AirPods at the Olympics

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I don’t watch a lot of TV news these days but when I do happen upon a cable news interview the odds are pretty good the interviewee will have the iconic Apple AirPods in his ear. That’s how he’s hearing the questions from the news guy. It never occurred to me the AirPod microphones might be the source of the audio.

Tonight I watched an interview (on NBC) with one of the Olympic athletes who was using AirPods to hear the questions from the interviewer.

I first noticed this in some of the interviews with family members (of the athlete) sitting in the stands. I’m assuming this works like the earpiece (IFB) news anchors use to communicate with the control room. In every instance (that I’ve seen) they’ve been Apple AirPods when there are probably lots of devices NBC could have used.

As I do with increasing frequency these days, I asked ChatGPT if she had any information on this.

You’re right that NBC and other networks have been seen using Apple AirPods during interviews, including with Olympic athletes and their families. The use of AirPods in these situations is a practical solution for a few reasons:

1.Wireless Convenience: AirPods are wireless, which makes them less cumbersome compared to traditional wired earpieces or over-the-ear headphones. This is especially useful in dynamic or remote settings, like interviewing athletes or their families who may be moving around or in informal environments.

2.High-Quality Audio: AirPods provide good audio quality, which ensures that the person being interviewed can clearly hear the questions being asked. This clarity is crucial for maintaining the flow of live interviews, especially in noisy or crowded environments like those often encountered during the Olympics.

3.Discreet Appearance: AirPods are small and less noticeable on camera compared to larger headphones or traditional broadcast earpieces. This makes them a more aesthetically pleasing choice for televised interviews, where the focus is on the interviewee rather than the equipment.

4.Ease of Use: AirPods are easy to connect to various devices, such as smartphones, which are often used by reporters or production teams in the field to conduct interviews. Their ease of use and quick setup make them an efficient choice for live broadcasting situations.

5.Ubiquity and Familiarity: AirPods are widely recognized and used, so many people are already familiar with how to use them. This reduces the need for technical adjustments or explanations during setup.

NBC’s use of AirPods is a modern adaptation to the challenges of broadcasting in various environments, offering a blend of practicality, quality, and aesthetics.

If I could have only one person reading my blog…

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I’m not real active on social media. The occasional post on Fosstodon (following 53, 39 followers). I can go six months without seeing a like (is that what they call it there?) or a comment. So you can imagine my surprise when I see TWO comments in as many days (really one comment and a follow-up). From Dave Winer (@davew) no less.

For a long-time blogger like me, that’s like getting a phone call from Bob Dylan to tell you someone sent him a link to the YouTube video of you performing Blowin’ In the Wind at last year’s Elks Club Talent Night… and thought you did a good job. I can think of no one more influential in the early days of blogging than Dave Winer. The  Wikipedia page tells that story better than I could.

I’ve been sharing his insights and observations (31 posts) here since 2002, which was the year I started blogging. People have been born and grown into adulthood since then. The earliest post I could find also mentioned Robert Scoble and Chris Pirillo. Proto-bloggers, both.

This reads like an old-guy-remember-when post because, well… I’m an old guy remembering when. Before blogs came along in the late 1990’s, if you had something to say and wanted to share it with the world… a letter to the editor was pretty much it and there no certainty it would be printed. Blogging changed that.

Social media platforms pushed blogging off the online stage. Fact is, most folks didn’t have much to say and writing a post every day was just too much work. But anyone can shit-post on Facebook or Twitter and anyone did/does.

But Dave Winer never stopped blogging and I never stopped blogging.

Magic

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As business —and the public at large— struggle to understand artificial intelligence and what it might become, I am free from any such anxiety. Arther C. Clark explained it back in 1962:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

For now, you might say. Like all magic through the ages, we’ll figure out how the trick was done. And there are computer scientists today who write the AI code and understand how it works.

But if AI keeps “improving” at an exponential rate perhaps full understanding will remain just out of our grasp. And, yes, somebody wrote the code for today’s AI and understands how the trick is done. But who will know when AI is writing its own code?

For my part, I don’t really care how the trick is done (until it’s a bad trick, of course). For now I think about it the same way I think about “the hard problem” of consciousness. Nobody really understands what it is and how it comes to be. If some future AI achieves consciousness, and can explain it, I hope it doesn’t.

More fun with ChatGPT

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I love Carl Hiaasen‘s novels. I’ve read every one of them. Most of them three or four times. I can’t think of a writer that creates more colorful (bizarre) characters. So I wasn’t expecting much when I uploaded this photo to ChatGPT and asked her to write a thumbnail description of each of the people as if they were in a Carl Hiaasen novel.

Karen “Krazy Karen” McCallister. Krazy Karen, a former exotic dancer turned amateur sleuth, always seems to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. She’s got a penchant for loud prints, louder opinions, and a mysterious past involving a nightclub in Key West. Her talent for finding trouble is matched only by her knack for talking her way out of it.

Darlene “Darla” Jenkins. Darla is the town’s gossip queen, who knows everyone’s business thanks to her relentless scrolling through local Facebook groups. She’s a plus-sized powerhouse with a soft spot for conspiracy theories and a talent for making friends in low places. Don’t be fooled by her sedentary demeanor; Darla has her fingers on the pulse of every small-time scam in town.

Earl “Squirrel” Dobbs. Earl, better known as Squirrel, is a part-time poacher and full-time mischief maker. His wardrobe consists entirely of camouflage, not because he hunts often, but because he believes it makes him invisible to his creditors. Squirrel’s greatest talents are vanishing when the law’s nearby and concocting get-rich-quick schemes that never quite pan out.

Not Carl Hiaasen but not bad.

Thinking about thoughts

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I prompted Perplexity to tell me if scientists had determined how many thoughts we think every day. Obviously nobody knows for certain but 6,200 is the number she came up with. As I prepared to include a link to her findings in this post, I discovered I could create a “page” and publish that (somewhere) on Perplexity. While I didn’t write a single word of that page, I guess I get credit for the prompt? (“Curated by smays”)

Looking at the tag cloud on my blog I learned I have posted on the topic of “thoughts” 39 times going back fourteen years. A blog rabbit hole I couldn’t resist. Didn’t read them all but plan to read one each morning for the next month. I did, however, scrape some bits to give you a taste. (Each of these from a different source)

“I’m imagining a technology that doesn’t exist. Yet. A lightweight set of electrodes that monitors my brainwaves and transcribes (transmitted via Bluetooth to my mobile device, let’s say) my thoughts. An advanced version of today’s voice-to-text apps. We get to read that “stream of consciousness” at long last.”

“Thoughts think themselves.” […] “Feelings are, among other things, your brain’s way of labeling the importance of thoughts, and importance determines which thoughts enter consciousness.”

“If I re-google my own email (stored in a cloud) to find out what I said (which I do) or rely on the cloud for my memory, where does my “I” end and the cloud start? If all the images of my life, and all the snippets of my interests, and all of my notes and all my chitchat with friends, and all my choices, and all my recommendations, and all my thoughts, and all my wishes — if all this is sitting somewhere, but nowhere in particular, it changes how I think of myself. […] The cloud is our extended soul. Or, if you prefer, our extended self.”

“The problem is not thoughts themselves but the state of thinking without knowing we are thinking.”

“Even if your life depended on it, you could not spend a full minute free of thought. […] We spend our lives lost in thought. […] Taking oneself to be the thinking of one’s thoughts is a delusion.”

“Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them. Sometimes our thoughts act like “dream glasses.”

“We often see our thoughts, or someone else’s, instead of seeing what is right in front of us or inside of us.”

“Our minds are just one perception or thought after another, one piled on another. You, the person, is not separate from these thoughts, the thing having them. Rather you just are the collection of these thoughts.”

Vetting process for VP candidate

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Lots of stories about who Kamala Harris will choose for her running mate. I’m reminded of the movie Game Change and the scenes where McCain’s campaign is looking into the background of Sarah Palin. I prompted Perplexity for info about this process.

The vice presidential vetting process is an intensive and thorough examination of potential running mates. Here are key aspects of the process:

1. Candidates typically undergo extensive background checks, including reviews of their financial records, medical history, public statements, and personal lives.

2. The vetting team, usually comprising campaign staff and volunteer attorneys, may ask candidates to answer up to 200 probing questions covering various aspects of their lives.

3. The process involves examining tax documents, medical records, and even private social media profiles of candidates and their family members.

4. Candidates may be asked highly personal questions about their sexual history, financial dealings, and potential controversies.

5. The vetting team aims to uncover any potential liabilities or surprises that could harm the campaign.

6. The timeline for vetting can vary. While most campaigns have months, Kamala Harris’s team has had a compressed timeline of just a few weeks.

7. The process typically concludes with in-depth presentations on each finalist to the presidential candidate, followed by final interviews with top contenders.

8. Confidentiality is crucial, with vetting notes often destroyed after the process to maintain privacy.

The goal of this rigorous process is to avoid any unexpected issues that could derail the campaign and to ensure the chosen running mate strengthens the ticket

I’ll never get a close look at this process for any number of reasons but here are some of the things about which I am curious:

  • Who does the hands-on research and what sort skill set is required?
  • What’s involved in investigating someone’s social media account? Do they read every Facebook and Twitter post? Watch all YouTube videos?
  • Do they look at files on a prospect’s phone and computer?

I do like the sound of “Madam President”

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Recent events reminded me of this photo (2007) of my longtime friend (and former coworker) O. Kay Henderson

I asked her if there was any chance of recreating the photo with Vice President Harris. She pointed out that Iowa is not a swing state in this election cycle so, no, KH won’t be stopping by. But she did share this photo from July of 2019. Kay is wearing the white hat and Men In Black shades.

“awareness by the mind of itself and the world”

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I don’t recall precisely when or how I became interested in consciousness. I’ve read a few (26) books on the topic and gave it some space here (104 posts). The reading has been a mix of scientific and spiritual (for lack of a better term). The concept showed up in a lot of my science fiction reading as well. And we’ll be hearing the term –however one defines it–  more often in the next few years.

I like the idea that nobody really knows what the fuck it is or where it comes from. Thankfully, that won’t change.

I love books

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WARNING: The final two seconds of this 4:30 screencast contains a perfectly good word that some might find objectionable. If you are one of the half dozen people that occasionally read this blog, you’ll be fine. As for The Word, every child over the age of ten has heard and (probably) used the word.