Category: Observations

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(A)s(I)nine

Of either a movie’s plot point or an economic talking point, automation repeatedly injects itself into our daily lives, and never seemingly in a good way. Charlie’s dad lost his job when the toothpaste factory created a machine to install the caps. Mr. Wipple destroyed his and his employees’ purpose and livelihoods by replacing every person with a machine. Interstellar wars became fully dehumanized after soldiers were replaced with bioengineered human facsimiles. And here at Easement Acres, infrastructure repair work orders become hindered by inaccurate reports.

AES, our local electrical company, decided to wage war on neighborhood trees, after having been called out for their inflated prices and subsequently ordered to refund their customer base some arbitrary percentage. I conclude that this triggered a scrambling to perform publicly-observable work to justify the price increases, which always seems to culminate in destroying peoples’ yards with lowest-bidder hired itinerant subcontractors. Knowing the demographic of my own neighborhood, I’m somewhat surprised that ICE didn’t make an appearance.

So after an afternoon of chainsaw-fu taking place, my internet cut out – conveniently timed with a sudden exodus of the aforementioned subcontractors from my property. As annoyance yielded to curiosity, having been now prevented from completing any additional office work for the day, I deduced what might have been the problem:

Yes, the cable line, including its protective conduit, had been severed completely.

An irritated call to my internet provider, Spectrum, (not that it was their fault), suggested that I might remedy the problem by rebooting my modem. Apparently that might magically fuse the line back together. I told the agent that the line had been cut, as I was rebooting the modem. He pointed out to me that he still wasn’t seeing a connection to my modem. I asked for a field tech to come out. He was able to dispatch one at 8AM the next morning.

Following this initial exchange, Spectrum felt the need to call me twice more, saying they couldn’t send anyone out. I reiterated that the problem was a cut line. The agents verbally acknowledged this.

In the meantime, having been forced offline, I began to ponder what the fix would require. The cable just needed to be spliced back together. Also, I had the tools to do so, having previously run coax through my attic and walls in order to attach a digital antenna to the TVs. How hard could it be?

The answer, as it would turn out, is: not very. Although I obviously didn’t posses the proper connectors required for outdoor waterproof applications, it wasn’t raining and a fix was better than no fix. I rummaged through my wire boxes and procured two twist terminations and a connector.

Crisis averted for the moment.

The next morning, a field tech arrived and notified me that he’s here to diagnose my modem. I told him the problem was a cut wire, and that I could not only show him where, but that I was certain it was the problem because my temporary fix had restored the internet. It was at this point that he informed me that customer calls are notated by AI, and that agents themselves can’t actually add notes. Not only had they turned over basic work order documentation to automation, but also prevented human intervention. This resulted in completely inaccurate information.

This goes well beyond basic outsourcing, which often has proven problematic due to language barriers and cultural differences. How AI is intended to supersede all human to human interactions is, I think, still a tad ambitious. Although, when I myself worked in a call center, I half-jokingly reflected on humanity’s historical relationship with indentured servitude with my peers, and that our job only existed for us because it couldn’t be forced upon others to do for free; and additionally, if it couldn’t legally be done with slave labor, it was still cheaper to pay us to do it than design and maintain a machine to.

Ambitious or not, demonstrated by my interaction with Spectrum, it’s nonetheless becoming the future too irresistible for employers.

–Simon

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Ghost-writers in the Sky

An old cowpoke went riding out one dark and windy day/

COVID meds laced through the sky ’cause liberals got their way!

I have a neighbor who insists that jet contrails are COVID vaccines. Or experimental medical seeding. Or most recently – Masonic symbols being surreptitiously scrawled on high for all to see.

I’d normally consider such conclusions to be based in paranoia, with little tangible evidence. But as Boomers don’t like to be contradicted, I choose these moments to disengage from conversation rather than inquire further. Some part of me remains curious as to why someone might make such unhinged conclusions, but not enough to encourage the conspiracy theory rhetoric that would inevitably ensue.

The Devil’s pitchfork! Hail Satan!

So instead, I asked AI – an odd usage of modern technology, but why not? Let’s see what aggregated generative data can give us to help understand unhinged thinking.

Its conclusion, greatly abbreviated, was that people recognize anomalies in predictable patterns, and that the process by which jet contrails are created can be difficult to understand. A distrusting mind then tries to associate such a phenomenon with an already-mistrusted system: in this case, the government. And the government objectively handled the COVID pandemic response poorly. Ergo: confusing chemical/physical phenomenon = government doing suspicious things, possibly COVID-related. Or the Free Masons – because they’re secretive. Or Voldemort.

But I find it confusing that one would spend the mental energy to fabricate an outlandish conclusion rather than simply look up the scientific process that created the anomaly in the first place.

So as a service to the paranoid, here’s what’s going on:

Jet fuel is kerosene, for the most part. A combustible hydrocarbon. When burned, it reacts with oxygen to generate heat – the expanding volume of which produces thrust – with the byproducts: carbon dioxide and water.

The carbon dioxide dissipates into the atmosphere. The water, owing to the exothermic reaction, is released it its vaporous state. This water vapor, then exposed to high-altitude atmospheric conditions (low air pressure and temperature), condenses into visible water.

Jet exhaust creates a damn cloud! Sheesh.

I’m not sure why that’s harder to believe than clandestine government-sponsored aerosol-dispersed COVID vaccines.

People are weird.

–Simon

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Croci 2026

In the spirit of phenologic trend monitoring, here are the first crocus blooms of 2026, as of 2/25:

3 days earlier than last year, but that’s probably insignificant. I’m making the guess that this year’s weather patterns will be similar to last year’s.

Next up: starting tomato seedlings.

–Simon

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Phenologic Trends

Four years is hardly a sufficient data sample by which to predict trending weather, but I took my historical phenologic observations and graphed them nonetheless. It would turn out to reveal a short-term trend.

Dandelions are the outlier, and I didn’t start measuring all events on the same initial year, but there’s a noticeable dip – indicating a warm spell. That 2-year period returned to previous values last year.

I have yet to observe crocus flowers, but they are starting to bloom. And with all the recent snow, it would appear that we’re beginning to return to a cooler seasonal climate.

Interesting. I shall continue to monitor this. I may delay planting dates.

–Simon

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Shopping for Clothes

I don’t think anyone’s conditioned from a young age to enjoy clothes shopping. For many, if the cruelty of the hand-me-down experience can be avoided, the alternative is to accompany mother to a store no one wants to be in and waste an entire weekend day arguing over style preferences and cost. The end result is inevitably a wardrobe that’s strictly utilitarian, and doesn’t encourage much in the way of self-confidence.

As an adult, this retail experience is just as bad. My generation may have been raised with digital technology, but it wasn’t always there. The current younger generations weren’t merely raised with it, but fully assimilated by it. Consequently, I notice that they tend to navigate the physical world in a state of non-associated delirium, often blocking entire isles for no apparent reason, because whatever’s being fed into their wireless earbuds has overwhelmed their cognitive processing power, leading to a bodily shutdown. The best case scenario is that they’re a customer, which merely presents a physical obstacle. At worst, that’s the store employee whose attention you need to flag down to complete a transaction. But at least with this group, their response to any forced verbal interaction is general indifference.

A worse group to have to deal with in public is boomers. As customers, they exhibit similar behavior as physical roadblocks, but it’s because their brains have just atrophied naturally. They didn’t need the technology to shut them down, though that doesn’t stop them from trying. If said boomer is also trying to multitask with technology at this moment, well, you’re never getting down that isle. And if the boomer is the store employee, prepare for spontaneous anger and condescension.

A millennial – my generation – tends to want to be as small and invisible as possible when in public space. Just let me shop without attitude. And if the millennial in question is the store employee, well that scenario is increasingly unlikely, because we’ve done everything in our power to avoid that type of work, up to an including suicide. Because when we had to do it, all the customers were boomers, and that relationship collectively broke our souls.

As a millennial, here’s a typical in-person shopping experience:

  • Employee is a boomer = transaction is outright hostile, always.
  • Employee is a millennial = unlikely scenario.
  • Employee is a zoomer = transaction is dismissive or hard to complete at all.

But there’s more to this than generational differences. People, being inherently shallow, immediately judge if someone’s worth their time to interact with. An employee, being forced to interact with customers, modifies their approach to hasten or prolong the transaction based on this superficiality. Specifically, it’s saturated with gender bias, which can’t be escaped when shopping with one’s spouse. If the couple in question is not conventionally attractive (which, to be honest – we’re middle aged now and not terribly athletic, so take that for what it’s worth), here’s the experience:

  • Employee is male = (looks at the wife of the couple, assumes the man has no taste in nice clothing), transaction is dismissive, or, in my own personal experience, avoided by the employee at all costs.
  • Employee is female = (looks at the wife and husband as a unit, assumes the man has little money), transaction is completed with a heavy dose of suspicion.

Mix these categories into all their possible combinations, and it adds the anxiety of not knowing exactly how the employee will make the experience unpleasant, but it definitively will be.

Fortunately, technology – the force destroying both older and younger generations – has once again come to the rescue for a millennial. Mail-order clothing based on user surveys, combined with style recommendations derived from user preference, has delivered unto me designer brands that I would never have considered purchasing before. And now, I have a very nicely-stocked wardrobe, obtained without horrible customer service!

Oooh, look at that closet!

While I have utmost empathy for the service industry worker, there’s something specifically unique about the clothing industry. It’s even worse than the automotive dealership, which in itself is not known for impartiality. Every time a clothing outlet closes nearby, I remember a bad experience and laugh. This is a retail nightmare that can go away, and I’m perfectly fine with being blamed, as a millennial, for one more thing that we’re killing.

–Simon