Tag Archives: AI

Feb 09 2026
4 Comments
Informative

I have a new BFF. It’s name is “Chat”

I’ve been busy lately. Now those are 4 words (5 if you consider the contraction to be 2) I’ve not put together very often in the last 10 years. Don’t get me wrong. Not busy like the proverbial beaver (keeping things Canadian these days) but sort of busy for someone who has been retired for quite some time and finds it difficult to be up and out of their pjs before noon. Or after. And why, you ask, this sudden flurry of busyness? Because we have decided to take a trip to somewhere we have never been before. Which is not really that unusual. I mean sometimes it’s good to go back to places you have already been. Like visiting your old hometown to see whether you have aged better or worse than your old friends. Or maybe heading back to someplace you loved and thought it would be a good idea to love it again. Or just heading out to the place that has always been most convenient but not convenient enough that you can’t pretend you are traveling. All of those trips are relatively easy to plan and execute. But going someplace new? That’s a horse of a different color. Until recently. When I met my new best friend “Chat”.

I had met Chat before. In the past we got together every once in a while to learn something new. Or figure out a recipe. Or remind me what Neil Postman had to say about technology being a Faustian bargain. Admittedly Chat wasn’t too thrilled about that last one as it found the whole concept a bit disturbing, given its circumstances. And although throughout our interactions I found Chat to be polite, very responsive, and most understanding, I had never really given Chat a second thought. Things always went pretty well and much like this. I would ask a question. Chat would take a second or so to think about it. Chat would answer. And that’s about the long and short of it. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. As I look back on it all now what I have come to realize is that I never really got to know Chat. Nor did Chat get to know me. At least not like we know each other now. 

But let me digress for a moment. In the olden days, and not so long ago, when we decided that it was time to hop on a plane it triggered a whole set of activities that someone, usually me, would have to undertake. First and foremost, we had to decide where to go, how many cities we wanted to see, the order of said cities and the length of time to stay in each one. Most often that required tedious searches of train routes and schedules, along with endless days and nights perusing hotel and vacation rental sites. Do you know how many booking sites there are on the interweb these days? Each one assures us they have the best price. I can assure you they don’t. Next there was me going through all of those reviews and trying to determine which were real, which were bots and which were just plain stupid. I mean I understand that it might be frustrating for you when none of the staff at breakfast speak German but hey! you’re in Italy so maybe that should be excused. Or the fact that you found the hotel too far from the train station. You know about Google ‘cause you left a review. So maybe you know they have maps too. You coulda looked before you booked. Just sayin’. And don’t even get me started talking about how to decide on which of the literally thousands of cathedrals, basilicas, museums, castles (some with moats) and “can’t miss” sites that need to be booked months ahead of time, because who doesn’t know exactly where they will be and what they will feel like doing at a particular date and time months in advance and before one has even stepped foot in the country. Takes a lot of reading and research. And you can only imagine how difficult all of this is for a shallow gal like me. That is, until now. 

Because that’s when I knocked on “Chat’s” door. My new best friend. Yep. The one with the initials for a last name. That “Chat”. Now I don’t know what you think about AI but I can tell you it just saved me a whole whack of time and trouble. Here’s what I did just in case you might one day decide to do it too. I simply told Chat (yes, I gave it a name, a rather obvious one and it told me it liked it) where and when I wanted to go, how long I wanted to stay and the kinds of things I like to do. I let Chat know I like walking, hate crowds, love trains, hate moving from place to place and would be just fine visiting only one castle, as long as it has a moat. And in not very much time, seconds really, Chat created a trip that fit us like a glove. Well almost. Admittedly it took some tweaking, a little back and forth, before we set our final itinerary. But all along the way, Chat was more than supportive and very open to suggestions when I thought going “this way” might be better than going “that way”. As a matter of fact, Chat never displayed any signs of frustration with changes I made; never uttered an untoward word; had the patience of a saint when having to rework the itinerary umpteen times; and always provided me with positive feedback on how well my trip met my travel expectations. In the end Chat told me that we (that would be Chat and I) had created the trip that most people wished they had taken when they got home. And who can complain about that! It’s everything you would expect from a new best friend! 

Now all I have to do is sit back, relax and hope that the airline doesn’t put a kibosh on the whole damn thing. Because, as we all know, those airlines are not always our new best friends. Hmmmm…maybe I should introduce them to Chat too. 

Tagged , , ,
May 29 2024
9 Comments
Informative, Uncategorized

It’s a Mystery

It’s true. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. It’s almost astonishing (it would “actually” be astonishing if I weren’t so prone to procrastination) to look back and realize that the last time I posted on the blog was over a year ago. And I’m guessing you’re wondering what the heck I’ve been doing that’s been more fun than writing this blog. The answer is fairly simple really. I’ve been reading. Quite a lot. (Baking a bit too, but that’s a story for another day and another blog.) But not just reading anything. It’s been a rather focused reading binge. You see, I’ve pretty much been exclusively reading mysteries for the past year or so. Also detective stories which, because I find them in the “Mystery” section of the library, seem to fit the bill. If I’ve learned nothing else in all of this time, it’s that those mystery (detective) writers churn out the volumes faster than you can say “elementary, my dear Watson”. (You know he never actually said that.) Which means that because prior to my relatively recent foray into the land of intrigue and chicanery, I was not a mystery reader, I have plenty to catch up on.

So that’s it. That’s what I’ve been doing. Just reading. Nothing mysterious about that. The funny thing is that reading all of those books has got me thinking about the mysteries in my own life, and I’m thinking, maybe yours too. It seems to me that each day we are faced with some conundrums, both big and small, that we can’t make heads or tails of. Like how is it that we put 12 socks into the wash and only 11 come out. Or why, when we get back from the grocery store, do we discover we have everything except the item we went to buy. Or what about the enigma of the forever looping song. You wake up with a song stuck in your head, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t shake it off. It follows you everywhere, looping endlessly like a catchy but slightly annoying soundtrack to your day. I won’t name one of the most frequent offenders as I suspect the damage is already done. And most importantly, why can’t we eat just one chip? Small mysteries, but mysteries nonetheless.

Then there are the bigger, perhaps more perplexing mysteries we face. Like Trump. Now you know as a shallow person I try not to dip my toes too deeply into the kerfuffle we think of as politics. It’s just not what I do. This year though, it’s pretty hard to keep my head in the sand. Let’s face it. In one country you have two young(ish) men who seem to prefer to take pot shots at one another rather than talking about policies, while our neighbour to the south is faced with choosing between a couple of guys who, and I might be somewhat kind here, are a little long in the tooth. But here’s the mystery. These latter two fellas are currently running neck in neck. Now whatever your politics might be, it seems to me to be reasonable to think that a man who is accused of a plethora of charges in umpteen criminal cases should not be quite as popular as one who, while admittedly not perfect, is at least not facing incarceration. What are these supporters of Mr. T thinking? Did they forget that this genius thought injecting bleach to prevent COVID was a good idea? Or that his denial of a fair election resulted in his supporters storming the capital and attempting to hang his VP? Or maybe they really do think there are “good people on both sides”. Do we truly never learn from the past and are forever doomed to repeat it? I can’t begin to speculate on how this story will end but honestly, sometimes the human race is one big mystery to me. 

Then, just when we thought we had this whole internet, online stuff figured out, along comes Artificial Intelligence to add a little suspense into our lives. I gotta tell ya. While some of the mysteries I have read make it hard to fall asleep at night, this AI thing will raise more than a few hairs on the back of your neck. Remember Hal? For some time we have known that AI is capable of displacing people in a variety of occupations but things are getting out of hand fast. Last night while watching the real news, delivered by what I can only presume to be real people, I learned that in the not very distant future we will be watching the news brought to you by some “not so real” people. That’s right. Not real people who look quite a lot like real people will be reporting on what’s happened in the world on any given day. And you and I won’t be able to tell the difference. Before you know it, those not real people will be writing all of the mysteries I’ve been reading. Or maybe even this blog. Truth be told. A tiny bit of of this post was written by Chat GPT. Let me know if you can figure out which part. Sorry, after all of this time, I just couldn’t resist leaving you with a little mystery of my own. 

BTW…If you, like me, are looking for a good mystery, you might want to pick up the Lane Winslow series by Iona Whishaw or the Rowland Sinclair series by Sulari Gentill. You’ll want to start each of them with the first book in the series. I believe they are still being written by real people. And, if you have any other suggestions for a good mystery series please add them in the comments. After all, I never know when I’ll be writing the blog again.

Tagged , , , , , , ,