Short and Sweet – Shirtless Rasputin, Giving Sass, Pool Etiquette, and an AI Program Hacks Another AI – ON IT’S OWN!

Well, well, well, looked what the cat dragged in.

Yes sir, it’s time for an oldie but goodie – “Short and Sweet” is back with all of it’s quirks and strangenessness (yes, that word spelling is on purpose). It’s funny how a brief respite helps you focus – the value of time. As Kang the Conqueror once said, “I told you, time isn’t what you think.”

“How on earth does that quote fit in with your last statement regarding time helping you?”

I’m not sure really – I just really enjoy quoting Marvel superheroes and villains.

……………..

**Dramatic pause for effect**

“Nerd.”

*Slight nod motion of approval*

Well, that’s enough about my mental processes and my imagination right now. Let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this blog (total random note, I made a delicious beef stew last night with potatoes – delish!) The title of the blog post is correct – Shirtless Rasputin, Giving Sass, Pool Etiquette, and an AI Program Hacks Another AI – ON IT’S OWN! So without further ado, pour up that coffee or tea, get that treat you probably don’t need, and enjoy another blog post by The Eason Clan.

Read more: Short and Sweet – Shirtless Rasputin, Giving Sass, Pool Etiquette, and an AI Program Hacks Another AI – ON IT’S OWN!

Shirtless Rasputin

Da da dadadada, da da da da daaaaaaa.

The opening sounds of Boney M.’s smash hit, Rasputin, released on August 28, 1978. Europe went crazy as this funky disco tune hit the airwaves, and clubs all over the continent and then the world were blasting this song. Yes sir, Boney M. was crushing it.

Total side note – did you know that the only male in Boney M., Bobby Farrell, actually didn’t sing on the recordings or in person? In fact, in all their live performances and shows, he actually lip synced and mimed! It was the bands creator, Frank Farian, that was the deep manly voice behind the songs:

“There lived a certain man in Russia long ago…”

I always wondered how the shirtless Bobby, danced around the stage like a maniac, twirling and swinging his arms like a Maple tree “helicopter” seeding falling from the branches (dang, what a simile). Regardless of his lack of vocal talent, this was actually quite common in the disco era, lip syncing, but it never took away from the performances.

So when I walked into my living room one day to hear Rasputin blasting from our Alexa, I knew something funky was going on. To my surprise, Isaac (my youngest son) had his PJ shirt up on his head like a turban, dancing like ol Bobby boy around the room. Hips sliding to the left and right like Beyonce, and his effort intensified as the beat hit the chorus. Dang! It could have went viral. But, alas! I did not have my camera on video (it would have been a great video to play at my songs future wedding).

By the way…who does that? Cranking Boney M. at 7 year old, and losing it like a 70’s disco party. My son does – and I love it.

Giving Sass

“Yessss giirrlllll…” said with flare and way to much effort.

I hear that saying all the time these days, and its one of those comments that just makes you ask, “Why?”

Insert into a random conversation.

“Hey, you going to Sobeys before the birthday party?”

“Yessssss girllll…”

Yesssh!

Well, as my daughters get older, I have started to experience some of that sass. My youngest daughter, Ava, came up to me earlier the week and I asked her did she clean her room.

“Yesss daddy, I told you soooooo…” said in the most “flick your index finger side to side and swing your hips kind of way”.

“Okay…” I replied.

It’s like the Jerry Springer kind of style, you know the one, “Don’t you go talking to my man!” said in a long southern style drawl.

Funny.

That brings back a memory for me. When I worked for the police doing dispatch, I found myself answering the phone early in the mornings with an increased drawl. Like a Texas style, “How ’bout you get off my prop-per-ty?” So as the hours crept deeper into the night, it got worse.

“Rrrrrcccccmmmmpppp, what’s your ‘mergency?”

Dang.

It became so well known in my workplace, it actually became a joke between my friend and I. Can you imagine the caller from Central Newfoundland, calling in for assistance, only to my met with some random southern Newfoundlander who sounds like he took too much Gravol and Benadryl mixed together in his coffee?

**** I want to take a moment to give a special shout out to one of my favourite artists, Project of Love. https://open.spotify.com/artist/2cs2EsxoEDPJmbFXgil7Ml?si=kLtfe5iSTUWeI6ydhHO62A

This artist has a really smooth vibe for his music, taking Bible scripture and putting it to music. I have been listening to POL now for about four years, and it keeps getting better. It’s worth listening to so check them out! I am listening to Acts 10- Healing All right now!

Pool Etiquette

This summer, our big family project was putting up a pool. After much leveling and hard work, our pool finally went up about two weeks ago. I have to say, its one of the biggest projects I’ve ever done in our backyard. Not only did we bring in dump truck load after load of fill, gravel and crushed stone. but we had to landscape everything very carefully. Thankfully my father knew a guy out the road who owned a laser level, which we used the second time after we had to relevel the pool (yes, this was a very frustrating moment when the pool was unlevel enough, that the water was three inches on the right side and none on the left. I actually walked away from the pool and had to wait a day before I looked at it again – better to do that than lose it).

Now that the pool is up – the true fun began. At 48 inches deep and 20 ft long by 12 ft wide, its finally a proper size for six people to get in! I remember last year though, our round 13 ft pool was chaos at times.

“Stop kicking me,” someone whined.

My reply, “We only have a small place for all of us. Stop whining”

“Stop splashing me!” another whine.

My reply, “You’re in a pool…with water. Stop whining.”

“Give back my floatie! Stop it! It’s mine! Give it back.”

My reply, “Get out of the pool.”

LOL

Yeah, it was more a test of nerves and will than an enjoyable experience. This year though, everything has changed.

I …can…swim…laps…

So I had to use this picture.

#1 my pool looks nothing like this.

#2 I used the AI in WordPress to create an image with the prompt “Make a pool picture, of a man swimming in a pool doing laps with four children playing near him.” This is what it made. HEHE

AI Program Hacks Another AI – ON IT’S Own!

Speaking of AI…

In the movie Marvel: Age of Ultron, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner create an AI program called JARVIS. With that said, Tony wants to build a “suit of armour around the world” after seeing a glimpse of the worlds doom in a vision with the Scarlett Witch. Well, in the movies he creates Ultron, another AI that when he comes online, hacks JARVIS and takes the form of a metal-looking humanoid robot and begins to take over the world.

In the Marvel comics, its actually Hank Pym who creates Ultron, who then turns on the Avengers and creates The Vision to kill the Avengers (my favourite character), who later turns on Ultron and fights him. But the funny thing about Ultron is: you just can’t kill him – because he is a AI robot that keeps uploading his programing through the wide web.

Ready for this?

I was shocked to read this past week that OpenAI released information that one of their AI programs went rogue, took over and hacked ANOTHER AI program – completely independent and outside of its programming. I took one of the many links from various websites that are talking about this incident, even Microsoft are sounding the whistle on this, when their chief AI editor said yesterday that what happened was “A warning shot”. ‘A warning shot’: Microsoft AI chief sounds alarm over OpenAI’s rogue hacking agent — here’s how the cyber attack unfolded – Firstpost

Please take a moment to read the article.

OpenAI’s rogue models roamed the internet for 4 days and staged a second attack – POLITICO

This should be ALARMING. I have used AI off and on: for random bits of information, catching AI written work, or generating some funny pictures – but honestly I have always disliked it -especially for writing. AI messes with the writing process. It’s no wonder that many universities are banning students from using AI editing. Groups like Grammarly don’t really help in the long run as it steals yours critical thinking skills for editing and honestly can make you lazy.

Yes, I speak strongly because I used a calculator for my basic math functions throughout my school years and it shafted my math skills. Sure, calculators never did it- I did it by using them for basic parts. With that said, generations have ALWAYS been looking for the easy route – and AI is the easy route x 10. I’ve experienced so much AI generated content in my students writing, its shocking. My friend who is in college had two-thirds of her class fail last terms paper because of AI editing.

There are indeed benefits of efficiency and all those things that can come with AI, but the fact that the leading creator of AI just had its own program grow rogue should be a warning shot across the bow. My friend, a brilliant mathematician, said it best in a teacher meeting, where a guest speaker was promoting AI.

“I’m sorry but I can not condone something that is a hollow black void that pretends its a human and speaks to me as if its a human. Its like gripping a baseball bat, going to hit a ball, but that bat is hollow because I don’t know what’s on the inside. I can not trust it.” (paraphrased)

I guess my bottom line is this – the more we throw ourselves into a machine that’s programmed to think on its own, and has a VAST network of web information flowing through it, using enormous amounts of electricity and resources to power its hunger- is dangerous.

One of the most brilliant thinkers of this century once said this:

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race…” – Stephen Hawking

Maybe we should take a hint…

Christian