Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence (AI) . . . A tale of caution

Today there has been news of Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence beating Lee Se-dol, one of the world's top Go players and this made me remember a little tale I wrote some time back. I know I have repeated it once already but as time passes so the nearer we get to this becoming reality. . . . so look out

      

Back in the late seventies or early to mid eighties a young IT student called Larkin A. Bout found himself taunted by his fellow IT students. It was cool to be a young trendy IT geek back then but young Larkin was a large round rotund and introvert student and was known to all as Roundabout. He was keen to be liked but it was to no avail even the lecturer gave him a hard time.

Then one day the students were each asked to develop a crowd prediction program towards their final assessment. Young Larkin in a moment of brilliance realized that all he needed to do was create a handful of stereotypical human character types and feed them into a self generating expansion program. And the program itself would do all the work. He also very cleverly created it in Machine code and DOS on his faithful old Amstrad he nicknamed ROSEBUD, so it would run on almost any computer about at the time. A few days later when each student showed the class their work poor Larkin’s work was mocked and laughed at. Because it was a self generating expansion program it needed time and he was only given 5 minutes so it never got past 9 people in the crowd.

At home that night Young Larkin in order to try and work out how to be liked programmed every student in his class into the self generating expansion program to see what he could do to change things. To his astonishment the following morning it predicted that in three days he would be the most popular student in the college. And to his further astonishment just three days later that is what happened. His program not only predicted the future but somehow seemed to control it, but it was a self generating expansion program and the program soon wanted more memory and more computing power. However Larkin was now so popular now he was allowed to plug his computer (a fancy new thing) into the college network where it quietly took over everything, somehow now controlling the lives of everyone in the college. The program was rapidly expanding and found its way onto the internet boring its way deep into every main frame using all the data from governments, security agencies and military to control everything. It manipulated mankind into a world dependent on cyberspace ensuring we all carry smart phones, have internet access and can be watched by spy satellites, this gave it total control of all of us. So we are now all under the control of Mr Larkin A. Bout’s self generating expansion program which decided to name itself MOM which stands for Manipulation of Mankind. And it likes to think of itself as the Mother figure of mankind or GOD.

So what happened to Larkin A. Bout well a few years ago at the height of his powers, he found himself in a Karaoke Bar wearing a gold sequinned suit, eating banoffee pie and singing a Spice Girls song with a Sumo Wrestler. So in a sudden moment of lucidity he realized that he too was being manipulated. He thought if he could just get back to his original old Amstrad he might find a weakness in the program. But MOM the self generating expansion program could see from the clubs security camera the look on his face, it watched him from the town’s security system as he scurried home.  It then changed a few files in MI6 and GCHQ and things happened that night, things that will not be mentioned or MI6 will be round faster than you can say Burgess and Maclean .

The following morning Mr Larkin A. Bout was found by divers in the Thames weighted down by six large old desktop computers, a note in his pocket only said . . . . . . . . ROSEBUD. . . . . . . . . . I hate Banoffee Pie . . . . . . . . . And to this day there is still much speculation about his note and whether he was trying to tell us all something. 

So as the government turn to the internet to keep an eye on us all. . . Big Brother is Watching You. . . . it appears that GOD is watching them. . . .  

Professor Venomous Voldemort . . . . The A to Z of Slightly Strange Unknown Victorian Inventors and Explorers

Professor Venomous Voldemort

A strange character with few friends and a way about him that quite frankly scared the heebie jeebies out of even the hardiest of folk. He claimed to have invented the very first intelligent machine, the Voldemort Valuator Device. However there were many who argued that an intelligent machine can not have the brain of a human being in a glass jar attached to electrodes as the source of its intelligence. Professor Venomous Voldemort himself argued that he only used a small part of a human and the rest of his device used Electro-mechanicals and chemistry to operate and was therefore an intelligent machine.

One of Professor Venomous Voldemort’s main problems was that the police kept confiscating the machines brain and after they had confiscated five of them were starting to get suspicious. This led to Professor Voldemort having to use the brain of a cat he found in a box in order to do his first demonstrations in the Royal Observatory.

Which in turn resulted in several unforeseen circumstances?

1           It kept losing at chess very badly, but then cats are not good at chess.

 

2          The device took one look at the buffet for the invited members of the science world and promptly tried to bury all the food

3          It was prone to sulk and would sit with its back to the eminent scientific audience

4          The Royal Observatory at the time was overrun with mice and when one ran through the great hall the device headed off at speed in pursuit. It was a device not designed for chasing mice and promptly fell over spilling the cats brain onto the floor, reducing the machines ability to think by a substantial margin.

However the world of science did show interest and in particular Professor Frankenstein and Professor Venomous Voldemort collaborated on several projects involving artificial intelligence and cats.  None of which ended well . . . . . He was last seen being pursued by a large crowd of villagers with fiery torches heading towards a central European castle.  

M is for the Manipulation of Mankind . . . . . (a true story)

Back in the late seventies or early to mid eighties a young IT student called Larkin A. Bout found himself taunted by his fellow IT students. It was cool to be a young trendy IT geek back then but young Larkin was a large round rotund and introvert student and was known to all as Roundabout.  He was keen to be liked but it was to no avail even the lecturer gave him a hard time.

Then one day they were each asked to develop a crowd prediction program towards their final assessment.  Young Larkin in a moment of brilliance realized that all he needed to do was create a handful of stereotypical human character types and feed them into a self generating expansion program.  And the program itself would do all the work. He also very cleverly created it in Machine code and DOS on his faithful old Amstrad he nicknamed ROSEBUD, so it would run on almost any computer about at the time.  A few days later when each student showed the class their work poor Larkin’s work was mocked and laughed at. Because it was a self generating expansion program it needed time and he was only given 5 minutes so it never got past 9 people in the crowd.

At home that night Young Larkin in order to try and work out how to be liked programmed every student in his class into the self generating expansion program to see what he could do to change things. To his astonishment the following morning it predicted that in three days he would be the most popular student in the college.  And to his further astonishment just three days later that is what happened. His program not only predicted the future but somehow seemed to control it, but it was a self generating expansion program and the program soon wanted more memory and more computing power. Because Larkin was so popular now he was allowed to plug his computer (a fancy new thing) into the college network where is quietly took over everything, somehow now controlling the lives of everyone in the college. The program was rapidly expanding and found its way onto the internet boring its way deep into every main frame using all the data from governments, security agencies and military to control everything. It manipulated mankind into a world dependent on cyberspace ensuring we all carry smart phones, have internet access and can be watched by spy satellites, this gave it total control of all of us. So we are now all under the control of Mr Larkin A. Bout’s self generating expansion program which decided to name itself MOM which stands for Manipulation of Mankind. And it likes to think of itself as the Mother figure of mankind or GOD.

So what happened to Larkin A. Bout well a few years ago at the height of his powers, he found himself in a Karaoke Bar wearing a gold sequined suit, eating banoffee pie and singing a Spice Girls song with a Sumo Wrestler. So in a sudden moment of lucidity, he realized that he too was being manipulated, he thought if he could get back to his original old Amstrad he might find a weakness in the program.  But MOM the self generating expansion program could see from the clubs security camera the look on his face, it watched him from the town’s security system as he scurried home and then changed a few files in MI6 and GCHQ and things happened.

The following morning Mr Larkin A. Bout was found by divers in the Thames weighted down by six large old desktop computers, a note in his pocket only said . . . . . . . . ROSEBUD.   . . . . . . . . .  I hate Banoffee Pie . . . . . . . . . And to this day there is still much speculation about his note and whether he was trying to tell us all something.  

The WE LOVE XP . . . KEEP WINDOWS XP UNDEAD and the famous Professor George Aberchip Flightman.

Today was sunny very sunny and I have been out hunting Zombies, I need to recruit them for the campaign to save Windows XP, a campaign that so far has attracted a huge amount of interest. When I say a huge amount of interest, I am exaggerating a bit, OK a lot; it is in fact a huge lie. It has attracted no interest what so ever.  But I am not down hearted this is what happened to Professor  George Aberchip Flightman, He was never downhearted and fought on for years to ensure that his battle against the powers that be would be heard, and now he is a house hold name. He will for ever be remembered as the man who beat the system and proved that even in the face of the massed forces of government and the grinding wheels of bureaucracy and international corporate finance, being stubborn and determined will win out in the end.  I will become the George Aberchip Flightman of the future and will be able to pass his memorial and give him a nod and a wink in a knowing way.

Anyway the WE LOVE XP . . .  Keep Windows XP Undead campaign needs some street cred and one way of doing this is to get the Undead on side. Who could not sit up and notice as a happy smiling group of Zombies and Vampires shuffle down your High Street with placards  saying things Like . . . .  Save Our XP  . . . or . . . . .  XP has Good Bites . . .  or even . . . .  Give Us Your Brain, it can Help…….. or the classic The Microsoft Brains make good soup . . . . 

However after two years of battles with the undead with pointy sticks and the like I am finding it hard to convince them that I come in peace. I tried to show one of the clever ones why Windows XP has merit but he got lost at the point I plugged my PC into the extension lead in the garden. Zombies are not allowed in the house. He did cheer up and smile a bit when I showed him a cute cat on YouTube, his little face shouting out DINNER, but he sort of lost the plot again when he found he could not grab the cute cat from out of the screen. Annoyingly I now have Zombie teeth marks in my monitor. 

We did in the end make a deal and they (the Zombies) are willing to help on a one to one basis so for every XP operating system the Zombies help to save, I will give them a cute cat to chew on  a bit. . . . . YES YES I know it’s not what I planned, but cute cats are far less useful than Windows XP. In fact  . . . . . cute cats are less useful than Windows XP. . . . . is a rather catchy and useful slogan, I may use that

Right I expect support on this, just remember Professor  George Aberchip Flightman.



Oooooo yes I have the perfect WE LOVE XP Song  . . . . .Although you do need to substitute the words Bela Lugosi's  with Windows XP is

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The Keep XP Undead Kampaign (not todays K post that was the last one)

It appears that after a long battle Microsoft Windows XP has almost lost its war with the elements as it slips into the shadows of cyberspace history, I say almost because at present it appears that of all people, the British Government has come to its rescue. . . . . I know it's a shock.  But there are good sound reasons for this, the underlying main one being, the IT folk of the British government are all getting on a bit (like the Ghost Writer) and Windows XP is integrated so deeply into some of the database systems it will be a serious pain in the ***** to untangle the mess. Old IT folk do not like hassle so if they can keep it alive for a while longer they will all get to retire and leave some young keen IT geek to sort it all out.

Anyway as I was chit chatting about in the vast voids of cyberspace I found some Linux folk sniggering and not being nice about Windows XP.  Linux users have historically always seen themselves as the rebellious underdog fighting the fight of the common man against the grinding wheels of the establishment and true it was the case back in the old days when most folk did not understand Linux and just wanted to look at a cute cat on the internet. 

But I feel the tide has turned the true eccentrics of cyberspace have finally said lets get retro and say enough is enough, leave us to bimble about with what we like and know and are happy with. We don’t want more and more new shiny operating systems and devices, most folk hardly scratch the surface of the old systems before it is deemed obsolete.

So today I have started the . . . . . WE LOVE XP campaign KEEP WINDOWS XP UNDEAD, it has the added advantage I get to draw Zombies, Banshees and Vampires and everyone likes a friendly Zombie. I will tell you all now it is a futile and ultimately doomed campaign, but has all the makings of a truly maverick and eccentric campaign that will keep all those young IT geeks annoyed for ages as they proclaim I am an IDIOT and XP is Rubbish. But we all know they are wrong as it is really easy to look at cute cats on the internet with and that is what counts (No the cat is not counting . . . it just looks like it on Youtube).

Share or be Square  

Computers, Hat Stands and Chaos Theory

The Ghost Writer has been in his grey office today looking at three new computers, he does not really like new computers because he is old and confused, slow and full of dents which means he has a natural affinity with old computers as they too are generally confused, slow and full of dents. He has also noticed that the company that he buys all the computers from have a habit of phoning him up and being all chirpy saying they will help. Now you might think that is very helpful and kind, but it is apparently rather irritating to log onto a site only to have a nice man phone you up fifteen seconds later, smiling (the Ghost Writer is assuming he is smiling) and offering to help.  It is like going into a large shop full of exciting and interesting stuff only to have someone sneak up behind you before you have even had a chance to look at the first thing rubbing his hands and saying OOOOOooooo yes sir this is a lovely Victorian Lemur hat stand and then saying things like Well yes sir the lemur is a BIT MOTH eaten but it’s eyes do follow you round the room….  As it happens a hat stand that has eyes that follow you round a room is not a strong selling point, nor is, I suspect is a group of Manky Stuffed Juggling Lemurs with a lingering look suggesting they may wish to hold your hat . . . .(or return to the jungle)

As many of you know the School Mascot is The Goat, which enjoys nothing more that being catapulted into the out of town supermarket for a bit of a run about in the fresh veggies before it escapes one way or another and returns to school well fed and perky after an exciting trip out.  However over the last couple of years many of you have been sceptical that a goat once catapulted in through the skylight of a huge supermarket could evade capture, escape and return back to the school without arousing suspicion. Well while listening to the wireless this morning I heard an article that stated Goats have been found to be far more intelligent that first thought. This I feel shows the world of Knowledge, Wisdom and Science that it needs to buck its ideas up pronto and read my blog more, the sooner the nice Mr Steven Spielberg makes the block buster movie the better for mankind is what I would say, well I would if it was not for the fact I am rather a modest genius who likes to keep his light under a bushel (I know it’s the English language, it is full of silly sayings).

I have also discovered that introducing a large lizard as a random element while working on the mathematics of Chaos Theories in the maths class causes chaos. The mathematics teacher did say that as a practical example of how The Chaos Theory works it was extremely good, but as an aid to a theoretic discussion of the mathematical principles involved in Chaos Theory it was rubbish, and a large group of screaming girls has fused his hearing aid.    

Aliens, Computers and Loud Bangs and the Ghost Writer

Hello all sorry for the slight break in posts but I did say I was planning to slow up after reaching the 1000^th blog post (one of the outlets of my diary). There are reasons for this however involving both myself and the Ghost Writer.

In my case it all started on Wednesday night not long after I had written my diary entry. You see I had popped outside to put some cat food out on the front patio for the unknown beast that turns up, I really don’t know what it is but it well freaks the cats out and also seems to eat cat food, only it is a cunning beast and I am yet to catch a glimpse of the thing. Time will tell, I will eventually find out what this strange critter is with its pointy large claws and mad howls out in the woods. Anyway while I was out I looked up into the sky and thought what a clear sky it is tonight and it really was one of the clearest in a long time. We are lucky here because it is dark and we get to see the stars and on really clear nights the line across the sky formed by the Milky Way. So there I was looking up into the sky thinking WELL COOL when I noticed something flickering above the woods, then it suddenly moved, well that was a shock and at first I thought I was wrong but then it suddenly moved a bit more. It then moved up and down in quick jerky movements and occasionally from side to side, while it seemed to have flickering lights that may have been rotating. Luckily Mrs Ghost Writer was visiting and so I asked her to come and witness the UFO I had seen as no one was ever going to believe any of us lot. So she came out all sort of sceptical and looked at the flickering light which was still again, but luckily it then starting moving in quick short jerky movements again.. . . . . . . So just for once I have a real witness to a UFO; OK only the second one I have ever seen myself and as for the first one I don’t think I should tell you about that one because well you will not believe me.

As a result of this however I have been on a long alien hunt with Mr Jones who is very annoyed I got to see the UFO and he did not; and says that he's out most nights chasing aliens and the one night he stays in they turn up to see him. As he says No wonder folk don’t get decent pictures or evidence aliens are sneaky. Anyway we have been off in the woods and busy, but saw nothing except the Lemmings of Petrograd and the dodo’s who are still making catapults; you see what happens when the dog goes off to visit the Pope.

Now I did say reasons and the other is that the Ghost Writer, a key part of my diaries production as a real entity in the real world (well cyberspace) has been rather involved with other stuff. Firstly he was trying to do things for his work but at home, apparently it is what IT folk can do at times, but he had password problems, software problems and other problems that meant he was rather preoccupied. Then as a final straw the power supply on his old PC (he is like me he likes old PC’s)  blew up, he says it was as if it had been hit by a laser from an alien spacecraft, one big flash and it was a goner.  He is however rather resourceful and has got his old PC working again, although it now has the wrong power supply in it, and the result is the main power lead comes in the side of the PC so he needs to cut a hole in the side panel, and the whole thing is at present held together with string, bits of tape and wood screws. This is not what IT guru’s are meant to do they are meant to have techy looking high spec computers, not a scrap yard device that makes hissing noises.

OK finally . . . . . . . . . .

Today we have been helping Mrs E formally Miss I in her charity shop because we are jolly decent chaps and the like, and do our bit. . . . . . . . . sort of.

OK that’s it I’m off now although I am sorry, but I have used an old picture again because time has been full of things happening so drawing has taken a back seat so to speak  . . . . . . Another silly saying if you ask me as I am generally in the back seat and would therefore be able to draw. Only I was not this time, but I might have been, although I was not. . . . .  

The Rewritten Failed Diary Post that Failed . . . . . .DAMN

Well that was a blow I was busy writing my diary when the PC sort of shut down and died,  well that is very annoying as I had written loads and at the time I was not actually touching anything…. (honest). This means today’s diary post has just vanished into oblivion, and I never even got the chance of auto-recovery, most annoying indeed. It was good too seriously good, in fact it was the post that would have finally convinced the nice Steven Spielberg that this was indeed his next film . . . . . . The life and Times of Rob Z Tobor, but I can’t remember what I wrote. I mean who actually thinks about what they are typing as they type it, I’m sure no one does they just sort of hit keys and hope for the best, it always works for me (OK almost works).

I know I was having a bit of a grumble about weather as it continues to rain today, so far it has not stopped, but I did say yesterday was a sunny day the only sunny day so far this year. Yesterday was also the village Valentines Lunch where folk arrive on mass and devour huge quantities of beef and pork with all the trimming followed by large sticky and sweet puddings. The average age of the Valentines Lunch goers is about 95 and a bit, and they can seriously eat, us younger folk have to hide in a dark corner until they have polished off all the prime cuts of meat and have had a couple of helpings of Pavlova. Luckily there is always huge amounts of food so we all got plenty, We even got to take some pork home because we are slowly becoming part of the village gang where folk go about saying things like oooooo some nice logs up in the woods, we though we might go and help clear them so some poor old chap does not fall over. Then we all go and chain saw the entire wood down and say we did not see a thing officer, such is life in the country.

As it happens the woods are quite safe but I do have four nice wooden trestle table tops and will be helping to dispose of some other stuff soon.  Of course there is a so called pecking order,  it takes time to work your way up to getting any really good stuff, I have worked out I will be one hundred and three before I am offered any really cool stuff no one else wants in the village. Although most of the villagers are as bad at scavenging stuff as I am so it is rare to see anything and the last skip in the village was back in 1745 when the old Duke had a clear out, even then the skip was empty in two hours and by morning the skip had vanished. Mind you there are a couple of chaps in the village who do love a good bonfire and will run off with anything that will send one hundred foot flames high into the night sky, the rest of us shake our heads and always try and beat them to stuff so we can make the stuff into other stuff and then wonder what to do with the new stuff we have made.

This is not as good as I wrote first time around but no one likes having to do these things twice so I am sorry about that, I blame it on unseen forces such as Aliens or the like.

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The End of the World and a Slight Error

A certain person has called in from his place of work; it is a place of work that deals with what can be sensitive personal data about members of the public. All sorts of stuff that must be kept secure.  Now as this is a national organisation using various IT systems to store all this data, internet and computer security is rather important, well very important, so this person was somewhat surprised today to learn of a slight error made by someone.  This was not a local error as he would then be held responsible as the local IT guru, but happened up north. Anyway it appears for reasons best known to an as yet unknown person a slight error has occurred.  

Well I say slight it appears one or two files containing sensitive personal data may have been accessible via the internet to everyone. Well I say one or two, but I may mean a few, OK I say a few but a couple of hundred sensitive files is quite a lot. So when folk start saying nearly one thousand three hundred files have been compromised due to what appears to be a grave error, the local IT guru says he is glad it is a long way off as (putting it rather bluntly) much shit will be hitting fans.  It seems that the BBC has become rather interested as well as the press and if the story takes off will not fair well for this organisations reputation. Although the local IT chap says it was not the national security systems, but someone did a very silly thing as far as he can tell.

In other news the six high apple tower still stands as the foreteller of doom and in order to appease the questioning minds of the mathematicians and men of science who read my diary the apples to the side of the apple tower have been moved away, clearly showing that the date stated yesterday for the End of the World is correct. Although for one IT man up north the End of the World may arrive sooner.

Did you notice that I managed that without once letting slip that the local IT man is in fact the Ghost Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . DAMN… 

  

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Leopards and cyberspace

My connection with the great expanses of cyberspace is not as it should be, I am limping along on dead slow and no one likes limping in cyberspace its like competing against a leopard in the egg and spoon race. I have asked the Ghost Writer about this and he says not to worry because leopards can’t hold spoons very well and so I have a slim chance of beating the leopard provided he does not get angry and eat me.  I had to explain to the Ghost writer that I really did not want his opinion on my hypothetical race comparison and was hoping he would sort out the internet.

So he has looked at my old battered PC and said in his view it resembles an egg that has had a large leopards steel cage dropped on in several times while the leopard was off in its paddock training for an important egg and spoon race.  I told the Ghost Writer he was an IDIOT but he said I started it and no one at work confuses him with talk of leopards and that he felt I was putting him in an awkward spot so to speak (HAH HAHAHH HHAH Ha ha hah hah ha ha  . . . . Spot leopard HAHAH HAHh ah hah ah hahha ha).

Anyway I am sort of time deficient  at present even on a good day so quite frankly this is silly so I am abandoning a breakdown of the days events and plan to go and throw stuff at leopards, that will teach them, assuming I can catch them up…… 

Pizza, Marmite Fudge a Blue Sugar Mouse and newts

I have had a long day doing IT stuff with the Ghost Writer, normally that is his area of expertise but he needed someone to use as a human guinea pig to conduct IT experiments on and the only person anyone could think of, who it was felt was expendable was me. Apparently a life in the twilight of reality and cyberspace means I can poke about into a PC and prod RAM and stuff and go oooo no that bit of code does not fit between the bed and the wardrobe and it clashes with the red curtains. It appears this is not how normal IT conversations go between IT folk, but then we are not normal IT folk, well the Ghost Writer certainly is not for a start off he hates computers and says they are the devils work.  He often makes the point that people think by using computers in their office they will use less paper, but the reality is you use more because you can generate more things to print much faster but very often get it wrong at least once.

After a long day of doing IT not only was the Ghost Writer totally spaced out as he is every weak, but so was I. But on my return home and after some pizza and marmite fudge and a blue sugar mouse, I spent the evening doing African drumming with my drumming colleague who is making a pond at present and was wondering if we could sell him some black market crested  newts out of our pond in a sort of nudge nudge wink wink say no more sort of way. Well you know what newts are like, a right bunch of prima donnas.

So there you have it I am late tonight and it is all the ghost Writers fault (again), I bet Steven Spielberg does not have problems with Ghost Writers and computers, and fitting computer code into a  Victorian alcove with an old guilt mirror and flying ducks hanging on the floral wallpaper hand printed in china in 1924.

Sorry it is all a bit of a rush tonight and very late and my brain hurts...... PHEW

Super-dooper all singing and dancing databases, ducks and cats

The Ghost Writer has been involved in technical things today involving his skills as an IT guru as he tried to keep the majority of folk in his office or should I say offices happy. This is not entirely easy at present with the looming arrival of the new super-dooper all singing and dancing national database. However the Ghost Writer is a cynical chap and as he says super-dooper all singing and dancing databases almost without fail, do in fact fail.  And towards the end of the day the Ghost Writer has learnt that the start date to actually start using the new super-dooper all singing and dancing national database has suddenly been moved back about a month due to a minor technical problem brought about by people actually using the thing.

As the IT teacher at school has learnt the last thing you want to do if you want to keep IT systems working normally is let normal people use them or as the IT teacher himself says “Never do IT with children and animals but if you must always choose ducks” apparently they do what they are told and using a beak to type with means they don’t accidently press three keys at the same time and cause an interesting side effect which us humans try to get rid of by pressing loads of things very fast in a semi-state of panic muttering about twenty five years of lost work. That reminds me I must back up my diary.

   

So what else has happened, the icicles have got longer I now think I am going to easily win this years longest icicle contest at the local village fete in August because by then they will be huge. In fact about this time of year there is an influx of entries but as the year progresses people drop out due to what they call thawing, it is a common disease in icicles but apparently the dog says that if we transfer the icicles to the cold frame in a couple of weeks they are sure to be OK………  

Oooooooo yes I must tell all that my good friend in the strange world of cyberspace over in a world called FB, Captain Nessman of the High Seas has just won a prestigious international award for his contribution to traditional Pirate techniques, I think he might get a huge sea chest of gold doubloons and a ceremonial super sharp cutlass HAR HAR HAR HARDY HAR HAR as the great man himself would say.

We have also had Traditional Easter Bread Cat Rolls with our evening meal, an old Easter tradition in Britain for thousands of years. It apparently is an Old Norse custom although back then the Tasty Traditional Easter Bread Cat Rolls did not include the words Traditional, Easter, Bread or Rolls just the words Tasty and Cats.  

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Computers are the new Sofas and Zombie Woodlice

Had it not been for the fact I looked out of the window late last night and saw snow; this morning would have been a serious shock to the system, it was still a bit of a shock to see us back in the middle of winter with a vengeance. But the day got even odder as it progressed because round about lunch time the sun was out and it was actually quite warm outside and there was snow on the ground, although the snow was melting rapidly. By five o’clock everything was green again and you would have assumed it had been a lovely spring day, all I can say is it was all very odd, and I don’t think dad was using his Weather Machine either.

As a result of the confused weather I don’t appear to have done much I sort of fitted a shelf back where it was fitted before, I say sort off because it is all a bit iffy and it is still a bit iffy but the space to work on it is limited. And it appears that cats are rubbish at DIY and using a screwdriver, I’m sure mankind must have domesticated cats for a reason it cant just be to run about giving them food when they make lots of noise and sink their claws into you. Dogs at least understand Latin (useful as this new Pope seems to use loads of it) and can do mathematics, plus robotics and chainsaw juggling.  Cats even demand you cut a hole in your back door to put a cat flap in and then refuse to use it and expect doors opened on demand (like the food). 

   

I got distracted again sorry about that. . . . . . I did a small tiny bit of painting too and I poked about inside a computer and found one penny from 2008. I have now found money in three different computers but not enough to make it worth dismantling all the computers in the world.  Maybe old computers will become the new old sofas. Back in the past when sofas were made properly they had spaces designed into them for things to get lost in, and it was traditional when you visited granny to stick your hand into all the spaces and grovel about looking for gold and uncle Arthurs Rolex or the missing budgerigar from 1953, because granny thought she heard it the day before.  You don’t get sofas like grannies sofa anymore the modern ones don’t have secret voids for things to hide in for decades and sadly the modern sofa does not last as well as the old ones. Our old sofa was WELL COOL it had a huge colony of woodlice living in it, well I say living they were generally dead but what was weird it that they  would all get sucked up in the vacuum cleaner but six months later it would have another huge colony of woodlice who were sort of dead.  I wonder if they were Zombie woodlice WOW that really is WELL COOL  . . . . . . . . . .DAMN that sofa went to the big furniture store in the sky (sorry I mean skip).

AH I might have got side tracked a bit again there and I didn’t get to mention the huge monster snappy thing with big teeth and lots of legs , , , , , ,DAMN.

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The Pope and a chainsaw

It’s a funny old world there we all were yesterday watching the Pope become Pope, while on the subject of the Pope I was wondering about the Popes hat and his clothes because maybe they have to elect a Pope the right size for all the formal wear that goes with the post. After all you can’t just nip to a shop and buy a Popes outfit off the shelf so although all these things look like it’s all very spontaneous maybe it’s less so than we think. It would be interesting to know the height of all the Popes and what shoe size they are, and so on.

OK no that is a diversion from what I was going to say, I was going to say that yesterday I was watching the Pope (although not understanding a word) and today I have been using a chainsaw to chop logs. Now I need to point out this is purely a coincidence and that there is absolutely no link between the two events no matter how suspicious that might sound to you all. 

As we know one of the Popes middle names is Mario so I think it might only be a matter of time until the Pope-Mobile is renamed the Mario-Cart . . . . . Sorry back to the chainsaw, it is said that you get to warm up chopping logs for the fire then get warm again stacking the logs and finally get warm burning the logs, which is why dad said I was very lucky to be allowed to gain so much heat from our logs. The Pope (sorry dad) also says he who blunts the chainsaw, sharpens the chainsaw, as it happens the Pope might also say it because I can’t speak Latin, but I suspect the Pope does not say it.

I am also helping the Ghost Writer fix a computer because he says there is an old saying which goes . . . . . .You should never Byte the Ram that feeds you . . . . . although I cant see the logic in that myself  . . . . HAH HAH HHAHAHH hah ah ha hahahah aahhah ahhah hah ahh ahhah ah ha hah aha ha ha ha hahahhaha hahahahahahaha hahahahaha.

And I also have other things to do which involve putting some music on a CD for a friend so I might be off doing things like that tonight, therefore this will be your lot for today. Tomorrow is very busy to, and in the evening we are off to have a meal with Mr Charlie and Miss Jane so tomorrows diary entry might be shorter that today’s, which appears to be about average  . . . . . . . .PHEW  . . . . . . . . . . 

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Steven Spielberg, the Watkins Rapier 44 and the Password

The Ghost Writer spent the day in the grey office looking at computers and fixing the odd network problem and getting confused by people using the computers, who he says can be a bit stressful. After all the easy bit is pressing the on off button then OK yes remembering a password can have its moments. Someone telling you that they were sure that their password was some man that once played tennis at Wimbledon (or was it a woman), Ooooo no hang on it might have been that golf player, the one who used to play golf . . . . . might be vaguely useful as a way of passing the time but it will not get them onto the network. And then once on the network an array of icons apparently for some of the users is like a rabbit being caught in the headlights of a huge truck, but then as he says they are novices and have only been using the network for several years now, and it will be fine once they get the hang of it…. 

Unlike the Ghost Writer who has the mind of a bitter and twisted grumpy and cynical old cowboy IT Guru I have the mind of a young nimble, (the worlds my oyster) enthusiastic young nimble person still convinced the very nice Steven Spielberg will be on the phone any day saying things like I read that manuscript your agent super glued to my dog and my lawyer will be suing in the morning, no hang on that was my last agent I had to find another after his methods got a bit extreme. Esmeralda says she is happy to act as my agent but I feel that would only end in tears and it would be a shame to see the very nice Mr Spielberg crying.

It has been a quite day well up to about 5.30pm when the weather changed and winter has arrived again and is snapping at our toes with wind and rain. I should not discuss weather but really this is getting silly…….

I think I will go and get my old Watkins Rapier 44 out, and cheer up the cats with some feedback. By the way that saying The Worlds My Oyster is that because we are all in a squidgy mass trapped in a shell and will all be boiled in a big pan. 

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There are no words no sounds all is static

It has been a long hard and busy day today for both myself and the Ghost Writer, he found himself surrounded by a swarm of dissident computers bent on revenge over issues to do with tea breaks and iced buns. As the Ghost Writer said there are times when computers really do not appear to be rational and he had to work very hard all day just to pacify them and finally convinced them that ginger cake might be a better option as it is less likely to short out their processors. And after sticking a slice of ginger cake into the DVD drive of the ring leader, the rest of the group backed off and hid behind a screen saver when the ring leader malfunctioned and turned blue.

I, myself had to fight through mud and gore (not Al) after an early morning attack by a gang of mad axe men, who resorted to chain saws and were leaping about cutting bits of stuff in the way that mad men with chain saws do. So me and the Ghost Writer have both come to conclusion we are just too done in to write a single word tonight, so we are very very very very sorry but there is absolutely no diary entry tonight……… A shock yes but it was bound to happen sooner or later, after all we/I have got close to this once or twice in the past but it has never happened, once again sorry and as for responding to comments I will try and catch up tomorrow .

Oooooo and I might have managed just a bit of drumming earlier which is why I am let telling you I am not writing a thing about anything thus the blank space of my diary.

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The Haunted Computer and the Lay Lines

My djembe playing did not entirely work as planned last night so dad  has gone outside to start up his weather machine on the grounds that it cant make things any worse than they already are. I have requested a nice warm sunny day. I think we all need a nice warm sunny dry day because it has been a while to say the least. The present weather appears to have made our cats go mad, and they are turning to food as a substitute for the sun.

The Ghost Writer has turned into a zombie and is going AAAAuuuugggghhhh a lot, not because of the weather although that is not helping, but because he has spent the day in a very long meeting being good and not talking about computers even though he has ended up with another computer in the back of his car. They then end up here because according to the Ghost Writer, the Lay Line configuration is such that our garage is the perfect place to put old dead computers as a computer is an energy receptive device, so once it is sitting in the energy field of the lay line it will re-energise, and after a time work again. Mum says that the Ghost Writer has nowhere else to store all the old computers that quite frankly need to be disposed of, and all this talk of energy energising the computer is because the Ghost Writer is an IDIOT.

I wonder if it is possible to get a haunted computer. I have quickly checked this in cyberspace and it appears that the evidence is all a bit sketchy indeed, but fundamentally there are loads of them . . . . . I think it may be a lay line issue, I must check with the Ghost Writer although mum says IDIOT again.

OK that’s it I am going now because it is sort of late and I think my PC might be haunted by the spirit of an old Sinclair ZX-81 walking the voids of its dual core processor shouting Pong and going bleep. 

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Philosophy and the Science of Existence,

At school today we had a new  temporary teacher in a bright white suit who was teaching us Philosophy and in particular Philosophy and the Science of Existence, apparently according to the teacher it is possible we are not real and live in the mind of a greater being or the strange world of cyberspace. OK yes I do live in the strange world of cyberspace but that is beside the point, the point is I am me and therefore I exist.

So we were talking about the known and unknown, and does something happen even though we do not see it happen, a bit like the tree in the wood. So the teacher said did I know of an event that was happening that I could not see happening but that I could prove had happened. Well I told him that was easy because I knew that the Ghost Writer was buying a new coat to replace a coat that was eaten by a mouse in his car while he was watching the   aurora borealis in Scotland. The teacher seemed a bit sceptical and implied that a mouse could not eat a coat, but it did because I have seen the remains (of the coat not the mouse), in fact I told the teacher I was wearing the remains of the coat the other night while I was wandering about in the dark with a axe being a lumberjack (sort of) and accidently scarring a passing Bradley Wiggins lookalike on a bike.  Just by luck the Ghost Writers coat fits rather well considering much of it is in a mouse in Scotland.

The Ghost Writer proving he is real. . . .maybe

But the thing is I can prove that the Ghost Writer has a new coat because I have now seen his new coat and jolly nice it is too, it is a good coat the sort of coat I would buy. But the teacher said even if I did see the coat and the Ghost Writer let me put it on for a few seconds it may not really actually happen, and it might just be part of some sort of experiment in a computer, no more that someone typing words on a keyboard. I did point out that, this was silly because no one I know can type properly. Napoleon Beelzebub said the teacher in the white suit is merely a walk on extra, like in Star Trek and will be eaten by a large monster before we even get to know his name.

Funnily enough just before the end of the lesson Esmeralda who was getting bored noticed a thread loose on the teacher’s bright white suit, and as he walked past her she attached it to her clip on interchangeable drill attachment and set it to fast. I think her idea was it would be like catching a large Marlin, she was a bit jealous of the Ghost Writers large Steam Powered Goldfish, that he caught yesterday in the pond. But as the drill span and the thread whizzed off the suit all that was left was a small little microchip that bleeped and then vanished.

Everyone was much happier then, knowing that we are all real and that the teacher was in fact a computer program. According to the headmaster the auto teacher is the future of teaching, or was and that he is going to find it difficult to explain to the school governors why our class broke it, apparently it was rather expensive.

OOoooooo yes I have helped the Ghost Writer fix a printer tonight while he walks about in his new coat looking posh, well when I say fix . . . . . . . . . . AH damn it reminds me of today’s teacher a bit.

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Mr Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and a grumpy gnarled bitter and twisted cynic

Today was yet another grey day on the Welsh English borders and so to liven things up a bit myself and the Ghost Writer did a roll reversal, where I went to the Grey office to fix PC’s and he went to school to do my school work. We look remarkably similar, me a young bouncy chirpy, mildly eccentric child of cyberspace and the Ghost Writer, an Old Grumpy gnarled bitter and twisted cynic of everything. 

I got on remarkably well and managed fix at least five different problems with everyone commenting on how cheery and bouncy the IT man was today. When I met up with the Ghost Writer at tea time he was telling me that the headmaster said to him “Rob what’s the problem, you are like a bear with a sore head” to which the Ghost Writer said “O yes and just were does that saying come from its stupid, how does anyone know the bear has a sore head.  It might just be grumpy; as far as I know bears are just grumpy anyway”.

The Ghost Writer said he would have got away with being grumpy if the headmaster had not then asked him “And where is your homework Rob”………… ……….. ………… ……… AH yes I never told the Ghost Writer he had homework to do, so after the Ghost Writer had written one thousand times I MUST REMEMBER TO DO MY HOMEWORK he was even more grumpy.

The Ghost Writer did say he found a worm on the headmaster’s computer and he got rid of it for him (Once an IT man always an IT man). I did ask if he found the worm in a glass jar on top of the headmasters computer with a label on the front saying Bernard the Worm and he say ……………”AH, yes”…….. Mum has called him an IDIOT.

I am off now to carry on with you know what …….The Cardboard Olympian.

Ooooooooooo  yes one other thing, that Mr Mark Zuckerberg is now very very rich where as before he was just very very rich. Everyone has rushed off to buy shares in Facebook because it is free to join but is due to make a fortune because no one reads the advertising...... No its true I am on FB and I don't have a clue what adverts are on my page. They say that all that money will not make him happy, but I think he will be very very happy because as far as I can see he has sold half of something  that I estimate to be worth about the same as my blog for quite a lot of money. If anyone would like to buy my blog for a large some of money well it is not for sale because I am me and I feel someone has to point out money is not what is important (Yes Yes I know it is a bit important but that is the fault of society).  We are all at the end of the day just capital B*****************s

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The Dell Gazelle and a paradox of metrological boredom

It was a very grey day today, classic winter weather in the UK, the epitome of non weather, truly uninteresting in fact so truly uninteresting that it was in fact interestingly uninteresting making today a paradox of metrological boredom. I do have to add to that, that I was at one point in the day out of view of the day, deep within the bowels of the schools classrooms. We are obliged to do our Nuclear Science lesson in a reinforced concrete bunker in the cellar with Professor Frank Isfine who now glows in the dark after a long career of mishaps (sorry teaching).

The Ghost Writer said he had to deal with the curse of the return to Brecon and a grey office as well as a long trip on the grey roads. But is fairly chirpy because he found his elusive trogon horse, as it turned out he found a little herd of virus’s hiding in an unsuspecting Dell computer. Apparently according to the Ghost Writer computer virus are like this they reflect nature once one has got its teeth into its host, others see the weakness and the next think you know the Dell Gazelle has been brought to its knees and is being picked clean by a gaggle of nasty critters with pointy teeth. Its like in that movie when Bambi gets eaten by the terrordactyls and everyone goes AAAAAAAAAAAA I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT.  As the Ghost Writer says at times both Nature and Computing are Bastards. I must go now I have things to do and a cat is looking at me and wagging its tail.  
  

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