September 19, 2011
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1 Last week I made mention of Watson, this computer super-geek who has been appearing regularly on Jeopardy.
2 All my geriatric friends get it. What the heck is a young, suave guy like you doing watching Jeopardy regularly?
3 <crack> I just turned to pick up something and cracked.
4 Yeah.
5 I kid about that. Yeah, I cop to watching Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, AND The Golden Girls, but I CLAIM I'm not getting older, despite those glaringly telltale signs.
6 Welp, for one thing I awoke yesterday and Power Rangers was on the teevee. What's THAT tellya? Yeah, thought so.
7 And I'll duel to the death with anyone who tells me there is a better show than Friends anywhere out there.
8 Well, okay, Dexter, but I'm convinced that one is based on our secret lives as children.
9 One must consider the archetypal inner voice that used to be something like, "I hope she doesn't notice the chocolate chip smear I left on the cookie jar..."
10 Something like that.
11 I always wondered about duel identities and comic heroes.
12 Clark Kent. Superman.
13 Bruce Wayne. Batman.
14 How about this: Dick Grayson. Robin. One of the weirdest characters in the history of comics. So weird they had to kill him off.
"Shall we...dance? A-boo-boo-boo." ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪
15 The guy was pretty much a walking wardrobe malfunction anyway.
16 AnywayZ.
17 I already mentioned Watson. Watson is this super-smart computer that plays Jeopardy, and was all the hit for about five minutes last week.
18 But it started me thinking about how I have to do the same thing with computerized machines on a daily basis.
19 I often have to fool a copy machine into thinking I've cleared paper jams, for example. Like Watson and Dexter, they have mental breakdowns every now and again. It isn't the perfection of computers that worries me.
20 It is their imperfections. It is their Dexter sides.
21 Yesterday I was in the midst of entering a bunch of grades into the gaping mouth of a computer program.
22 This was after hours of work organizing my papers, grading them, placing sarcastic comments, and generally attempting to make students' lives more miserable.
23 Easy to do.
24 AnywayZ, when grades go into a huge computer, one needs to be as accurate as an evil scientist. One small error and...
25 Two entire class entries on a test dissipated yesterday, before my startled eyes. Death Star. Alderaan. Explosion. Nothing.
26 I became nervous. It wasn't like I didn't have the hard copies of the test; it was just going to mean a lot more work for me, and I had been working already six or seven hours on this stuff.
27 It occurred to me that the computer could feel my stress. It's like it knows. Got a college deadline? Need everything to run smooth? The computer senses this, and does this graceful torment danse called buffering.
28 Yes. Danse. It was a grandiose attempt on my part at being macabre.
29 Never you mind.
30 If we move then, back to Watson, we see a computer that has flaws deliberately built into it, so that the other geniuses on Jeopardy don't feel like something the cat drug in.
31 I'm convinced that they could have made Watson unbeatable.
32 But there is something wonderful about imperfection.
33 Nearly every creation story has man's imperfection continually pissing off the gods.
34 The implication is that the gods can't even seem to get it straight. Imperfection and distortion are a part of the particles.
35 And after a while, I begin to think that computers almost enjoy messing with us.
36 On the other hand, maybe it is just the nature of the universe itself.
37 Murphy's Law, we Irishmen used to call it.
38 And a lot of time we can feel it coming.
39 I remember working the merch stands at various stadiums. Stadia. I always had this ridiculous fear of the VISA machine running out of paper. Our machines' computers would sense emptiness, and would leave a red line on the paper.
40 When you are in a business that depends on fast sales in order for you and your partner to make more money, it can become unbelievably stressful when something like a VISA machine breaks down. I would often throw a half roll of VISA paper out on a big day so that I would start with a full roll. It's similar to <ahem> other things.
41 But enough of that. The bottom line is that even three minutes during a rush can lose the stand hundreds of dollars. I always seemed to get partners who insisted that I change the paper, which I always saw as a cheap setup. Since I was a sort of substitute sixth guy off the bench, I would do whatever the stand manager wanted, which often times was to take out their own insecurities on other people. We see it all the time.
42 All of us, that is.
43 On some of the biggest days ever, the playoffs, or a Stones' concert, right before an intermission, the VISA machines would inevitably paint the red line, as though they knew. I could always see it coming, but my Dexter partner would say, "Nah, don't change it yet. It's got a ton of sales left on it!" And the Dexter machine would sense this and stare with evil disdain at my discomfort.
44 If the stand had more than one guy working it, the stand manager would inevitably give that job to some nervous guy so that when it DID happen, he could hurl the chump under the bus.
45 And I knew that right in the midst of a rush, that paper would cut off, and the machine would pick up on the cue, making sudden whirring noises and loud clicks.
46 It's the way the universe is set up. Must be. I don't understand why the guys on Jeopardy deliberately built Watson with a screw loose.
47 I sometimes don't understand why the gods, or Joe-the-Bear, or whoevs could credate all this mystery, but couldn't perfect the creation of man.
48 It seems that creators gear us purposefully to break down.
49 Thank goodness we have things then, like the Power Rangers, Wheel of Fortune, Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia, Chandler, Phoebe, Ross, et al, and yes, even Dexter and Robin.
50 It brings sanity to an insane existence. It brings laughs, and evil all at the same time.
51 It helps us as we get older.
52 It helps us stay younger.
53 At least it does me.
54 Have a great Monday. This was clearly the kicker.
55 Peace. Have a slice.
~H~
