chap who has just found his
second one (and only found his first geocache a couple of months ago).
I set off to work. As I drove there was talk about how the
boss of the John Lewis chain was calling for a royal commission to save
UK high streets. Apparently what with more people working from home these
days and many shopping centres in out-of-town locations and the rise of on-line
shopping, fewer and fewer people are going into town centres to squander their
money.
Personally I feel I have to question the entire concept of
"going shopping". If I "go shopping" I've
either got orders from “er indoors TM” to get specific items,
or I'm going to get something that I can't get on-line (having done my
research first). There are those who go shopping because they have nothing
better to do, but the days of wandering to the shops to waste an afternoon
squandering hard-earned cash on random crap I don't want or need are long
behind me, and long behind most people as well. I wonder how long traditional
shops have got left? There will always be a need for food shopping (as it is
perishable), but as for everything else? Amazon have the right idea. Order
it on-line and have it delivered. I can remember the head honcho of "Whatever
Comics" in Canterbury going mail-order-only as having a physical shop
cost him too much money, and that was over twenty years ago.
I got to work - it was rather better than it had been
yesterday. And being on an early start and consequently an early finish was good
too.
I came home, loaded the dogs into the car and we went to the
woods. We had a good walk, but as we went we did meet a couple of normal people
who were out for a walk. With no dogs of their own they were less than polite
about my wolf-pack. There are some people who seem to think that there is
something rather sissy-ish and not at all macho about having small dogs, and
they had words to say. I smiled politely, and resisted the temptation to tell
them to get knotted.
Five minutes from the end of our walk Treacle found a stagnant
ditch in which to wallow. One advantage of small dogs is that there is a lot
less to wash.
With walk walked we came home for that wash. “er indoors
TM” did dinner then went bowling. I ironed shirts whilst
watching a film on
Netflix. T.I.M. is a typical Netflix movie; an excellent movie made with an
incredibly small cast. But it wasn’t an original story… “robot goes psycho”
is a very old theme in sci-fi and sadly I found myself comparing this film’s
T.I.M. with Dean Koontz’s Proteus IV and Asimov’s TN3. T.I.M. didn’t come close
to those who came fifty (or more) years before
And whilst we’re thinking about “robot goes psycho”,
one of the mailing lists I follow (for continuing professional development)
has set a little competition: “Write 50 words or fewer in response to the
following question: How will Artificial Intelligence transform healthcare over
the next 10 years?”
That should keep me occupied for a few minutes…
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