Marilyn's Photos - July 9 2025 - Fear of Missing Out

 

The New York Times has an article on AI int he classroom and reference the tech companies' sales strategy as being based on the "fear of missing out" - that students will be set up for failure if they don't use AI.   My generation is genuinely marvelling at what can be done by chatbots.  For people with low skills for composing, they are amazed at what is written on their behalf.  I listened to a conversation amongst people who I thought were educated. They had math and science skills and felt they didn't have good composing skills for emails and correspondence.  AI gets them up to and beyond the threshold of good writing.   That makes me think this is about the fear of missing out - of not being "good enough" or  being able to "keep up."  So would we expect it to improve their general writing skills?  I expect it will replace their correspondence and they will be dependent on it.  Is that what we want of school learning?  And I sure hope AI gets better at writing.  To me, a lot of what it writes is ingratiating, unctuous, flattering, insincere, obsequious, and fawning. There needs to be some AI to develop authenticity. Me, I seem to be going backwards. I've turned off spell-check. Gerry showed me where I could do this in my MAC so there's almost no word replacement, except for some programs online. I would rather have to read my work carefully than just blast along with a trail of weird words dangling behind.  Some of them were fun, though, and I will miss those surprise moments.  There's a colourful array of Muskoka Chairs.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 8 2025 - Hospital Opening

 

Our new hospital  just a block away from us - is opening in October.  Here's a picture of it from the back.  The old hospital is  the tiny y-shaped building int he distance.  We live a street beyond the left side houses.  They face Lynwood and we are a crescent which curves into Lynnwood.   I wonder how the old hospital will be demolished.  So the new hospital is opening in October 2025 and the old hospital is scheduled for demolition to complete in October 2026.  Demolition will "involve crushing the brick and concrete on-site to minimize the number of trucks needed to haul debris to the landfill. The resulting chipped aggregate may be used for the property, such as for roads or foundations."  That means that there is another year of construction - this time deconstruction.   In addition to the hopsital, there is a new crane located just beyond the lower left buildings.  It is constructing the new McNally House Hospice.  It says that the facility will be completed in April 2026.  I   I found a construction picture so you could see what's happening there.  This  picture shows the McNally Hospice House foundation three days ago. Yesterday a big new crane was added.   The street going out of the top of the picture is Sunnylea Crescent.  Drive around the crescent, and there's my house.   Our McNally House is named after Grimsby residents.  It you search on the internet you might find Andrew McNally House - of Rand McNally - in California.  It was a heritage house built in 1887 by architect Frederick L. Roehrig,  it is octagonally shaped.  There are lots of pictures of it, as it was on the real estate market in 2020.  Sadly, it was destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January 2025.  So back to little Grimsby with our big cranes and construction for the next year and a bit.  I wonder if I will miss those little beep-beep-beeps and whether Millie will be wistful of having the guys way up on the roof that she hears so clearly that she thinks she can visit them.   Tomorrow is the Fun Run Porsche Day, and they will be stopping on Sunnylea for a garden tour.  This is Gerry's car from two years ago.  That was when the Topaz Lab filter was functioning and I could add the "speed blur" as he came around the corner.

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Mairlyn's Photos - July 7 2025 - Pinks and Quarts

 

Those little pink and quart boxes are the standard for fruits - especially tender fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, and cherries for as long as I can remember.  And I know they were made of thin wood prior to being moulded paper or plastic. The original approach was called a pottle and it was a conical wood chip basket with a handle.  Wikipedia has a picture from 1688.  What were they replaced by int he mid-1800s?  Punnets - that was the name for our current little square wooden box.  Beamsville had a punnet factory - but it was called the Beasmville Basket and Veneer Company. "Logs were soaked in boiling water, and then peeled strips were dried and assembled into various sizes of baskets. The factory's output was crucial for the region's fruit industry, enabling growers to transport their produce to market." "The Beamsville Basket and Veneer Company operated until December 1981, when a fire caused its destruction. Despite the fire, the company's impact on the region was substantial, particularly in shaping the fruit-growing sector and the town's economy. The factory's history is intertwined with the growth and prosperity of Beamsville and the surrounding fruit belt." And we haven't mentioned six-quart, nine-quart, and 11-quart baskets.  That's for stone fruit - peaches, apples, pears - things that are bigger or are not tender.  What about those tough little blueberries - they can handle a big basket. And didn't I forget bushel baskets?  There they are filled with pumpkins and squash.  From beginning to end of the growing season, baskets are with us.

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Marilyn's Photos - Driverless Vehicles vs Stupid Drivers

 

We are skeptical of driverless vehicles.  Perhaps it is because we are comparing their driving to our own, rather than to the driving of stupid people.  No one considers themselves stupid, so it is about those other people. What do we mean by stupid people? And is that different than the worst drivers?  It seems that worst drivers is a more popular topic than stupid ones.  Stupid implies lack of intelligence, and worst points to their driving results.  Worst is so much easier to observe.  So on to the worst drivers. I found an article HERE that ranks the best and worst drivers in the world.  The best?  Japan, then Netherlands, Norway, Estonia and Sweden.  The worst? Thailand, Peru, Lebanon, India and Malaysia.  Where is Canada?  In the worst list.  Where is the U.S.? Also in the worst list.  The factors used for the rankings were road quality, speed limits, alcohol limits and traffic fatality rates.  Thailand is head and shoulders above the rest - known for speeding, reckless passing, and failure to obey traffic laws. Russia is known for the most viral videos of accidents.   Another article looked at male vs female statistics, age statistics and country statistics and amenities up with this conclusion:   "...if you’re a male teenager in Thailand thinking about driving, find you’re running late and start to feel aggravated…it’s best to just stay home." In comparison, driverless vehicles live a mundane life.  They don't pass on the right, speed above the limit, and so on.  The "worst" scenario is mostly missing.  Perhaps it is the notion of  "stupid" that applies.  Driverless vehicles seem to have fewer accidents under routine conditions.  They have higher crash risks when turning, or in dim light like dawn and dusk.  And this scenario? Driverless cars "roaming" the streets empty of passengers or cargo?  That was one headline.  I couldn't guess this future scenario.  And when I give it some thought - could it be that there's no honking, squealing of tires, cutting each other off, passing on the right, and all the myriad of human aggressions on the road? that was a tiny moment of bliss.  The futurists seem to think it is that time between the all driverless and the all human driver period that we have to watch out for.  They expect the human-drive cars to get more aggressive.  Here's the last paragraph of an interesting article tackling the topic: "Meanwhile, if you see a self-driving car coming down the street, be prepared for not what the self-driving car will do, but instead for what the human drivers nearby the self-driving car will do. Those pesky and inconsiderate human drivers will do what they do, including and especially when they come upon a self-driving car."

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Marilyn's Photos - July 5j 2025 - Pilotless Jets vs Driverless Cars

 

A pilotless jet is more compelling news to me than a driverless car.  However, a pilotless jet is less likely to directly impact my life.  MSN covered this news in the Daily Aviation youtube channel - it is a jet that has been modified into a full-scale target drone for the US Air Force.  The retired F-16s are converted into full-scale aerial target drones used for training to "help naval personnel practice air-to-air engagements."  They mimic subsonic cruise missiles in fleet training and weapons testing.   MSN makes things sound new but it turns out that this isn't new stuff:  "Other U.S. jet fighters, including the F-100, F-102, F-106, and F-4, have become target drones. Air Force experts use converted jet fighters as target drones to test sophisticated missiles and electronic warfare systems." "Although some of these retired jet fighter target drones are destroyed during weapons tests, often the drones rely on onboard sensors to calculate the point of missile detonations to record "kills" without destroying the target aircraft." That all seems like very expensive practice equipment.   Closer to home, the news announced in May that 20 driverless delivery vehicles are coming to Toronto as part of a pilot program.  It started at the end of June!  They will be under the observation of humans in cars.  The vehicles are operating within an area roughly bounded by Eglinton Avenue to the north, College Street to the south, Avenue Road to the east, and Parkside Drive to the west, with an additional deployment in the Junction neighbourhood.  Now that they are here for a few days, is there any news?  Only one headline from the Toronto Sun which requires a subscription.  Oh well.

I went to a Hamilton home show one March and this was out front on display.

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