What time is it?

One of the last things I wanted to accomplish today was to nail down a time for Saturday for meeting KfW2 for dinner and drinks. Regular readers will know that this is always an issue when do manage top agree on a date. KfW2 has a blind spot for this and I always have to ask several times for her to tell me what time she's free. Like really force it out of her.

I'm single and free all weekend. She's married with kids, so has a husband and the kids to work around. It's not like I can simply book something and she can work round it. For all I know, she wants a mid-afternoon start and a mid-evening finish. And I'd be all for that. But it could be a lunchtime thing (I hope not) or an actual evening thing (very unlikely).

I've already asked her twice and I am just off the phone, having left a voicemail, to make three times in total over the last six days. So that's three times in total I've explicitly asked her for a time. Sigh. 

Great success!

The good news is that I accomplished most of what I wanted to do today. And the stuff that didn't get done was because I can't find the paperwork or I'm waiting for other stuff to be completed before I can move forwards.

I'm glad. I genuinely thought, at lunchtime, that this was going to be a wasted day of annual leave, but three phone calls, two emails, a bank transfer and two-and-a-bit hours later and I'm wrapping up.

I was supposed to be meeting Nerdy Girl this evening for a walk, but she's yet to confirm. It wouldn't bother me if she didn't confirm: I'm exhausted. Doing that stuff today was emotionally taxing. Though the weather's nice, so a walk would be pleasant.

Oh, and as I am typing this out, NG has rain checked this evening.

Shhhhh!

I did end up taking today off work, but I've not yet start the stuff I want to do. A builder has turned up to finish off the work that was started a few weeks back and he's creating a hell of a noise, so me being on the phone trying to sort stuff out isn't happening. 

I'm useless on the phone at the best of times, so having this distraction is something I could do without. Hopefully though the guy will be finished before lunch and I will have the afternoon to get the three or four phone calls (and other things) completed.

Who are you?

I didn't get the stuff done today that I was planning yesterday, but it wasn't due to laziness. Rather, I got sidetracked into doing some house stuff like prepping the garden for winter:, packing up the garden furniture, mowing and trimming the lawn etc.

It actually makes sense that I do the other stuff tomorrow because I might have to make some phone calls. The downside is that I might have to take tomorrow off, if I want to get everything done, because they're not the kind of tasks I can do in 5 mins if I get some quite time while working.

I did sleep well last night and woke refreshed this morning. I do recall a dream, or at least a bit of a dream that featured CAB. In the dream I was at a party, possibly at KfW2's house, and she introduced to me a friend. When I looked up, her friend was standing with his "plus one" who was CAB who, for some reason, didn't recognise me.

I don't remember a lot more about the dream than that, but it provoked a smile when I recalled it when I woke. And a little nostalgia about CAB, of course. 

Urgh.

I was quite drunk last night. I got a decent night's sleep, but struggled to get out of bed this morning. After indulging in some 'me time', I eventually got out of bed just before 11 AM. But I've been feeling muggy all day. I always do after a night out drinking.

I'm already looking forward to my bed tonight and having a clearer head tomorrow. I have stuff I need to do that requires concentration. 

Back chat.

I've posted before about my appreciation for women's backs and, by extension, women in backless dresses. So I was pleasantly surprised to see this picture of Desi Lydic around the recent Emmys. I think I've posted her before because when she does hosting duties on The Daily Show, she wears suits. And i love women in suits.

But this backless dress is doing things for me. I love the backless dresses that go all the way to the base of the spine - I think they're incredibly sexy.

 

 

Go me!

Years ago, one of my online hobbies (the one most frequently referenced on this blog), was writing consumer reviews. I got paid for it (pennies), but it was fun, there was a bit of a community (I 'met' A, F, K, USHW and others). Writing helped me order my thoughts and improved my written communication. At least, I believe the latter to be true. I guess only someone else can actually say whether it was good or not.

Regardless, it wasn't all consumer reviews. Sometimes it was creative writing (urgh) and sometimes it was opinion pieces. It's the latter that I want to talk about. I wrote a piece on artificial intelligence. It randomly popped into my head earlier, so off I went to find it. It's no longer available online, but most of my work was drafted in Microsoft Word and I still have copies of most of my pieces from then.

So the last edit date on the file is 11th October 2001. 25 years ago. And I have to say that it's fucking excellent. Well, maybe not excellent. My writing has improved a lot since then and I could be a lot more professional and clear if I were writing it today. But what is excellent are my predictions:

• Natural Language Processing
• Speech recognition
• Autonomous vehicles
• Image processing/recognition
• Chatbots
• Portable translators
• Programming assistance/debuggers 

That's not bad for 25 years ago, is it?

Safe to say that I am feeling quite chuffed with myself at this point. And I'm semi-disappointed that the websites in question no longer exist because I would be doing some serious gloating around now. There were a few members who claimed to be experts that were nowhere near as prescient as I was.

It's date time.

Today is an anniversary of sorts. It's the day I joined my current company. Well, it's not really. That was actually 2 weeks ago, but through some legal shit, they never counted the two weeks of training and I only signed my employment contract on this date. But this time twenty and a bit years ago, I was sent to the States to work for three months.

I remember telling F all about it - we were chatting regularly on MSN at the time. That was the trip where I met V. She was very excited for me.

I'd forgotten all about it until I got an email in work this morning from our HR system reminding me of the fact.

Oh, and it's also CC's birthday today. I sent her a message wishing her a happy birthday, but I am a little surprised she didn't suggest dinner.

Out and about.

I spoke with Ideas Girl today. She's part of our social committee, so she knows what's going on, what's being organised etc. Sadly, we're not having a Christmas party. We haven't had one since pre-Covid and I haven't been to one since, I dunno, 2016 maybe? But I quite liked the idea of getting dressed up again and putting on my suit.

And there's no work thing this month. Well, there is, but it's not our usual trip to the pub and it's on a Saturday night. Quiet Girl said she didn't know if she would go, but I'm already booked up. It's the same day that I'm taking KfW2 out for dinner.

Speaking of that, we've finally chosen a restaurant. It's one of KfW2's favourites, which I knew, but we try and go somewhere new and I couldn't think of anywhere. I might have posted before that KfW2 rarely makes decisions about these things.

All we need to do now is figure out a time. I'd prefer to meet late afternoon and maybe go to mid/late evening rather than an afternoon start and dinner time finish or a late start and late finish. But kfW2 is the one with commitments, so I've asked her. 

Feeling off.

I've been feeling off over the past 48 hours or so. I'm struggling a little to make sense of it. I'm definitely feeling overwhelmed, and that's being fed by the house stuff that I need to do and the logistics around that. 

The family stuff hasn't helped and it's ongoing - it'll take up some of my time today and tomorrow for sure. I took all last week as annual leave, but I don't feel recharged in the same way that I did with a week off at the start of July. There's other stuff going on as well, but I can't identify what it is or how to process it.

There might be an element of work stuff, but work's OK at the moment. It's just a general long-term worry that I have.

And the result, when I'm feeling this way, is that the loneliness kicks in. At least part of it is a need or desire to talk to someone. Someone close to me, but not family. Talking to my sister doesn't really scratch that itch. The night out with KfW2 will help, as long as there's no mucking about. And I haven't ruled that out and it's still 2 weeks away.

Not quite the Friday evening I had planned.

Sadly, I had yet another evening of indulging my appreciation of women in scrubs. Thankfully, it wasn't anything hugely urgent or life-threatening, but no-one wants to spend 5 hours sat around A&E waiting for a doctor to come "soon" to give you information about an elderly relatively illness.

And as cute as the nurse was who was attending to my relative, she was unable to offer anything concrete in terms of information or time scales. I left the hospital after midnight with no further information than I had when I first arrived at 7PM.

In fact, he wasn't actually seen until just before lunchtime today. That's over 12 hours lying in a bed in A&E before he was seen by a doctor. That gives you an idea of how serious the illness is but also how busy A&E was (or maybe how poor the A&E processes are that it took 15 hours for a 5-minute diagnosis).

Out and about.

FBS messaged last night. Not specifically to me, but in the group chat with D and Friction Guy. So we could potentially have a night out in October.

That means that before the end of October I could have about 4 nights out. Next Friday, I'm out with my sister at a pub quiz. the following week, I'm out with KfW2. Potentially there's a work night out at the end of September, and if not, a near-guaranteed one in October.

Plus this planned October night with FBS etc. 

I'm looking forward to them all. 

Weird.

I'd say that 90% of the work is now done. And that's all of the work internal to the house. Some bits and pieces to finish off outside, and that'll be this stage of the work done.

For some reason when the last guy left the house about an hour ago, the stress just left. I don't know why. I didn't feel that stressed. I mean, yes, I was stressed (I have posted as much about it this week), but I thought only a little. 

And horny too. Is that weird? Is there a link between stress and horniness? Literally, the second the guy drove off, the stress left and I got horny as hell.

There's still work for me to do: the entire house needs cleaned, vacuumed and mopped. While it wasn't as messy as I'd expected, there's still a fair amount of dust and rubbish generated. I also need to move some furniture around to compensate for my lack of usable space in the kitchen. But I can't be bothered with that right now. Those are jobs for tomorrow and the weekend.

Celeb-a-like

There's a woman who pops up in my online dating apps every now and then. She's attractive, has a great figure but isn't really doing anything for me. I swipe right every now and then, but nothing's ever come of it. And even if we did match, I'm not sure I'd progress anything. She gives off "high maintenance" vibes and that is sooooo not what I'm looking for.

But today's perusal of social media and up pops attractive comedian Ellie Taylor (you know where this is going, right?) and slap me silly if doesn't look like the online dating woman [in this particular photo]. I think it's the dark eye makeup that's doing it. The online dating woman seems to wear that all the time (at least in all her posted photos).

Ellie Taylor is a fine looking woman.

And another thing...

Going back to the post I made yesterday about the anxiety kicking in with regards the home improvements. It's more than simply not being able to deal with people, but something akin to decision paralysis as well. I see the work that needs done, but I can't get my head around where I should start. It's why I've always wanted someone to oversee the entire project (for a fee). Yes, it might cost me an extra couple of thousand pounds, but the work would have been done long ago if that were the case. Managing it myself is where the delays come in as I procrastinate due to the anxiety/stress that it all causes me.

Additionally, I rely on my sister and brother-in-law for advice, for two reasons. Firstly, my brother-in-law is kinda in the construction industry and secondly, they've had LOADS of building and renovation work done to multiple properties, so I go to get feedback and bounce ideas off them. But as I've said before, they're massively inconsistent. Advice they might give me today would not be the same advice they give me at the weekend. That breeds doubt. Doubt breeds stress and anxiety.

And while it might seem minor to other people, I'm really proud of myself that I've started this work that could take until next summer to be complete.

Just do it.

Today, I've been swapping text messages with USHW, and as part of that, I've been sharing my plans for the house and the work involved. And, I'm not going to lie, it's made me anxious. I think it's the scope of things that need done and especially the number of people I need to talk to in order to get the work done. Until now, it's all be compartmentalised: plan stage 1, do stage 1, plan stage 2, do stage 2 etc. but chatting with USHW has reminded me of the scope and it's something I'm not really cut out to deal with on my own.

That's always been an issue for me. I'm just not great at dealing with people... strangers... especially in real life. I worry about getting out someone who will do shoddy work, for example. Or get someone who's difficult to deal with. And I know it's all worrying about something that will likely not happen.

I know what I want to do. I'd say that the actual planning is 90% done. The remaining 10% is picking out a new kitchen and fine tuning some bits and pieces off the back of that. But I kinda know what kind of kitchen I want, what colours I'm interested in, the layout, where the various appliances are going to go etc.

I just need to put on my big boy pants and do some fucking adulting. 

Research.

It's been a couple of days of research. I'm off work due to the house stuff that I'm getting done this week. As a result of that, I need to look at outdoor storage: sheds and the like. 

Additionally, I'm also seeing where I can go with KfW2 in a few weeks time. She typically doesn't make any decisions. In fact, the last time I recall her making a decision was when she took me out for a milestone birthday celebration. That's possibly the only time in the past decade. I can't recall any other time she's made a decision.

I'm having a hard time finding restaurants that I've not tried before or would like to try again. I still have a few weeks to ponder this, though. 

Tidy.

It's maybe a bit early to say, as the work's only maybe 25% done, but the guy doing some of the work has just left the house and I have to say that I am really regretting not getting this work done years ago. It was never about the cost... I've been able to afford it for years, but I had always assumed that it would be dirty, disruptive work.

And it hasn't been... not really. I've had to do some dusting and vacuuming, but like 10 minutes worth. And there's no other work left to do. No plastering or anything. I don't know why I made that assumption, but it was there, and that's what was stopping me from pulling the plug a while ago.

Sigh. 

Going b(l)ack.

After yesterday's posts about QC2 and CAB in Levi's, I've gone head and ordered myself a pair off Vinted. A black pair. Reliving my youth? Maybe, but with my recent weight loss, I want to find jeans that are a better fit than the ones I've been wearing for the past decade or so.

Why black? I don't know. It must be at least 20 years since I've owned a black pair of jeans. Possibly even one of the pairs that I mentioned yesterday that FA2 bought me.

No ifs or butts.

As a gamer, I watch a few streams on Twitch. One of my more frequent watches has recently been sponsored by Levi's. Every time the ad pops up, she claims "it's the butt ad!". That reminds me of my appreciation of QC2 in her Levi's. I've probably posted about that before. I wasn't alone in my appreciation, I know that. But you know who else also wore 501s well? CAB.

I wore 501s myself around that time, and I got my fair share of compliments about my ass. QC2 herself admitted it was decent. FA2 loved my ass in 501s to the point where she bought me a couple of pairs when she was in the States one Christmas (to be fair, she owed me a pair because she got paint on mine). Wrong waist size, mind you, but still.

Sadly, I don't have that butt any more - I don't play sports and I'm pretty sedentary - a combination that doesn't really lead to having a nice butt. Back then, I played a lot of sport and I did a lot of walking, even if my job was sat at a desk all day long.

Looking up.

As part of the ongoing family stuff, I had to make another journey into the city centre this morning to pay some bills. Sigh.

However, on the way out of the city centre, a group of about 20 American people got on the bus. Two talking points: the girl who was leading the group looked like a cross between E and Quiet Girl or Kate Mara... so extremely cute. And secondly, the journey they took was like a 10 minute walk (6 minutes on the bus). It's not like it was a difficult trip - it was literally a straight line from the bus stop to their destination. And the weather's really pleasant, too.

So, yeah, very cute American woman made a portion of the journey quite pleasant. 

I decided to get some groceries in, too. So while I was wandering around the local shopping centre, I decided to all KfW2. It was a short-ish call by our standards (10 mins) but we've tentatively agreed to meet for dinner and drinks at the end of the month. Yay!

There are a couple of social things happening this month plus an outside chance of a work event, too. 

FFS.

Those who are regular readers or those who know me IRL will realise that I'm often quite frustrated by two things: poor communication and a lack of consistency.

So, I've had all those things this week. My sister was meant to be in touch on Tuesday, and wasn't. I asked my brother-in-law for a favour today, texted him to confirm (I'd taken some time off work for it) and he replied saying that he'd injured his back and was immobile and had been for days. And today, I received a text message about some work I'm getting done to my house, explaining that I needed to pay the builders directly... this was completely opposite advice to what I'd gotten last week saying I could pay the company who would pay the workmen.

So, yeah, pretty pissed off that I had to chase up my sister (she is completely useless at proper communications, and it always feels like I'm chasing her up). I'm  mildly annoyed at my brother-in-law for not letting me know earlier that he was out of action for the favour I asked. And I am very annoyed at the company I've contracted to do the work to the house because I had to run to the bank at the last minute on a Friday afternoon to withdraw several thousands of pounds in cash so I can pay the builders on Monday. Oh, and the stress of walking around the city centre with this amount of cash on me, too.

I was kinda lucky |I wasn't working this afternoon, otherwise getting the cash might have been tricky.

Yawn.

My sleep over the past few nights has been awful: waking numerous time a night and finding it difficult to get back to sleep. It got to the point where I was tired this morning with a massive headache. I decided that I'd take a last-minute day off and get some sleep. Or try to - I'm not big on sleeping during the day.

So I logged on to the work laptop and was greeted with three reminders about urgent meetings this morning. Fuck. I'd forgotten all about them. 

I battled through the meetings and decided I'd still take some personal time this afternoon. I still have the headache, but I don't think I'm that sleepy any more. Tired, yes, sleepy, no. 

I'm sorry Dave.

I read something yesterday in Wired that suggested that the big tech CEOs like Elon Musk, that robot who runs Facebook and the rest of them are having a hard time with the fact that there seems to be major pushback by "ordinary" people around AI.

I use AI in work, so you can regard me as being a bit more tech-y that the average person, but even I have issues around the momentum regarding AI.

1. The data centre and environmental cost

There's obviously the data centre issue. As AI and LLMs become more widespread, we're going to need a growing number of enormous data centres to run them. These facilities consume huge amounts of electricity and water, and require significant physical infrastructure. So there's a legitimate question about what the environmental cost of the AI boom will ultimately be — particularly if we're deploying these systems at massive scale.

2. The hardware cost

Then there's the hardware. AI requires enormous amounts of computing power, memory and storage, and AI companies and data centres are hoovering up these resources at an unprecedented rate. That has knock-on effects for everyone else. If demand for computer chips, memory and storage increases dramatically, those components become more expensive — and ultimately so does everything that relies on them: phones, computers, tablets, servers and countless other products.

3. Is AI actually making our lives better?

I'm increasingly sceptical about the promises that AI is going to make people's lives better. How, exactly, is my life getting better because of AI? At work, I'm increasingly expected to produce more within the same amount of time because AI supposedly makes me more productive. But is it doing my chores? Is it giving me more free time? Is it making my life meaningfully better, or is it simply allowing employers to expect more from me?

4. The loss of jobs

Then there's the obvious concern about jobs. My industry has been decimated over the past few years. Some of that is undoubtedly a correction following the over-hiring that happened during Covid, but I also think some of it is driven by the belief among The Powers That Be that LLMs will allow one person to be as productive as two or three.

Don't get me wrong: I accept that the rise of AI will create new jobs — jobs that don't exist today, just as previous technological advances have created entirely new industries and professions. But I'm not convinced that the number of new jobs will make up for the number of jobs that disappear. I can see AI increasing productivity while simultaneously reducing the overall number of people needed to do the work.

5. We're moving too fast

Finally, I think we're moving far too quickly. Let's assume that LLMs are here to stay and that they're going to have a significant impact on employment. What exactly are our governments going to do about that?

It feels as though there should at least be serious discussion about things like Universal Basic Income (UBI), retraining and other ways of supporting people through a potentially enormous shift in the labour market. But I don't see much evidence from my own government that it's seriously preparing for that future. Instead, we're being sold the AI/LLM dream while the potentially enormous social and economic consequences are barely being addressed.

If the CEOs want me to buy in to AI, then it has to have as big an impact on my personal life: more time, money/spending power etc. and not just be a tool so I can be more productive for The Machine. Address that and I might be more sympathetic.

So what are your thoughts about the rise of AI?