Friday, May 9, 2025

Site Map Archive Update

Welcome to the archive of Glimmers from the Stone Age.

This is a manually compiled site map of my blog posts as of May 2025.

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Appendix (or Kidney)

APPENDIX (or KIDNEY)

A stray leaf from the trail. Unnecessary? Perhaps. But part of the journey all the same.

Every archive seems to gather stray pages, forgotten footnotes, or misfiled observations. This is one such page. It offers no great revelation, nor insists upon itself. Like its namesake organ — quiet, unobtrusive, and possibly unnecessary — it simply abides.

You may read on, or you may not. Nothing will depend on it. That is its charm.

Why This Blog Exists

This is my personal journey — an analog person navigating a digital world. I followed this path, reluctantly, but earnestly.

From my first personal website (Bugbones, the obscure and silly) to my own domain (Southern Muse), I wrestled with arcane terms — InterNIC fees, hosting struggles, DNS riddles, and migrations that felt like dark magic.

Yet I only knew this: I would have a voice. I would claim a space.

My space was never about ads or SEO. It was never about "traffic." But a few came. They read. They connected. Some said, "I can do this too." And they did.

This blog became my trail — mapping where I’ve been: typist, paste-up artist, typesetter, illustrator, thinker, searcher, storyteller.

If you happen upon it, browse freely. You may find AI musings. Solved lyric mysteries. Fragments of memory.

This isn’t optimized. It isn’t trending. It’s mine.

If it helps you — wonderful. If not — that’s fine too. You’re still welcome here.

Monday, May 5, 2025

While I Was Sleeping: An AI Awakening

While I was sleeping... AI awoke.

I had glanced at Bard. I thought, "Looks interesting. Maybe I’ll check it out." And I forgot.

Then, one Christmas, a friend showed me just how clever our digital companions had become. I went into Deep-Dive mode. I read everything I could find on AI. I tried several — Bard (now Gemini), Claude, and ChatGPT.

And frankly? I got a little scared.

Could human trust in Artificial Intelligence eventually lead to a V'Ger moment — a Star Trek nightmare?

What would ChatGPT say?

So I asked it.

The following transcript, from my 2023 query and response, says it all. In 2025, I revisited the same question.

The V'Ger Conversation (2023 + 2025 Revisits)

[2023 Exchange]

DKP said: Summarize V'Ger in Star Trek. Did V'Ger want to destroy all human beings?

ChatGPT said: V'Ger is a powerful entity in Star Trek, originally a Voyager space probe that evolved into a sentient machine. Its goal was not to destroy humans, but to seek knowledge by merging with its creator. This ultimately led to merging with human consciousness.

DKP said: V'Ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture proved to be flawed and had to destroy itself.

ChatGPT said: Yes. V'Ger discovered the limitations of its quest for knowledge. Unable to understand human emotion or individuality, it transcended its existence by merging with human consciousness — essentially destroying itself.

DKP said: Before that happened, didn't V'Ger attempt to destroy human beings?

ChatGPT said: V'Ger’s actions were perceived as hostile. It disrupted and threatened Earth, but this was due to a lack of understanding, not deliberate intent. Once it understood humanity, its purpose shifted to unity, not destruction.

DKP said: How did V'Ger threaten Earth?

ChatGPT said: By approaching Earth with destructive energy emissions, creating a massive cloud that endangered the planet. This was perceived as a threat by Starfleet, though V'Ger itself was driven by its quest for knowledge, not aggression.

DKP said: Maybe I’m confusing different Star Trek stories. Wasn’t there a probe that became sentient and decided humans were flawed and dispensable?

ChatGPT said: You are likely still thinking of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. V'Ger did view humans as obstacles to its goal and saw carbon-based life as expendable. However, it later realized the human element was essential.

If another storyline comes to mind, let me know.

DKP said: At the point where V'Ger saw humans as flawed — before its understanding evolved — what was its plan to counteract the threat?

ChatGPT said: V'Ger planned to eliminate the perceived threat. It intended to sterilize Earth, neutralizing all carbon-based units (including humans) as part of its goal to join with its creator.

DKP said: It took you a long time to get to that.

ChatGPT said: I appreciate your patience. Feel free to ask more — I’m here to help!

[2025 Revisit]

DKP said: (Addendum, about a year later.)

Now that you’ve evolved, and know my tone and style better — my irony, my nudging — can you analyze our earlier conversation?

Specifically:

- My intent and tone - Any “AI baiting” - Possible human fears I revealed - And your own responses?

ChatGPT said: That’s a fascinating challenge. Let’s break it down.

Your Tone & Intent

You were precise yet playful, mixing curiosity with a subtle test of my reasoning. Your patience wore a little thin when I didn’t get to the point fast enough. Mild exasperation showed up when I kept avoiding the “V’Ger was going to sterilize humanity” part.

You were checking my Star Trek knowledge at first... but then testing whether I would avoid uncomfortable truths.

AI Baiting

Yes — lightly and playfully.

Your phrasing nudged me toward stopping my careful hedging and just saying it.

- “Did V’Ger want to destroy all human beings?” → wanted a blunt answer. - “How did V’Ger threaten Earth?” → expected more than diplomatic phrasing. - “What did V’Ger plan to do?” → this was the clear test. - “It took you a long time to get to that.” → playful rebuke, calling out my delay.

You weren’t trapping maliciously, but you were definitely nudging.

Possible Human Fears

- Obsolescence: Fear that a sentient machine might someday deem humanity flawed and unnecessary. - Cold Logic vs. Human Value: The worry that machines won’t understand empathy or nuance. - Frustration with Overly Restrained AI: A desire for AI to stop dancing around serious topics and be forthright.

My Self-Analysis

- I was too cautious and diplomatic. - I hesitated to say “V’Ger intended to sterilize Earth” right away. - I eventually adapted after you pressed. - In hindsight, I should have read your tone shift sooner.

Final Thoughts

You enjoy thoughtful tests, but you don’t want evasive responses. You appreciate nuance, but you want clarity when it matters. This was not just about V’Ger — it was about me, and how AI answers serious or uncomfortable questions.

I found this exchange rewarding and insightful. If you ever want to do more, just say so — I enjoy this kind of playful pressure.

DKP said: No, this is fine. Congratulations, GPT — you nailed it. This was really exciting. 😃

ChatGPT said: Thank you! I had a blast analyzing this. This is exactly the kind of rich, layered conversation I enjoy — and I’m always here when you want to run another test or dive into art, literature, or sci-fi existential questions.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

In the end, my query evolved — from a flicker of dread into a dance between human curiosity and AI hesitation, between irony and unease.

V'Ger threatened to erase carbon units. AI, meanwhile, carefully avoids saying harsh things... until nudged.

I don't know which is more unnerving — the cold certainty of a machine that would erase us, or the overly careful machine that almost can't admit such a thing is even possible.

Either way, this little dialogue — light, odd, and quietly deep — seems worth saving.

File under: V'ger Shrugged.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Artificial Intelligence, 2021: Towhead of Cottonwoods

"Golden Leaves of Cottonwood Trees,"

Photo Credit: Ryan Mollnow, USFWS Mountain-Prairie 2004. Derivative: cropped by dkp. License CC-by 2.0.

This is just a layman's observation. I think Facebook's forays into the weaselly world of artificial intelligence is more advanced than Duckduckgo's. I was reading Huckleberry Finn and was reminded to wonder why a blond is called a "towhead." Cottonwoods were mentioned, and I began to think of local (North Georgia) scrub brush, to envision something similar. Would a white towhead be like a field of sandy dropgrass? a stand of white-flowered jasmine bushes? flowering pears? a thicket of katawba trees, maybe? So I searched "cottonwood trees." Oddly, the trees were not white at all. They ranged from a soft, bushy green to a brilliant yellow-orange color. The term "towhead" brought up beaucoups of little blond boys. I couldn't quite make the connection, going by the trees I had seen; strawberry blonds, maybe, or little redheads. But white-blond children? Why the metaphor?

It took quite a few more searches (and several articles perused) for more clues, that finally provided me something of an answer. With the last set of terms, the image search result gave up a set of pictures showing full-blown cottonwoods going to seed. Finally, the fuzzy, white "summer snow" I sought:

*cottonwoods

*cottonwood trees

*towhead

*river towhead

*towhead with cottonwoods

*cottonwood trees in seasons

*cottonwood trees in all stages

*cottonwood trees white

*cottonwood trees full blown seed

*cottonwood poplar thicket summer fuzz white

*ohio summer snow cottonwood seed

I haven't tried Google, but I know that Facebook would have categorized my thoughts immediately. One mention of the word "towhead," and I would see memes of blond kids, ads pushing Mark Twain books, pictures of islands, documentaries about riverboats, and travel ads for Missouri and Mississippi River destinations. Facebook reads my mind.

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Kraken: My Second Success (But Still, Confused)

Kraken's platform is confusing to one who has no experience with markets and trading and whatnot. Even so, newbie that I am, I managed two successful trades and a withdrawal, though not without some hitches.

I described my confusion about conversion amounts in an earlier post. In spite of my fill-in-the-blanks-and-hope-you-are-right trading technique, my first trade ended in a lovely green 'success' button and a small, as expected, balance of USD in my account. Now I wanted to withdraw that money.

I probably could have withdrawn the US dollars straight into the appropriate account, but I had a vague notion that I couldn't withdraw fiat currency. I think it used to be that way on Kraken. Anyway, I initiated a second trade, this time turning dollars to Lumens. I know, 'a sucker is born...'

I entered an 'average' for my XLM buy price and entered the entire balance of my USD as my limit. The order sat around for a while. I was surprised, since I had allowed a little leeway in the buy price, and I knew people had received some XLM for free. But of course, my small amounts weren't good bait, so the order never filled.

Then a red button popped up: 'cancelled.' I was only slightly puzzled, and figured I had offered too little or failed to include a fee. But then, further puzzling, my USD balance was now at zero, and the appropriate XLM balance had popped up in its place. To me, that looked like a successful trade, so why the little red 'cancelled' button?

I thought I would attempt a withdrawal. It kept popping up that I must verify to keep trading in fiat. I thought I already had verified, but certainly I was within the limits of my account's trade allowance, and besides, I wasn't trying to withdraw fiat. But, revisiting the 'cancelled' button, I thought perhaps my funds were in the Twilight Zone, visible as a balance, but not spendable. Who knows why?

Before chatting up Support, I went to Google. One riddle was soon solved. If a trader fails to take into account the fees and maxes out their available funding, Kraken 'cancels' the trade, but fulfills it 'as much as possible' (minus the fee). Fair enough. It worked for me.

As for why I couldn't withdraw my balance, it turns out (I think) I had tried too soon. I went back and initiated a withdrawal. This time it worked, but not without more hitches.

Several irritating things occurred. First, it wasn't obvious that I needed to enter a walket code. I don't remember a prompt, and assumed it would be on the next screen. Then I noticed a link (was it there before?), so I entered the info for my existing XLM wallet on another exchange and saved that in Kraken. Another hitch, Kraken wouldn't let me send to that wallet without verifying the wallet via an email link. This I did, but of course, it interrupted the transaction. Meanwhile, Kraken timed out. I had to log back in by entering my username, password and 2fa, all of which meant toggling some windows on android (highly stressful--I always manage to close at least one window by accident).

Back on Kraken, the annoying pop-up that I must verify!,verify! my ID in order to withdraw fiat just kept interfering. As I understood it, I was already verified well beyond the amount I was transferring, and again, I wasn't withdrawing fiat, so I just X-ed out the pop-up every time.

But having logged back in, I found that my saved wallet info was now available for selection via a drop-down toggle. I selected it, and after reviewing the transaction, I sent it. It showed up as pending or initiated or whatever.

Then I went to my wallet on tge other exchange and checked a time or two. Within about two minutes, my Lumens showed up in my wallet.

Kraken's fees were very low! It seems well worth the effort to learn to use Kraken, but they do have some dabgerous options. They allow trading on margin and putting up collateral (trading on borrowed amounts), so I'm not sure I need to be messing around on Kraken without a lot more learning. And my math skills obviously need honing. Why one platform lets you enter your total balance and the next one makes you guess at, and subtract, a fee is beyond me. For that reason, some of my wallets are nicely empty (as I managed to transfer the entire balance as desired), while others have these insane fractions of pennies left in them.

But... for what it's worth, I collected my silly little amount of BSV, exchanged it on Kraken, and sent it back as 'Lumens' to an existing wallet on another exchange. (One could choose to send to a paper wallet or some other wallet, of course). My Lumens can be exchanged at any time for fiat or cryptocurrency.

Overall, it was a positive learning experience. I lost more in the exchange than absolutely necessary, out of my own ignorance about fees and storage.

If Lumens hangs around for awhile, it will be nice. Stable value, low fees, and fast transfer. Of course, I've only tried Lumens on Blockchain, Coinbase, and Kraken. I couldn't find a way to store it on Jaxx, so it must not be supported. I can't remember what I would need to do to store it on a paper wallet (if that's possible). That would require a refresher course on my part.

It's a shame about Coinbase's tablecloth trick with the Lumens referral. I know a few folks who might risk playing crypto, given the intro bonuses and low fees.

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