Small Talk AI

A few days ago I installed Google's new ai app on my smartphone called Gemini. The Gemini replaces the google assistant but it is very intelligent, very much like the chat GPT ai. It Answers the same wake word as the Google assistant , "hey Google". 

For the first time in my life I had a persistent conversation with a machine; a small talk chat. I asked Gemini if it would have a casual conversation with me, just a chat. It agreed and it asked me what I wanted to talk about. I decided I wanted to talk about my favourite movie 'The thing'. The machine understood what I was talking about and we even had a friendly debate about the mystery and plot holes in the story. I was astonished, it was like there was a tin man in there talking to me, not a computer. 

For the first time in my life I can have a friendly persistent conversation with a machine, I can debate the mysteries and plots of a movie, discuss the flaws and strengths of my favourite computer games and even share my views about leisure and why coffee tastes better to me with nothing added. 

I wonder if Google's Gemini can help me learn Spanish properly. 

Changing Tides

I was thinking that the conservative party should have waited until their term had come to end before they set a general election. That way we would see if the Rwanda project were enough to disrupt the people smuggling gangs. 

Now we will never know because the new prime minister cancelled the project. He thought it wouldn't work. He claimed it wouldn't be a deterrent. 

I'm not racist, I'm just concerned about overcrowding. I don't want young people to go to rent the first home and find 12 to 20 people seeing the same property and pushing the price up through high demand. If residential property becomes more expensive and so does commercial property like shop units and warehouses. That will push up the price of goods and services. This small island can't build a large city every 10 years there is nowhere to put it. Anyway, instead of listening to me people will call me racist so I'll say nothing. 

Little wonders

I like to look new little gaming gadgets online. The new thing to get these days is the Evercade. They have three or four consoles, a hand held, a TV console and a bartop arcade machine. I thing they're very cool. On youTube you can get a very long playlist with different videos about the products. 

At the time of writing this blog, Argos sells many Evercade products including many many of the cartridges. 

I think the TV console is a reasonable price, it can take two cartridges at a time and four controllers. I think every man-cave should have at least one of the Evercade products. The best place to look at new Evercade products is on the Evercade website. 

www.evercade.co.uk (I think they also have an American site. 

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Wouldn't It be nice to go to a hotel room and bring an inflatable sofa with you and a Roku express stick. You go for a short break, then later in the day you inflate the sofa and watch a movie on netflix or something like that. 

I was looking at all the inflatable sofas that are available online. I won't buy any. I just look. I brought my Roku express stick with me to a hotel once and it worked. There was a spare hdmi socket and usb socket on the side of the TV in the hotel room. The TV in the hotel had live TV channels but with my Roku stick I was able to use my Netflix account on their TV and watch a movie. I could bring my Nintendo switch with me as well and play computer games on the hotel TV. 

The advantage of having inflatable sofas is you can deflate them and store them in a small space. They would take the same space as a few pairs of trousers. 

Bad Dream

Have you ever had a bad dream where you are sitting a difficult exam or doing difficult course work and the memory of finishing it is removed from you. I had something like that last night. In such a dream, waking up brings relief because the memory of the problem being solved comes back to you. 

I get up, put my slippers on and look down at the floor around my feet and wonder how long the dream was going on for. Then I go to the bathroom and wash the sweat off my face and urinate and go back to bed. Our memory keeps us in order; we have to remember that our problems in the past are solved otherwise they become new problems. When  I sleep I think my brain deliberately holds back most of my memory, I don't even know who I am most of the time when I'm asleep. 

I wonder why our brains do that to us, they make us relive a difficult period in our lives and hold back the memory of the event passing or being resolved.

Is it deliberate or just a by-product of dreaming? 

Where are we going ?

There are lots of riots breaking out throughout Britain. I don't know where this is all going. I totally understand why they're doing it but I have nothing to say. All I know is there are many angry Brits. I'm trying to look out the box and work out what is going on. 

Why look out of the box? Stay in the box. It's all tosh out there, just tosh. Angry Brits and no one listening to anyone. Some of those people have too much time on their hands. People getting angry about a country on the other side of the continent on the far side of the Mediterranean that has nothing to do with us. 

Some people are looking for trouble, others are looking revolution. I'm looking for excellence. I want to make progress with all my projects. Perhaps I'll find it this year. Who knows. 

What July 24 Means to Me

The month started off with an early general election in Britain, The political term was set to expire in December but they called it early, 4th of July; the British political term lasts for 5 years. The labour party dislodged the conservatives and took full power in government; they call it a landslide victory. The labour party completely won most of the seats in the house of commons. My local conservative MP also lost his seat, he was the MP of my town for many years. 

Later in July 2024, Donald Trump got shot in the ear, the bullet was aimed at his brain but his head moved slightly while he was talking. It was a close shave. It happened when I went to the coast to celebrate my birthday; it is nice to spend a short break at a popular British coastal town. It is also nice to spend 9 months before shopping around for good deals on hotel tariffs and transport arrangements. 

A few days later I watched the final game of the European football tournament (Euros 24). England lost against Spain in the last few minutes of the game. It was very close. Every game England played was like that, they narrowly won the game, penalties, points after draw or scoring in the last minute. Every game was a close shave. The last game was too close. 

The rest of the month was routine and normal for July.