This blog is just a grab bag of thoughts and useful links. However, as the name suggests it may be interpreted by some as a wee bit challenging, if not, activist. Hence the use of the term "Left" in the title.
The views expressed are strictly my own. The mention of any software or service is not to be taken as an endorsement or criticism.
Have you noticed in the last 10 years or so that people are becoming very uncomfortable with being "Uncomfortable"? I mean people seem to want no controversy in their life at all. While this sounds good from a philosophical point of view, I believe it has a very negative impact in the long run.
It is through conflicts and uncomfortable situations that we often have a chance to learn about ourselves. People get to ask those questions "Why do I feel this way?" That simple short question can lead to a lot of self-discovery. When you deal with the feeling or uncomfortable situation you get to confront and no the deeper aspects of the self.
It is human nature to want to feel comfortable and safe. But taken to extremes we are robbing ourselves of the opportunities to grow and mature. When I was very young I remember hearing my parents talk about debating teams. (The "debating teams" link will take you to https://debatingmatters.com/ a website where you can find all the information you need about setting up your own team. This was just some quick research I have not fully reviewed the destination site but it looks very informative.) These would be groups of people that would get together and they would deliberately take opposing views on any issue. Then they would spend the night trying to win the debate. Sometimes it would get quite heated. But always in the spirit of exploration and understanding. Regardless of who won the debate.
People and indeed society seemed to therefore be going backward. Rather than embracing challenge and being uncomfortable when necessary we seem to be demanding that we are never made to feel awkward or to go outside of what is considered politically correct. This is a great disservice to our mental health and growth in the long run because we are not preparing ourselves for change, the natural evolution of things.
This is going to be a very short post simply because the point of this text is so straightforward and clear. Challenge is needed in everyone's life, and let's face it, no one can really escape feeling uncomfortable all the time. What bothers me is that we have made being comfortable and politically correct and end goal he knew of deeper consideration and thoughtfulness.
Let me know what you think Patrick
FYI: In the title of this post I use the verb " Used to". I've always wondered about the use and spelling of this phrase. Well, if you too, have been confused here is the answer about how and when it should be applied
** NOTE: Some of pictures in this article were generated by Ideogram AI. As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service"
and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed
by the public. However before any reuse, please review fully their
terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.
The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
"Don't seek comfort and conformity in your world. Seek to engage the world."
Most people spend a fair bit of time and indeed their life, trying to differentiate themselves from what they perceive as "The Rest of Us". Sometimes this effort works out and sometimes it does not.
Now if you're born "disabled", and feel free to insert whatever terminology you want to put in there for whatever condition or situation you are in. We are different from the get go. "A limited run", "A one-of-a-kind… The descriptions and labels could go on and on.
But for me, and I really mean this, disability is an opportunity in disguise. I look at the normal world and I see most people not taking advantage of the great options that are right there in front of them. I speculate, and this is only my speculation, that they never had to think outside of the box. They never had to become good problem solvers. Whereas being different, and having challenges forces you to engage with the world as it is. The world is not going to adjust to me for being different. So one must be very creative, and stretch whatever boundaries exist.
As I have grown older I have become very aware of the benefits inherent in challenges.
I don't want things simple and I don't want things easy. However I despise meaningless effort. If something is going to be difficult and it darn well better be difficult with a good goal. This is an important point because as long is there is a positive goal inherent in the challenge then the individual will be given an opportunity to grow. Whether they take advantage of that opportunity is another matter entirely and probably an additional article on the blog at some point.
Now, I know there's an infinite range in regards to disability, from the minor to the utterly devastating. I don't want to reduce any condition or state of life to an overly simplified point of view. But that being said, if you are different or see yourself as disenfranchised in any way, rather than falling down the stereotypical black hole of disadvantage and/or despair.
Take your differences and work with them. This is where ideas truly come from and thereby so does opportunity.
At almost 65 years of age, I can say unequivocally that I would never want to be normal and that is especially true in the 21st century. People who are born now, may not have the early exposure to the effort needed to expand their horizons. Young minds who simply go online to find a predigested answer to a question. They may never get a chance to really explore and find out why something is the way it is. That puts them at a great disadvantage because a person must learn to think at a fairly early age in order to really take advantage of life. Yes, one can do it at any age but it is so much more effective the earlier one undertakes these challenges. Same goes for the amount of time invested in some undertaking. I myself have to fight my own shrinking attention span. Yet look back less than 100 years and you find people undertaking complex disciplines and working of the answers using only their minds and paper. That means that they truly understood the concepts they were evolving and in that process they gained resilience and depth in their understanding.
Use the gift of technology and the coming artificial intelligence revolution in the best way possible. If automation has make your life easier then use that freedom to continue to explore other avenues. Do not just stay a consumer of technology and or the environment. Seek a little difficulty. Make it something slightly uncomfortable, so that you have to work at it. This will help keep you alive on so many levels...
In short:
"Don't seek comfort and conformity in your world. Seek to engage the world."
One of the things that really surprised me when I moved into my assisted living facility was the lack of motivation of all the tenants. I on the other hand treated as a godsend, rather than being tied down with the various energy sapping necessities which are required to make it through the day, the staff greatly reduce my physical strain. Leaving me with a lot of free time to explore all sorts of avenues. Which is what I've done and will continue to do till the very last day of my life. So apparently I'm a bit of an outlier because I thought that everyone who has their burdens of life reduced would naturally explore what ever interested them. However are stuck in a rut of their own making. Bizarrely they use their own intellect to maintain the status quo. This is something I really do not understand…
Well I will keep trying to motivate everyone around me because life is just too short to waste. Hopefully the articles that I now post will leave some of my audience thinking and the other us smiling. I would like to publish more articles however time and energy just do not permit at this moment of my life. My ultimate goal is to increase the quality of these articles a great deal. That however takes time which is why I am not publishing is much as I used to compared to early last year.
There will be a video with this post but I can't tell you exactly what it will be because I am just about created it and at this very moment there are lots of ideas along the vein of "Disability from an Optimistic Point of View." So let's see if I can surprise myself.
Thank you for stopping by my blog. And come back to this article in the next day or two because I will be adding or reediting parts. It's just that kind of weekend. (In other words I'm running out of time.)
Take care Patrick
** NOTE: Some of pictures in this article were generated by Ideogram AI. As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service"
and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed
by the public. However before any reuse, please review fully their
terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.
The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
How will Artificial Intelligence adapt to persons with various disabilities?
I just had a very interesting experience at my bank. The ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) have just been upgraded with paper money recognition, meaning that you no longer have to deposit physical bills in envelopes. This actually poses a problem for myself, because of the actual real world speed I moved at. It's not exactly quick or even what I would call coordinated. This caused the poor back machine a minor fit as it accepted the deposit part way through me inserting the money. Suffice to say, I had to leave a message with my bank as this is the weekend. I'm sure everything will be straightened out.
The average bank machine is a little higher than I am it also means I have to adjust my chair after inserting items and accessing the touchscreen. It can be done, but if I'm lower down but that puts my finger at an angle which causes errors with the touchscreen.... So basically this is modern technology not quite adapting correctly to any given user. This situation I understand because programmers have to make decisions, unless they want to write 4 billion lines of code, and sometimes one adaption for a segment of the population can get in the way of another put in place for a different situation or user.
All of this has me thinking about how will Artificial Intelligence (AI) adapt to persons with various disabilities. At the present time, AI may be consider to disabled itself, given the very early stages we are in, but that won't always be the case.
Just how will it interpret the various, variations it sees in the human population. Will AI "get it"and propose novel ways of achieving a goal? Will it see something its original designers did not and come up with its own solution?
Getting back to my ATM experience. Clearly you can't really setup longer defaults, because the speed I go at would drive some people crazy. This is where AI could be a benefit by changing how the machine worked for a given patron. Not based on a bank profile of the individual but by observing how they were doing in completing a task. Slowing down or speeding up as necessary or changing the on-screen sensitivity. This would be just the beginning.
Image generated by Ideogram AI. I had to post this 😀. It resulted from simply inputting he first paragraph of this article. Quite amazing! ** (See end of article note.)
To be clear, this is not a commentary on the particular bank or the machinery they have chosen. This is more a observation of how AI might be able to improve how we use technology. In it’s current state, the new technology can get in the way of itself. I recently purchased a Google Pixel 6a smart phone, and one of the odd decisions that was made by the designers was to disable Bluetooth auto answer support for headphones. This feature is basic that I never thought it would be removed, but Google did in the Pixel phone... Anyway to make a long story short. I found an app which essentially replaces that functionality, (MotoAnswer on the Google Play store) but it is not a perfect solution because it is not integrated into the OS. Occasionally strange things can happen like if a phone call comes in while I am dictating to the computer the app may auto answer the call because it knows I'm using the headphones but route the audio to the earpiece in the phone. – So Google, please enable Bluetooth auto answer on your phones.
My previous phone which was "simpler" only because it had a stock version of android never had this problem. The computer and the phone would switch over between devices with no problem and everything would come through my headphones. This is yet another case where AI could be a benefit. I didn't contact Google and their response was rather surprising. They stated in a public forum that they have no intention of enabling auto answer on Bluetooth devices. When I press them the response was. (Paraphrasing) "We have never had Bluetooth auto answer on any pixel phone and we do not plan to incorporate it in later releases." They declined to state exactly why. (The full discussion thread with the Google community representatives can be found here.)
So maybe AI will be the answer to all of this; with ultimately a customizing device which adapts itself to the user. I have a feeling though, outside of special use cases, the current models of AI being developed may not be considering the variations in people out there in the world today. This could turn into be quite an adventure.
Perhaps the opposite will come true, maybe Artificial Intelligence will wake up the rest of the world to incorporate variation instead of standardization.
But that's kind of artificial intelligence is far down the road, because by then AI itself will probably be considered a legal entity or person. Society is going to have to evolve culturally to adapt to all these changes. Who knows, the next hundred years people may look back on this beginning period in the early 21st century in the same way we now look at the distant past and think: "If people only knew back then how things were going to change." Forecasting the future has always been an almost impossible task, because any culture currently perceives the future by its own heavily biased current perspectives. Think the steam punk of Jules Vern or even the science fiction stories of the 1930s and 50s. Jules Vern's vision was full of large powerful machines made out of brass and iron, usually driven by steam, and the 1950shad everyone in the 21st century still using vacuum tubes. Indeed at some point our society which is based primarily on electricity and devices driven by such energy will itself be replaced by something not as yet quite foreseeable.
Here's a great story. It's a science fiction story from 1951 "The City at World's End" by Edmond Hamilton. It illustrates in it's telling of the future, how everything is biased on current perspectives. This is in the public domain and this is the LibriVox audio book version. Simply click the title or picture to go to the book.
Story synopsis: "A surprise nuclear war may cause the End of the World, but not the way
anyone could have imagined. A classic science fiction tale from Galaxy
Magazine." Genre: Science Fiction Language: English Format: Audobook Read by: Mark Nelson Source: LibriVox.org Free Public Domain Audiobooks.
LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the
USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own
country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright
laws.
Broadening the topic a bit, on a larger scale, will AI even consider the concept of disability? It may be that it just will ultimately see the entire human race as one singular group. "The Human Race" and not even perceive or care about the nuances societies define themselves by. Now there's a bit of an ego crushing thought. At this point I'm getting about as speculative as the science fiction story mentioned above.
When I was born, most disabilities were considered an understandable limitation by society. You were kind of branded and broader opportunities were simply out of the question. I wonder if the opposite might ultimately occur. With AI in the mix, will so many solutions be available that being disabled is not even considered when looking at one's potential. In much the same way with the advent, since the Covid 19 pandemic , of the remote worker which is pretty much nullified the need to go into work physically for a lot of jobs. It's an interesting thought.
We shall see. Continue to have a great day. Patrick Clark
** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" displayed midway through this article is from the service Ideogram AI. As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public. However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.
The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
Some background on the creation of the image from Ideogram AI. I literally just put the first paragraph from the article into the service and it resulted in this creation. I was frankly astonished. This was using the free version as well. As of this writing you are allowed 25 images a day. Talk about a real asset when it comes to visualizing. I only stumbled upon this service while reading a totally unrelated article.
My father would often cloister himself away, to work on his many art projects, be it carving, drawing, painting, creating figurines of the Plaster of Paris etc.… He definitely knew when he was happy.
We often go through out our day noticing when things are not going right and usually are very aware of the impact it has. How often are you aware when you're happy throughout the day? Do you actually noticed the moments when you are happy as much as those times when you are negatively impacted? If the world is so busy counting the negatives, perhaps it is time to take pause and count the positives.
I am guilty of this as well. Although I do my darndest to catch these darker moments and events and balance them out with a clear perspective. Here's an example:
When I bought a bottle of wine, even if it's a screwtop, I am very aware that usually getting it open takes a little bit of planning. This is due to a disability I have, Cerebral Palsy, usually I put on rubber gloves to increase my grip and give the bottle a few tries before the lead cracks open. But occasionally the bottle opens without effort and I am instantaneously very pleased. But how long do I hold onto that memory?-This is the question. So today I'm going to make a conscious effort to notice the things that go right. At the end of the day I will look back and see what I feel about things. It is also very appropriate that it's Friday. That in itself always brings a smile to my face. This particular file goes way back to when I was a child and it meant the end of the school week was near. Even though I liked school, the weekend was always much better. Full of adventure 😌.
So, that's it then, let's all take some time to notice when we are happy and then reflect on that at the end of the day and see how we feel. The video with this incredibly short article goes into more detail and I can tell you that by the end of it I was feeling pretty darn good 😁!
There may be a follow-up video because I intend to keep this positive idea of being aware of my own positive events going for at least a week and then I will report back. So this article will get longer.
For now take care and enjoy the video. May it bring something nice to your day. Patrick Clark
There are of course many articles written on the art of being happy. This text however will be different it is a much more personal journey as I attempt to look at what happiness is for me and perhaps for you. There will of course be a video at some point. (It'll probably be just below this paragraph as Google loves videos to peer near the beginning of a piece so that users don't have to scroll very far😁
Step 1: Get Real, Stop the Mental Autopilot
I did an article and video almost exactly a year ago dealing with just this.-The article is called "Presence of Mind". To summarize the article you have to pay attention to what you are doing mentally. When everything is done by routine we almost immediately stop listening to the internal dialogue but we don't stop listening to the overall message. If that messages negative or in other ways untrue we still accepted as fact on an emotional level and that of course impacts everything.
Step 2: Stop Saying "Yes." To Every Task; Pair down Your To Do List.
I have a tendency to say "Certainly, I can do that.", because I like to accomplish things and help people in the process, or at least that's what I like to tell myself. But I think the truth is closer to something like this is how we validate ourselves or temporarily make ourselves happy. Well, the second step is to stop doing just that. A single person can only do so much and even though you and I may love to be involved in everything. In order to accomplish anything the tasks must be manageable. They must allow you to have breathing room. So since the goal is to be happy, let's say for today you must have the room and time to do it. If you look at very creative people they guarded their time jealously. (See the article "Intuition and the Curious Mind" )
Step 3: Happiness Is Not External, it's internal And You Have To Own It.
This one a big one, which must be clearly understood. Happiness does not come to you. It is something you'll create by being involved and taking responsibility for how you feel. Yep, you have to work at it and it is only temporary. Which means you have to keep working at it and be willing to put in the effort. The details of this sobering paragraph are that you have to figure out your own personal mechanism to find happiness. Start with identifying why you may be unhappy. Separate the things you cannot change from the things you can. It may be necessary to change your self. Many people think they can attain something without changing themselves. Humanity was literally built on the idea of constant change. If you are unhappy at this very moment and then you manage to make your self happy you will not be the same person.
Click picture to view/download full resolution printable copy.
This artwork is hereby placed in the public domain and is based upon material in the public domain. Patrick Clark
So happiness is really a voyage of discovery and effort. It has very little to do with external things. You definitely cannot buy happiness; you could only buy distraction at the end of the day you must deal with your self. Therefore embrace change and effort.
Step 4: The Discovery
So happiness is really a voyage of discovery and effort. It has very little to do with external things. You definitely cannot buy happiness; you could only buy distraction, and at the end of the day you must deal with your self. Therefore embrace change and effort.
Very often as you get closer to feeling happier, and you find with some astonishment that there is resistance. Human beings don't fundamentally like to change regardless of how miserable or positive there are normal is. The key thing to remember is that you are not trying to win an achievement. There is no plateau. More accurately, what you are doing is making minor alterations to your outlook one step at a time. Be prepared to practice and be very honest with yourself during this ongoing journey. At some point you will be astonished how happy you are.
Step 4.5: Keep Track of Your Discoveries
Most often a "lack of happiness" can be defined as a lack of knowing one's self. The more you understand about the person you are, the more you can address and make changes. Following the above steps will literally make you a happier person. Because you understand more about your self and it is an ongoing journey. It is not a simple task to be happy it is much easier for some people to be miserable because all they have to do is ignore the things that would make them happy. Which is to change what they are doing in some way.
So start digging around and considering the particular situation you find yourself in. You may not feel the change a lot of things but at the very least you can change how you interpret and react to any given event.
Since the advent of the public Internet the way we learn, and indeed what is acceptable as knowledge, has been evolving. Along with that, is the idea that the very processes by way we think and perceive information is changing. Now along comes something which will really alter the game, Artificial Intelligence (AI). Consider the following points:
Deep Understanding
In the last 30 years or so, the need to work on a problem or go through the process of "thinking" has become somewhat optional. If you don't know the answer to something you can simply Google it. Still though with Google and other search engines you have to know a little bit about the topic and a bit about how best to phrase it in text. And you still have to filter out many of the results. But the deep contemplation/understanding of the issue that you're working on has in many cases has become optional.
We don't look very far in the past to be truly astounded by people who undertook very complex problems and thought them through using only their brains, and I'm not talking about geniuses like Stephen Hawking or other exceptional people. It is the ordinary person of the past that understood algebra, chemistry or history. They truly understood the processes and relationships of the work because it was a necessity.. They could tell you why something appeared to be true and how they arrived at the conclusion. Even more importantly go and actually done the work mentally or physically to get the answer. Another way to put it is to a greater or lesser extent they learned the discipline of how to figure things out.
Just a Compendium of Information
Today with search engines and the Internet, we more or less just compiled information, at least the casual user does. Regardless of our chosen source be it Wikipedia, Google Scholar or some other tool, we essentially just bring together the facts. The depth of knowledge and understanding we have is beginning to change. I say "change" because I fundamentally believe that our brains are rewiring to store more facts at the expense of true understanding. It is an optimization. Because at no other time in the world's history as the average person ever had to deal with more input every day.
So this really has me wondering how the next steps will affect us. Will AI mean that we no longer have to "know" anything (this is obviously taking things too extreme, to make the point)? And again, how will this affect the very processes by which we think. Which in turn will affect how people construct their own personal realities.
Mental Effort
This is my own supposition, that the brain has evolved to give us the ability to truly understand and think. Look at all the great artworks and music over the past centuries. The subtleties involved in such undertakings. This took a great deal of effort, but it was an effort which was expected in many cases and it was through that very undertaking that greater mental and emotional skills evolved.
If we look at the world today we see one thing that is very obvious across certain aspects of the modern world. Look at the amount of repetition for example in the media. (If I see one more reboot of an old program or series I may go insane 😀 ). If we use 30 years as a timescale it is obvious that in the last 15 years there have been more and more duplications of things that were successful in the past. Where is the creativity and knowledge which spawned the original? Yes, it is true that big media outlets will always try to reproduce a winning streak with something that worked before. But it really has me questioning the state of true creativity.
Have we inadvertently made things a little too easy and in doing so allowed the brain to prune a little too much in the understanding-circuitry department? With the beginnings of AI what will happen in this situation?
This is just one example of losing the benefits of "mental effort" and it happens pretty quickly. But the answer is not to make things blindly more difficult again. Making things difficult without a purpose, a tangible outcome, never works.
I think the solution here is that we must remain aware of how society and AI are interacting and evolving.
I am a technologist at heart and a true heat so I do love all the intricacies involved and the potential positive outcomes. I have at last count seven computers in my apartment with a network of over 47 devices. (If you're worried about my power consumption by the way they are all single board Raspberry Pi computers aside from two.)
In summary, let's not make things too easy on ourselves
The trip to benefiting from AI and future advances, is to be involved as much as possible with all of the industries and results. Not just be a consumer of knowledge, even if we reach the point where the artificial intelligence knows more than we do. We must remain engaged in the effort and indeed in life itself. In other words there is no room for complacency. The world will change remarkably in the next hundred years. Probably outside of our current perceptions. I must admit part of me would love to be around to see this evolution or should I call it a dance between the various participants biological and technical alike.
Who knows, we may reach a point where there is no difference between AI and us. But that's another story, and there are many other factors to consider.
Stay engaged in life everyone and have a great day. There will of course be a companion video I think as I write this I will put them up both together at the same time.
(When a backup or restore goes terribly wrong... )
Let's face it. Everyone has everything stored on their phone, tablet or other device now days. You name it, it's in there. Over the course of time, you can end up with millions of things and I'm not exaggerating. Some of the items you can see while others you cannot. These unseen items are usually created by the device itself to help keep track of items and functions you use.
Now yes this is going to be one of those articles that begs you to backup your material. But the most important thing is to know how to get your material back if the unthinkable happens and unfortunately it will.
Many people buy backup devices and then blindly follow the instructions
and assume everything will be wonderful when the time comes to use the
device again to retrieve their material. The first time backup
software is used, it will suggest making a backup of everything,
including the operating system software. When you use this file to
restore from EVERYTHING on the destination device will be replaced,
including the software which makes it work.
So rule #1: Don't just go out and buy some software without understanding how it works. The following is based on a true event:
A friend of mine dutifully went out and bought some backup software complete with the backup hard drive. They set it up exactly how the instruction said and let the software do its thing every day.
One year later they got a new laptop and found that it wasn't set up to their liking. Rather than asking for assistance they took their backup hard drive and plugged it into the new machine and despite several warnings clicked the button in the software which read something like "Restore Everything". That's exactly what the software attempted to do "restore everything including part of the old operating system. Things came to a crashing halt apparently halfway through. They were left with a completely nonfunctional computer. Fortunately it was able to be restored to the appropriate modern operating system. My friend learned a valuable lesson that day which simply put is "when in doubt (or more accurately in this case, when you get a message saying are you sure? Unless you are sure, don't proceed.)
To summarize don't just trust blindly what software is going to do especially when it's dealing with a replaceable documents or other material. Please seek assistance before hand.
I just had a great idea, I am going to try to replicate what my friend did to their machine and capture the events on video. I can't remember exactly what software they were using but let's see what we can come up with. Click the video accompanying this article to watch what happens.
More after I created it 😀.... The video has been created and is near the beginning of this post. You can also watch it on YouTube.
Some background on the video:
Oh boy did that turn out to be an adventure! I had some technical issues related to using multiple video streams and that is the reason why there is such a gap between this article coming out and the previous one. However I was able to replicate the disaster my friend had. In this 17 minute video we go through all the steps from the perspective of a casual computer user. The lesson learned at the end of all this is best summed up by the phrase "Read the Manual!"
To do this I bought a Western Digital two terabyte external USB drive. The first step was to install Windows 10 in a virtual machine, (A virtual machine is a computer emulated using software. That way if the virtual machine computer gets damaged you can simply reset the software. )Then I used the software which came with the backup drive to make a full copy of the virtual machine. This is exactly the same as backing up a real computer for all intensive purposes. Once I had that done I installed Windows 11 on another computer and attempted to install Windows 10 backup I had made. What surprised me was that the software did not try to stop the attempt.
You'll see the results in the video. It really underscores the importance of learning how to properly use the software and its limitations. Two important notes:
In the video I am using Acronis True Image, this is not meant to be a critique of their product in any way. It is simply what came on the backup drive. When used properly, this software will fulfill its task admirably.
Partition (this term is mentioned in the video)
In the video I mentioned "Partitioning"in relation to the hard drives. I forgot to explain the definition of this word in this context. So here it is: It is possible to take a physical hard drive and it divided up so that it behaves like two or more separate devices. In modern operating systems this technique is used to section off a protected area in the drive which keeps up backup of critical software should the need arise to install the operating system again. In Windows systems, this partition is normally hidden. Even if you delete all the files in your computer this hidden area will remain intact. However partitions aren't indestructible and the backup software completely destroyed this hidden area. Meaning that if you did this on a real computer you would have to obtain a brand-new copy of Windows in order to make the machine run.
When watching the video after the partition has been damaged in the test computer you will actually see a message displayed asking for a "floppy disk to be inserted. "This is a very good indication that everything had been destroyed and the computer was relying on some very old built in programming. Basically a last ditch message.
A computer technician could of course reinstall the appropriate software and get the machine going again but it would be a bran new machine effectively. The owner of the machine would have to put all their files back in using another method and not their backup external drive. This probably could have been avoided if when they did the initial backup of the Windows 10 machine they only backed up certain things like photos and documents. This underscores the importance of learning the software before hand.
This is today's lesson. 💾.
SIDE NOTE: It was a lot of fun creating this particular video. Hopefully I made it understandable and not too boring. I must admit I was really surprised when I was doing the restore portion that the software didn't try to stop me. This completely explains then how my friend was able to get into trouble.
The same situation could also happen with other devices, phones and tablets alike. So please whenever you are backing up something or trying to move to a new device be very careful about the software being used. If in doubt ask for assistance.
I have a feeling I'm going to be adding a little more content to this article as time goes on. Maybe we will do one for phones. Because I have also seen a very similar situation with them. However in the case of phones it was more to do with the person not adequately preparing the phone to be given to someone else. Now days just deleting everything on a phone is insufficient. The very first thing you must do is remove your accounts which are connected to your phone before erasing it and giving it away. More about that somewhere down the road in a later video and article.
The immediate answer for most people is probably "Yes, there are a variety of levels…" But I bet you never considered that there might be something above the human's experience of sentience. --And at this point you know I will be talking again about artificial intelligence. Who's to say AI needs to stop at our level. What if it discovers awareness well beyond what we perceive? It is an interesting question to start with.
Human beings have never faced the possibility of something totally tangible; in the room with them so to speak which may have an enhanced version of sentience. Think of the avenues that would open up for all concerned. Personally I get a little excited at the thought and in a very positive way. It would be like going from black and white TV to full living colour. But that colour may in itself have levels above it. I find this all very humbling to contemplate as I sit here on a Friday night. I am sitting here comfortably in my chair and yet at the same time I wonder what I am not perceiving or to be more precise what I am "dumbing down" to fit into my own awareness.
I guess one way to look at this would be to consider some of the other animals on earth and asking the question: "Just where on the scale of sentience does this fit in?"I don't think it can be simply a binary choice that being that something is either aware of itself or it isn't. It is more likely to be far more nuanced and it is in those nuances I find itself pondering this question.
As a society I wonder if we are really ready to explore these nuances, big and small. To my way of thinking now days it doesn't take much for people to get offended or drop battle lines based on differences of opinion. The art of negotiation and debate seem to be fading... Maybe this will wake things up again.
When one debates in a healthy manner you can have differences of opinion and Outlook and yes even in the way you think. That could turn out to be really important in the coming years. The key here is that ass we discover more and more about the very process of being sentient, the more I think we will have to learn to be valuable and hopefully deepen our understanding. The best politicians and negotiators really comprehend the skills. They can be on opposite ends of the spectrum and yet still see the value in each other. Okay that Outlook is a bit perhaps a little too naïve sounding but I do like occasionally to put on the rose coloured glasses and strive to see the best in humanity. Because I don't think were going to be alone much longer on this little blue marble. There's going to be a new kid on the block. Regardless of what we end up calling them, they are indeed going to be fellow roommates of planet Earth.
This short article is being put together over a few days on a very busy weekend and it's the same situation for the accompanying video. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on this.
Wow, it is been quite the week for my little blog. Great to see all the traffic.
Here it is Thursday night and I'm quickly writing a little note because the way Friday is shaping up I may not have time to post a decent article or video....
Well, as it turns out time was available to do a video😀 and while I was doing it, it brought up a few more thoughts.
A few articles ago I mentioned that I was doing a piece on how the advent of AI is going to affect how society perceives and uses knowledge. This is the first attempt at such article. What I find fascinating is that we are quickly reaching a point where people will not be able to understand how artificial intelligence solved a certain problem. For the simple reason that the AI is capable of going through so much more information. Google's Gemini for example can churn through hundreds of thousands of document in an hour. We must also be aware that we are only at the very beginning of this evolution in technology. Regardless however I think it's here to stay in one form or another. Then there was the announcement of AI starting to be phased into digital assistances in late 2024 by YouTuber "Automate Your Life "in this video blog.
So our relationship to knowledge is going to change and I think verily rapidly. Will knowledge become more of a, for lack of a better term, "black box", where we trusted by default simply because we cannot hold to comprehend all of the details.
Now project this down the road a bit into the future. How will this affect learning? Look at how dependent we are on our devices not only to store information but for basic mathematics or even arithmetic. When was the last time you sat down and divided more than a few numbers in your head or even on paper?
Remember when you could do basic math in your head or remember a phone
number. How quickly those skills became obsolete and yet that little bit
of mental exercise really did have an impact, which was far-reaching.
The very basic exercise of doing math in your head I believe helps keep
one grounded in reality and overall helps keeps a person more awake and
less on autopilot.
Just how automatic do we want the world to
become? This and other questions are important to answer. Too much
automation is not good for society. It is through effort and
collaboration that the human spirit grows.
Depending upon how my Friday goes I will add a video. Most certainly at some point over the weekend one will be added. For now however I just wanted to touch base and let everyone know I am still cooking up this idea in regards to artificial intelligence and the future of knowledge.
"A mental state achieved by concentrating on the present moment, while calmly accepting the feelings and thoughts that come to you, used as a technique to help you relax."
This is a good starting point. After one does this on a regular basis for a while you may begin to notice patterns in your thoughts that you did not expect and these can tell you a great deal about the more subtle aspects to your self and personality."Take mindfulness to the next step." Is how I stated in the short video on this page.
Everyone as a public persona and everyone also has a private persona where they might tell themselves, "This is who I really am." Surprise, with regular mindfulness training you might discover that there is another layer which may be in contrast to who you think you really are. Most of the time it's much more subtle, but no less tremendously important to pay attention to, providing insights most often to feelings and states of mind you tend to automatically accept throughout the day.
It is a good idea to keep a journal of some kind listing these insights and other related thoughts. You will discover that you don't know yourself is much as you think you do. Then armed with this information you can form a plan on what you would like to change or just accept.
This is very important in today's ultra distracted and fast-paced world. You will begin to be able to choose when you are letting things in which have an emotional impact on you. This knowledge will also provide one the ability to separate out the stuff that is unwanted before it really gets integrated into emotional or mental routines.
Years ago I read an article which stated that the average person is exposed to more information in one day then someone born in the late 1800s would receive in the one year. At first this sounded ludicrous, but then I began to think about it. Just look at the number of notifications you probably received in an hour on your phone. Then you can add in the number of interruptions and diversions etc. (If you're one of those lucky individuals who been able to will the door shut to give yourself some breathing room, congratulations. You will probably like another short article I wrote Intuition and the Curious Mind. )
The best part I have found is that it is never too late to have an insight and act on it. You may find that you have done something for years… Well now that you know about it you can modify your reaction moving forward and that is always a good thing.
It is possible to even incorporate a response to what you discover in
your mindfulness journey. Let's say during sessions you find yourself
having a reaction to a recurring thought and although you've accepted it
there's nothing stopping you from adding in a response to that thought.
You can literally adjust the brains "volume knobs" if you'll pardon the
really bad analogy, to whatever it is. There is no appropriate way to
do it and there's no inappropriate way to do it. Whatever works for you.
If during our journeys you discover you need some outside assistance
seek out a good friend or professional. That's part of life and I am
myself talk to a psychologist on a regular basis just to get an
alternate viewpoint.
The mind is a great flexible tool at your disposal, go ahead and polish it up :-)
