Posted in Nothing

Cranial Constipation

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by Bob Sparrow

It’s another blog about nothing!

I think most of our readers know by now that both Suzanne and I love to write.  This proclivity can have a downside, in fact, a disease called ‘writer’s block’, with which I seem to be afflicted this week.  So, I’ve been pondering all facets of my life to come up with something intelligent and interesting.  OK, intelligence has never been a criterion for getting into this blog.  I did just return from a golf outing in Las Vegas last week where I completed the trifecta: I lost money at every game I played, I played three rounds of horrendous golf, and went way off my diet.  So, forgive me for not wanting to revisit that memory.

I had another idea.  A few weeks ago, I blogged about ChatGPT, an advancement in Artificial Intelligence that can write for you, among other things, an original Shakespearian sonnet to your loved one, which I saw demonstrated first hand.  So, being desperate, I asked ChatGPT to write a ‘Bob Sparrow blog’.  Chat GPT went on line, read all of my blogs and gleaned that I enjoyed travel, astronomy and music, so wrote a blog about me singing the song, ‘Fly Me to the Moon’.  Like me, it tried to be funny, but mostly wasn’t.  A Shakespearian sonnet it was not,

3.1 million followers on Twitter!!

Then I thought about doing a ‘Subscription Drive’ blog – to see if I could get more people to sign up for our fee-free blog.  I see people like Harvey Weinstein, Derek Chauvin, Bill Cosby and Grand Wizard David Duke, with millions of followers, and we have less than 200 subscribers!!!  One would think that after 13 years of never missing a Monday morning deadline to delight the public, that that number would be a lot higher, OK, maybe a little higher.  I do know people who regularly read the blog, and make a positive comment to me in person, that are not subscribers.  I sometimes casually mention to them that in the right-hand column in every blog there is a place to subscribe, but they are not sitting at their computer at the time, so it’s an easy thing to forget.  I don’t take it personally; I’m thinking they just don’t want any more ‘junk mail’ cluttering up their ‘in box’, I get it!

I could do a follow-up to my last blog, which showed our backyard in shambles, but it’s still in shambles, but has progressed to the point where we are now second-guessing some of our decisions about pavers, stacked stone, coping, etc., but I’ll wait until it’s all done for a final judgement and a possible blog revisit.

“If the universe was created from nothing . . .”

With elections coming up either sooner than we’d like, or not soon enough, we see a variety of sombreros being thrown into various proverbial rings.  And while political rhetoric can sometimes be interesting, the ‘bull shit meter’ usually goes bonkers during these times, thus we here at ‘From A Birdseye View’ find something else to write about.  So rather than thinking of this blog as a Seinfeld episode about nothing, think of it as an abstention from opining on the current political climate.

One of the common refrains that Suzanne and I share with each other when we post a blog like this one is, “What did they pay?”  inferring that they got what they paid for – nothing! Having reread this post prior to publishing on Monday, I think I’m beginning to understand why we haven’t broken that 200 subscribers’ mark.  Thanks for occasionally looking at our blog.

 

Posted in opinion

GOOD VIBRATIONS

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

Last week I watched a television show that took me back 60 years, to the joy of languishing on the beach, slathering Coppertone on my body, and listening to “surf” music.  The show was “A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys” and it generated a fun, sometimes tearful, walk down memory lane.  I have always loved the Beach Boys and to this day, I have their “Endless Summer” album on my car’s hard drive.  I marvel at how I can forget why I’ve walked into a room, but when I hear one of their old songs, I can tell you exactly where I was when I first heard it.  The Grammy show featured many of today’s top performers singing the Beach Boys’ hits, including John Legend, Brandi Carlisle, Hanson, Andy Grammer, Leann Rimes, and many others.  Honestly, I didn’t recognize a lot of the groups, but I appreciated that they appreciated music from almost 60 years ago.

I spent two hours singing along with the performers and reveling in memories that can only be tied to the dual teenage emotions of fun and angst. I used to know a lot about the Beach Boys, but these days I only retain water, so I decided to re-familiarize myself with their backstories.  For those of you who also grew up during this period, I thought you might appreciate the following fun, and some not so fun, facts about them.

  • Brian Wilson was left to watch his two brothers one weekend when his parents took a trip to Mexico. They left him some allowance money to feed himself and his brothers, but Brian decided to use that money to buy musical instruments and recruited his brother Carl and his cousin, Mike Love, to help him recreate the harmonies of his favorite songs.  Childhood friend Al Jardine and Brian’s other brother, Dennis, soon joined these efforts and thus began one of the most famous groups in American music.
  • The Wilson brothers’ father, Murry, decided to involve himself in their endeavors as their manager. This was both a blessing and a curse for the boys. Murry helped get the group into the public eye, but he also had a chilling dark side. For much of the boys’ childhood, Murry was physically abusive towards his sons. He would beat and spank them for even the smallest infraction of his rules.  In one of the strangest punishments, he removed his own glass eye and forced his sons to stare into his empty eye socket.
  • Murry’s abuse of his sons not only had an emotional impact on them, but it also had a physical impact as well. Brian ended up mostly deaf in one of his ears as a result of his father hitting him so hard over the years. That makes the fact that he could compose such complex harmonies and instrumentations all the more impressive.

  • Despite their reputation as the “surfer band”, Dennis Wilson was the only member of the group who surfed.  In fact, Brian Wilson has an extreme fear of water and stays as far away from the beach as possible.
  • Dennis was also the only member who initially had no musical training.  They ended up assigning him to be the group’s drummer, thinking he could pick the skill up as he went along. Because of this, the group often hired professional drummers to fill in for him on many of its early recordings.
  • One of the first songs that Brian wrote was called “Surf City.” In a gesture of friendship, he gave the song to the group Jan & Dean, instead of having the Beach Boys record it.  Jan & Dean’s recording of the song ended up reaching number one on the charts.  Needless to say, Murry was not happy.
  • One of the group’s first big hits, and still one of their most popular songs, is the classic summer anthem “Surfin’ USA.” However, rock ‘n roll pioneer Chuck Berry noticed that the melody sounded suspiciously like an old song of his called “Sweet Little Sixteen.” Although Brian has never denied that the song’s melody was a reworking of the Berry tune, a back-and-forth copyright dispute between Murry Wilson and Chuck Berry’s record company resulted in the courts crediting the song solely to Wilson, then to both Wilson and Berry. Ironically, the song’s lead singer, Mike Love, received no formal credit at all despite his claim that he wrote the lyrics.
  • During a tour in 1964, Brian Wilson suffered a full-blown nervous breakdown while on an airplane traveling between concert sites. His bandmates rushed to his aid as he began shrieking uncontrollably and shouting into his pillow. For the sake of his mental health, the group decided that he would retire from touring and instead would stay home and focus solely on songwriting and recording from that point on. The person who replaced him on that tour?  None other than Glen Campbell.

  • Although staying home gave Brian the time he needed to focus on creating more incredible music, it quickly took a dark twist. Around this time, a friend introduced Brian to psychedelic drugs, and they changed his life forever. At first, they opened up new avenues of creativity for him that would take the Beach Boys’ music to new and fascinating places, such as the Pet Sounds album, but their effects also added tremendously to the mental health struggles that he was already facing.  Soon Mike Love and Brian Wilson began to fight about the direction of their music.  In addition to the discord, they also suffered the tragic death of Dennis Wilson, who drowned in Marina Del Ray in 1983.
  • After Brian regained his mental health, the group re-formed and in 1988 they released the song “Kokomo”, an instant classic that became their first Number One hit since “Good Vibrations” in 1966. The 22-year separation between these two tracks marked the longest-ever span between two Number One hits by any single band.
  • In 2023 Mike Love and Brian Wilson are still feuding.  Love and Bruce Johnston (who joined in 1965), have put together a “new” Beach Boys band and will begin a nation-wide tour in May, featuring all of the classic songs from the 60’s.

I don’t know if I would go see the “new” band, even if it was playing across the street.  I guess I’d rather listen to my old CD and remember the original group, when they were in perfect vocal harmony, when we were all young and tan, and the summers were indeed, endless.

Posted in Home

The Storm Before the Calm

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by Bob Sparrow

After recent trips to Hawaii and Palm Desert, and getting ready for a trip to Spain and Portugal next month, I should be content with just relaxing in our backyard for a few weeks, however . . . the backyard is anything but relaxing.  Those who have been to our backyard might be wondering why I couldn’t relax in our ‘Hawaii-transported-to-California’ atmosphere. Well, late last month we decided that things were looking a little tired out there, Hawaii was looking more like Hawaiian Gardens, a city in the suburbs of Los Angels, next to a freeway, known for its gambling casino and not the least bit tropical.  OK, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was 30 years old and in need of a facelift. As those who may have gone down this path before, know that a facelift can often turn into a complete body makeover – and so it did.  I have to say, it pained me to see the crew come in and demolish our pool and yard, eliminating our large planter and three beautiful palm trees that I planted 30+ years ago.

Deciding what to put in after all was demolished was not easy.  We visited several tile and pool places and got samples and were expected to pick a paver that’s going to cover most of our backyard, from a sample six inches square!  We get to look at one piece of stacked stone to ‘imagine’ it covering all the areas it’s supposed to cover.  We looked a lot of photos of pebble tech, but photos and real-life colors aren’t EXACTLY the same.  Other issues included the breakage of existing sprinkler lines during the demo process and, of course, rain.  We needed the rain, I get it, but enough already!

Linda and I didn’t agree on everything, but we were finally able to find middle ground when choosing pavers, stacked stone, pool tile, pebble tech, coping and stucco color.  Yet to be agreed upon are things like new furniture, umbrellas, fire-features and whatever else is going to end up back there.  I did come to realize that I needed to acquiesce a bit, as Linda’s love for negotiation helped get us the best deal – although she reminded me, ‘best’ is a relative term and not to quit my day job!!

One of the benefits we really didn’t count on, was having a Port-O-Potty in our driveway for the first half of this year – it’s really handy when I’m working in the front yard and need a bathroom break – we might just leave it there!

I’ve included a couple of photos of the wreckage, which look akin to the ravages left by Hurricane Iniki, the worst hurricane to ever hit Hawaii – winds of 145 mph, with gusts up to 225 mph.  OK, maybe I’ve taken a little liberty with the truth here, but it’s a mess, a wet, muddy, rocky mess.  But sometime, hopefully by summer, we’ll be sipping Margaritas and Mai Tais by the pool and second-guessing our choice of . . . just about everything!

 

Posted in opinion

REBOUND!

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This post will be short, for reasons that will become clear.  But first, I have to applaud my former school, San Diego State, on reaching the NCAA basketball Championship game.  Granted, while I spend every Saturday in the fall watching college football, I do not usually follow college basketball.  In fact, before last week I could not have named one player on the SDSU team, much less the coach.  But I’ve been paying attention since they beat Alabama, the #1 seed.  As a diehard Pac 12 (or whatever our number is now) fan, I love any victory over an SEC team.  San Diego State is a relative newcomer to the NCAA tournament, and I admire their underdog mentality.  Frankly, at half time I had pretty much given up on them.  But the buzzer-beating basket to clinch the game was one for the ages. Who would have thought that lowly SDSU would reach such heights? In the game, “Never Did I Ever”, I would have placed one of my alma mater’s being in the Final Four as one of my big lies.  So, I’m very proud of a state school reaching the pinnacle of college basketball.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed for tonight.  An Aztec win might not be the ultimate Cinderella story, but it’s darn close.

Now, an explanation of why this post will be short.  After more than three years of ducking Covid, both my husband and I came down with it two weeks ago.  He is recovering from tongue cancer surgery (yes, a bit of a buried lead) and his tongue is still swollen, so I was very concerned about how Covid might affect his already-compromised ability to swallow.  Our doctor ordered Paxlovid for us in an attempt to usher the virus out at quickly as possible.  Fortunately, my husband mostly had the sniffles and after four days he was feeling much better.  I experienced more symptoms than he did but after a week I tested negative.  Alas, just like my SDSU team, we’re also good at rebounding, as late last week we both tested positive again.  The main activity in our house these days is napping. And although many of my friends blamed it on taking the Paxlovid, in another San Diego connection, the doctors at the UCSD School of Medicine analyzed a large population of people with Covid and found that the number of people who rebounded was the same, whether they were on Paxlovid or not.  So, I can’t even blame the drug.

The doctors say to eat chicken soup, rest and watch Netflix.  I’m adding in some cake and hope that by next post I have the energy to write something more entertaining.  In the meantime, if you want entertainment tune in to the Championship game tonight.  GO AZTECS!

Posted in travel

The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

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by Bob Sparrow

Chuck inspects a propeller blade

It was windy, very windy, but that was to be expected, we were in the middle of a ‘wind farm’.  Yes, after years of driving by all those windmills on our way to Palm Desert, we finally stopped to take the tour and learn exactly what was going on with all these giant propellers.  Perhaps you wondered as well, well wonder no more.  Also, in case you’re hungry after your tour of the wind farm, I’ll give you three good recommendations for restaurants that we tried for the first time and found to be quite good.

First, why are these windmills where they are?  The Gorgonio Pass, which not only has a lot of wind going through it, but also a waterway, a railroad, an Interstate freeway and the San Andreas Fault, sits between the  two largest mountains in Southern California, Mt. San Gorgonio and Mt. San Jacinto, both stretching over 11,000 feet.  Those mountains create weather patterns that help make California one of the top three windiest states in the US, trailing only Texas and Iowa.

Notice the ‘bus’ behind the propeller

The first windmill was put in place there in 1982 and there are now over 1,200 windmills of various sizes, some are taller than the Empire State building and some have propeller blades over 200 feet in length!  To put their size in perspective, if you’re driving on the freeway, at the top the windmills you’ll see a ‘little box’ behind the propeller blades, that ‘little box’ is the size of a bus!  This wind farm supplies a year of electricity for 250,000 homes.  These things are huge, and the ones that are out in the ocean, are MUCH bigger!

As we were wending our way around and through several of the windmills in a six-passenger golf cart, our guide pointed to a large building in the distance and told us that that building held the largest pot farm in North America.  So, I guess when the wind is blowing just right, Palm Springs gets a little high!

Walt & Patty enjoying the evening

The three restaurants I’d recommend, two for food and one for entertainment are, for food, Waldo’s Ristorante & Bar; where’s Waldo’s?  The corner of Country Club and Cook; it has great Italian food in a comfortable setting, indoor-outdoor seating and a cute bar – call many days in advance, it’s packed!  The second restaurant is La Brasserie Bistro & Bar, a French restaurant in La Quinta, with a diverse menu and excellent French Onion Soup.  For great entertainment, we were turned on to this next place by Patty & Walt Schwartz, who live in the area and know how to have a good time as well as where to find one.  We met them at the Paseo Hotel, off El Paseo across from Tommy Bahama’s, the restaurant in the hotel is called the Larkspur Grill, and the food is good, but the music on Thursday nights is awesome, provided by ‘Fun With Dick & Jane’ – a great band that plays all the great hits from the 70s & 80s. You could go just for the ‘people watching’,  – it is truly a show!!

Linda’s sister, Starlet and her husband Donnie, drove out from Arizona to join us for three nights, and our son, Jeff came out and played a round of golf with us.  So it was another great week an hour and a half away from home, but in a whole different world.

 

 

Posted in opinion

RESCUE ME

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

            Carrot

In 1975 I purchased my first house, which to me, was less about a roof over my head more about having a yard for a dog.  A couple of months after settling in, I ventured to the county dog pound (as they were called in those days) and bought a cute little fluff ball for $6.00.  I named her “Carrot”.  The people at the dog pound didn’t know much about her background, so they suggested that I take her to a veterinarian to have her checked out.  Unfortunately, she had kennel cough and for a few stressful days I thought I would lose her before I ever really had her.  But she improved and was my faithful companion until her demise in 1983.  So why am I writing about her now?  Because as part of our conversations with the vet during that time I asked him if he could tell me her breed and age.  He said she most likely was a cockapoo-terrier mix and fixed her age at about eight months.  I think about that conversation every time I stop to talk with someone about their dog. Somehow the owner always manages to blurt out some version of, “I really don’t know much about the breed or age because I rescued him/her.”  Sheesh!

I first started noticing the trend of “rescue virtue-signaling” about ten years ago.  Let me be clear, I think it is terrific to rescue dogs.  If you saw the 60 Minutes episode about dogs a week ago you were probably not surprised to learn that dogs have a “kindness gene”.  None of them deserve to be locked up in a cage.  All they want is a little love, a scratch behind the ear and some food and shelter.  In our family we have had a variety of dogs over the years, half rescue and half purebred.  But here’s the thing: when someone asked us about the rescue dogs, we always gave an answer that was as close to accurate as we could get.  Veterinarians are actually very good at assessing the breed and age of a dog.  I have a hard time believing that people who spend hours looking at dog videos on Instagram Reels or dress their dog up like a ballerina, don’t have the time or inclination to ask their vet for an opinion on the breed and age of their dog.

On my walk around the neighborhood last week, I met a woman walking her dog and stopped to ask her about the dog.  She told me all about how she rescued the dog but couldn’t tell me anything else about it.  I suggested that she purchase a dog DNA test.  She was stunned at my suggestion.  “Why would I do that?”, she asked.  I told her it would provide more information about the breed of the dog, which could be helpful in preventing or understanding future medical issues.  I left our encounter convinced that she had no intention of finding out more about her canine companion.  Because – and here’s the reason I find this trend so annoying – I think this woman finds more self-satisfaction in telling people that she’s rescued a dog that she would in saying, “She’s a Malti-poo mix and she’s about three years old.”  Where’s the fun in that?  How can the world possibly know what a wonderful person she is if she gives such a straightforward answer?

I’ll get off my soapbox now.  But I’m still going to tell people to get their dogs tested.  If people want to feel virtuous, they should donate time and money to the local animal shelter.

Posted in travel

Water Falls & Banana Pancakes

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by Bob Sparrow

Akaka Falls

I have just returned from the Big Island of Hawaii.  As always, it was great friends, great golf, great cocktails, great weather . . . great time!  Those who read last year’s blog about our trip to the Big Island may remember that I had planned a ‘Water Falls Tour’ to the Hilo or wet, side of the island, but no one else was interested in going, so the trip was aborted.  I made a similar offer this year, and again, no one signed up, but a car was available this time and the group encouraged me to go by myself; apparently, they were looking for a way to get rid of me for half a day.  So, please come join me on this mini adventure, so I don’t get too lonely.

It’s about an hour and a half drive from where we’re staying at the Hilton Grand Vacation Club timeshare in Waikoloa on the west side of the island (Kona), to Hilo, on the east side of the island, where most of the big waterfalls are.  The drive takes you through the historic Parker Ranch, which at one time, with 130,000 acres, was the largest cattle ranch in, not just Hawaii, but the U.S.  Yes, bigger than anything in Texas, but that’s another interesting story, maybe for my next visit to the Big Island.

The difference in weather between the two sides of the island is night and day, or rather I should say, dry and wet.  Except for the lush environs of the hotels and golf courses on the west side, the terrain there is mostly dark, rocky unhospitable lava.  Conversely, the Hilo side is incredibly lush green, as it gets lots of rain, averaging about142 inches per year!  The reason for the vast difference in climate in such a small distance, I’m told, has to do with the trade winds and the two huge mountains in the middle of the island, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, both above 13,000 feet and spectacularly snow capped at this time of year.

Snow-capped Mauna Loa

OK, we’ve got the geography and meteorology details taken care of, let’s move on to why I made this trek – water falls!  I’m not sure where or when I became enthralled with waterfalls, but I’m guessing vacationing in Yosemite growing up might have had something to do with it, but they’ve always intrigued me.  To think that a waterfall starts out as a small drop of water, either from rain or melted snow, then unites with other drops of water as they journey to wherever gravity takes them; and when they reach a cliff, they joyously and beautifully cascade over it. What’s mind-boggling to me is that it just keeps going, never seeming to run out of little drops of water!

Rainbow Falls, complete with rainbow

I headed out to the other side of the island around 7:00 am for my solo ‘Waterfall Tour’ which focused on three main waterfalls, Umauma Falls, Rainbow Falls and Akaka Falls.  But I must say, when I got to the eastern coast of the Big Island, the views were breath-takingly beautiful of a rugged shoreline and spectacular foliage, the likes of which I’ve never seen – just amazing!  Every time I saw a ‘Scenic Route’ This Way sign taking me off the main road, I took it.  I’d be hard pressed to find anything more scenic than my diversions on these ‘scenic routes’!  I stopped just outside of Hilo at a small, out of the way café, where I had the best banana pancakes sprinkled with macadamia nuts ever.  I heard Jack Johnson singing “Banana Pancakes” the whole time.

I’ll spare those who aren’t interested in waterfalls, which apparently is the vast majority based on my travel group, by just saying that Umauma Falls is in a great recreation area where you can ride horses and do a zip line over the falls.  At Rainbow Falls, I actually witnessed a rainbow created by the fall, and Akaka Falls, the Big Kahuna of waterfalls, is in a Hawaiian State Park and provides a scenic circular trail through the rain forest to the falls, which are spectacular . . . if you’re into waterfalls.

I was back on the ‘dry side’ by noon, and enjoying that, but with a head full of amazing images.  Thanks for joining me, for your efforts please enjoy this eye-full of banana pancakes, sprinkled with macadamia nut!

Posted in opinion

BUY THE BOOK

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

     My Kindle

I was sitting in a waiting room the other day, reading a book on my Kindle, perfectly content and engrossed in the story.  A woman next to me was fidgeting and antsy, alternating between chatting to anyone who would listen and pacing the floor.  Finally, she looked at my Kindle and asked, “What is that?” I explained the concept of the e-reader and how convenient it is to carry around hundreds of books in a small device. She stared at it, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “I don’t read books.  You’re lucky to have something to occupy your time.”  She doesn’t read books??  I have previously met people who have no interest in picking up a book, who think the Cheesecake Factory menu is great reading.  I feel sorry for such people.  They are missing out on the magic of being transported to another place and time, the escape and education that can be a part of reading a good book. I thought about her comment.  Yes, I AM lucky that I love to read.  But it had nothing to do with luck – I had help and encouragement along the way.

         The Weekly Reader

First, my parents viewed reading as an important skill.  Of course, they owned and published a newspaper for many years, so they encouraged everyone to read, especially if it was the Novato Advance.  Our home was filled with books, and I cannot recall a time when they didn’t each have a book by their bedside.  My second influence, like many people, came in the form of great teachers.  In grammar school we were fortunate enough to receive the Weekly Reader, a magazine that published every Friday and contained fun stories, games and cartoons.  Mrs. Larson, my fifth-grade teacher, started a book club in her classroom.  We ordered books and when they arrived, we gathered around a table to unpack the box.  I still recall how excited I was to get a new book, especially if it was a Nancy Drew mystery.  She taught me how to read a book, about topic sentences, and themes.

         Bette Reese

But the greatest influence on what and how I read was my high school English teacher, Bette Reese.  Until I landed in her class, I was a middling student.  I was more focused on boys and socializing than schoolwork.  Ms. Reese was a task master, constantly correcting grammar, spelling and composition.  She taught me about symbolism and metaphors and introduced me to Hemingway, Camus and Dostoevsky – pretty heady stuff for a high school junior.  Her teaching philosophy was to teach to the highest standards.  If some in the class got left behind, so be it.  She wanted to instill an appreciation for good writing and classic authors.  To this day I credit her for my distaste of romance novels and sci-fi fiction. I can’t speak for everyone who was her student, but I do know that she influenced a great many of us.  Two years after I left high school Ms. Reese took a professorship at a local college.  She eventually became the faculty advisor to the student newspaper, where no doubt she used her magic on many aspiring journalists.  Sadly, Bette Reese died in 1979 at the age of 44 from pancreatic cancer.  I wrote a piece about her for a Marin County site and received many comments from former students who were similarly impacted by her.  Each year the college awards the Bette Reese Memorial Scholarship to a talented journalism student.  I can only hope they are maintaining her high standards.

  The Libby App

So, am I lucky that I love to read?  Undoubtedly so. I can be entertained anywhere as long as I have a good book to read – airports, waiting rooms, even on the treadmill.  And nothing is more soothing to my soul than to curl up in bed on a cold night, my husband and dog beside me, engaged in a good book. My friend, Patsy, introduced me to the Libby app, where I can download books for free from the local library directly to my Kindle.  A love to read and free books? Now that is luck.

Posted in Science

Is it Suzanne, Bob or ChatGPT?

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Those old enough to remember the 1968 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, will remember HAL 9000, as the spaceship’s artificially intelligent computer, who, with a mind of his own, turns against the crew when they believe his calculations are wrong, regarding their journey to Jupiter. The name HAL came from Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.  Heuristic is a technique designed for solving problems more quickly than humans typically can.  As I recall, HAL spoke in a very soft, calming, conversational manner, but ends up killing one of the astronauts who was trying to disconnect it.  It was pointed out at the time that the letters HAL are just one letter off the computer giant of the day, IBM.

Enter ChatGPT.  For those unfamiliar with ChatGPT, here’s a quick tutorial.  First, it is a ‘chatbot’ (a software application used to conduct online conversations via text or text-to-speech in lieu of providing direct contact with live humans), developed by Open AI and Introduced at the end of last year.  ChatGPT (which stands for Chat, well, you know what chatting is, the GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is taking the Artificial Intelligence world by storm with its ability to do a multitude of things.

The core function of a chatbot is to mimic a human conversationalist; for example, ChatGPT can write and debug computer programs, compose music, teleplays or fairy tales, and write poetry and song lyrics.  Conveniently, it can, for a college student, answer test questions and write essays – yes, write essays!!

Just last week, I had the opportunity to see ChatGPT in action.  A friend of mine asked ChatGPT to write a Shakespearean sonnet for his wife on Valentine’s Day – it took about a minute and, Voila!!  The sonnet sounded like the Bard himself had just penned a special 14-line poem to his wife.  I was amazed!!  I learned that it could remember things you have said to it in the past and is capable of correcting itself when wrong.

As I dug deeper into the applications of ChatGPT, I found just the type of thing someone like me might ask of ChatGPT.  Here’s the example I found:

“Write a biblical verse in the style of the King James bible explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR.”

“And the Lord spoke unto him, saying, “Fear not, my child, for I shall guide thy hand and show thee the way.  Take thy butter knife, and carefully insert it between the sandwich and the VCR, and gently pry them apart.  And with patience and perseverance, the sandwich shall be removed, and they VCR shall be saved”

And the man did as the Lord commanded, and lo and behold, the sandwich was removed from the VCR, and the man was saved.

And the Lord said, “Verily I say unto thee, seek not to put thy peanut butter sandwich in thy VCR, for it is not a suitable place for such things.  Rather, keep thy sandwiches in they refrigerator or on thy plate, where they belongeth.”

So, you see how an everyday problem like this, that I’m sure you’ve encountered, can be solved with the help of ChatGPT!  If you’re wondering if students now don’t have to write essays, or anything for that matter, I’ve been told that there is a way to detect whether something is written by a human or by ChatGPT.  But I’m sure it won’t take long before they figure out how to ‘fix’ that.

But, it’s not all sunshine and lollypops.  Like most computers, it goes wacky once in a while.  ChatGPT often fails at basic math, it sometimes can’t answer a simple logic question, and it can mix fact and fiction (Sounds very human!).  It can also give incorrect, and often damaging, medical advice.  And, because it is programed by humans and humans can be biased, ChatGPT can put forth biased information.

You’ve probably guessed the answer to the question in the headline; neither ChapGPT nor Suzanne, could have written something so banal.

HAL, by any other name, is here, amazing . . . and dangerous!

 

 

Posted in opinion

GOOD TIMES NEVER SEEMED SO GOOD

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

               

            Singing at the 16th

Last week we denizens of Arizona experienced record crowds – it is estimated that 1 million people visited the Valley of the Sun to attend the WM Phoenix Open and the Super Bowl.  Our “sun” has been missing most of this winter (last week it snowed in Scottsdale), but the Chamber of Commerce obviously has an in with The Big Guy, because it was sunny all weekend.  Twenty-five years ago we were advised to hunker down the week of the WM Phoenix Open, as the crowds are plentiful … and drunk.  When the Super Bowl is also played here the same weekend, it is best to venture out only in the event of a severed limb or cardiac arrest.  So, we watched all of the festivities from the comfort of our couch.  One of the most fun aspects of the Phoenix Open is watching the idiots, ummm, patrons at the 16th hole.  They started the week off on Thursday with a rousing rendition of “Sweet Caroline”.  It was joyous to watch and reminded me of a fun family outing when the song was newer, and we were too.  More on that later, but first, a bit of history about the song and how it got its name.

Neil Diamond released “Sweet Caroline” as a single in May 1969, and it was then featured on his album, “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show”.   Its catchy lyrics and staccato beat made the song an instant hit, spending more than three months on the pop charts.  Surprisingly it never reached the top of the charts; it peaked at No 4.  For years people speculated who the “Caroline” in the song might be.  Decades went by without a definitive answer. Finally, in 2007, Diamond finally told the backstory of the song and how he came up with its title. He explained that “‘Sweet Caroline’ was born in a motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, as an afterthought to some songs he was preparing for a recording session.  He said he was as surprised as anyone when the music and lyrics flowed quickly and easily from his mind to paper.  Diamond revealed that the most challenging part of the song was finding the right name for the title. At the time, he was married to Marcia Murphey, and had promised her a song. The problem was he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody. He picked up his “idea” book, a journal where he routinely jotted down thoughts for lyrics, and found the name “Caroline”.  It was perfect.

The inspiration for the song

But why did he put the name “Caroline” in his idea book to begin with?  In the 2007 interview, Diamond said he was touched by a photograph he saw in a magazine of a young Caroline Kennedy, dressed in equestrian gear on her pony. At the time he thought it was a sweet, innocent photo, and knew at some point he would want to write a song about it.  He never told anyone that Kennedy was his inspiration until her 50th birthday celebration, where he performed via satellite and surprised her by revealing she was his inspiration.  She was thrilled.  By that time, of course, it had become tradition to hear it at numerous sporting events, perhaps most famously at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.  The song is played during the 8th inning of every game and gets the fans roused up, regardless of how the Sox are faring.  It was first played in 1997 and then intermittently after that until 2002, when Charles Steinberg, the Red Sox executive vice president of public affairs, noticed that every time the song played, he saw the crowd transformed.  Steinberg decided to make “Sweet Caroline” a tradition, and it stuck.

           Diamond at Fenway

The most moving rendition of the song was in 2013, right after the Boston Marathon bombing. Diamond hopped on flight as soon as he heard the Red Sox would be playing and went to Fenway Park, not giving anyone a heads up.  Luckily the gate agent recognized him and let him in without a ticket. He stood in the infield and sang the song, with the crowd joining in as one. Diamond later said it was a moment he will never forget. That performance also created a great demand for the song, and Diamond donated all of the profits from those sales to the charity set up to help the victims of the bombing.

             

          The Three Troublemakers

I saw Neil Diamond perform in 1979, just after “Forever in Blue Jeans” came out.  Everyone stood, everyone sang, and in an era before cell phones, people flicked on lighters in the dark and swayed to the music when he sang “Sweet Caroline”.  But my best memory of the song dates back to the winter of 1969.  Each year we would spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s skiing at Tahoe.  That year was extra special because brother Bob had just arrived home from Japan, where he had been stationed for the past year.  The Vietnam war was still raging, and we were so happy he was home. One night we went to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner, and I suppose after a lot of libation and very little encouragement, we sang “Sweet Caroline” at the top of our lungs.  I’m not sure we even knew all of the lyrics, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.  Looking back, the other guests were probably not as entertained as we were, and it was a good thing brother Jack knew the owners or we probably would have been kicked out.  That night and that song have provided me a good memory for fifty-plus years.

Given its long-standing popularity, the song clearly holds sentimental value for a lot of people. Most of us can probably remember singing it at some point, maybe alone in a car, or in a crowd, or at a fun family gathering. All I know is that every time I hear it, it brings back memories of things being “so good, so good, so good”.