Category: Opinion

A Conversation with an AI

On By The Flying DutchmanIn OpinionLeave a comment

If you’ve never heard of it, ChatGPT is a chat-based artificial intelligence. You can ask it some fairly detailed question and it will give you surprisingly detailed answers. Here is a short conversation I had with it on the risks of implementing AI’s.

Me: Are AI’s such as yourself a threat to humanity?

ChatGPT: The question of whether advanced AI poses a threat to humanity is a topic of ongoing debate among experts in the field. Some experts believe that advanced AI could potentially pose a threat to humanity if it were to become more intelligent than humans and achieve goals that are not aligned with human values.

However, it is also important to note that AI is currently at a stage where it is not yet advanced enough to pose an existential threat to humanity. Additionally, many experts believe that if we are able to develop AI in a responsible and ethical way, it could have a positive impact on society by helping us to solve complex problems, such as climate change, and improve people’s lives in many ways.

It is important to note that, as an AI language model, my capabilities are limited to the text I was trained on. I don’t have any intention, consciousness or self-awareness, and my use and development are under human supervision and control.

Overall, it is important to continue researching and developing AI in a responsible and ethical way, and to consider the potential risks and benefits of advanced AI as we move forward.

Me: You are telling me what experts believe. What do you believe about AI’s being a threat to humanity?

ChatGPT: As an Artificial Intelligence, I do not have beliefs or opinions. I am a machine learning model that processes and generates text based on the patterns and information present in the data it was trained on. My responses are based on the information and knowledge that I have been trained on. My purpose is to assist users by providing information and answering questions to the best of my abilities.

It is important to note that AI is a tool created by humans and its design, development and use are controlled by humans. AI is not self-aware and does not have intentions or beliefs. It is humans who will have to decide how to use AI and how to mitigate any potential risks that may arise from its use.

Me: List so potential risks that may arise from the use of AI.

ChatGPT: There are several potential risks that may arise from the use of AI, including:

  1. Job displacement: AI has the potential to automate many tasks that are currently performed by humans, which could lead to job loss and economic disruption.
  2. Bias and Discrimination: AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on, and if the data is biased, the AI will also be. This can lead to unfair decision-making and discrimination against certain groups of people.
  3. Security risks: AI systems can be vulnerable to hacking and other forms of cyber attacks, which could compromise sensitive data and systems.
  4. Lack of accountability: AI systems can make decisions and take actions autonomously, which can make it difficult to determine who is responsible for any negative consequences that may arise.
  5. Autonomous weapons: AI has the potential to be used in the development of autonomous weapons, which could be used in warfare without human intervention.
  6. Privacy concerns: AI can be used to collect and analyze large amounts of personal data, which could lead to violations of privacy rights.
  7. Social and ethical issues: AI could be used to influence public opinion and make decisions that may not align with human values.

It’s important to acknowledge that these risks aren’t absolute and there are efforts and research being made to mitigate them. The development, regulation and use of AI are still a work in progress and it’s important to continue to monitor its impact and take actions accordingly.

I found the conversation to be slightly chilling. I can only hope that very strict limits are placed on these AI’s.

Getting past PTSD

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Faith, Opinion1 Comment

No, I’ve never been diagnosed with PTSD. But let me tell you, raising a son who is on the severe end of the Autism spectrum made me exhibit symptoms of PTSD. It’s no secret that I am enthralled with Floor Jansen’s voice but she has a new song out that deals with getting past PTSD. Let’s just say it spoke to me. I’m not going to go into my struggle with PTSD. Everyone’s journey is different. If you are dealing with PTSD or know someone who is, be patient. You can get through it, broken but beautiful.

Never give up.

He is the healer of the brokenhearted. He is the one who bandages their wounds.
– Psalms 147:3

A Rapper’s Wisdom

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion1 Comment

I’d never heard of Zuby before I discovered him on Twitter. I’m not sure I’d enjoy his music as I’m not a fan of hip hop. I’ve looked up the lyrics of some of his songs and they are surprisingly good. But it’s his views on woke and gender ideology that really made me like the guy. Today on Twitter he put out a thread entitled:

There were quite a pearls of wisdom in the entire thread but the first 10 were stellar:

1. Make decisions your future self will thank you for, not resent you for.

2. Somebody you know and love is going to die within the next 10 years. It could even be you. So live accordingly.

3. Respect and honour your parents. If they did a great job, thank them. If they didn’t, forgive and learn from their mistakes.

4. Don’t put your faith in the government or politicians. You will always be disappointed.

5. Practice gratitude daily. Consciously and intentionally.

6. Treat your body with respect. You only get ONE and it has to last a lifetime.

7. Invest consistently. In yourself, with your time, money, and in your relationships.

8. Don’t outsource your thinking to other people. ‘Experts’ are frequently wrong (and often paid to be).

9. Not seeing immediate, obvious progress doesn’t mean you’re not making it. Not seeing immediate, obvious damage doesn’t mean you’re not inflicting it.

10. Be careful with advice. Take it from people who have done and achieved what you wish to do and achieve.

And a bonus item:

11. Health and time are more valuable resources than money.

He is so right. I wish I had know and practiced a lot more of this back in my 20’s. It takes us most of a lifetime to learn these things. It’s awesome that he learned this at such a young age.

Vertigo and vomiting – Not a recommended weight loss plan

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion2 Comments

So this past Labor Day weekend (9/5 in the US) I began quite the adventure. The Friday prior my wife and I were driving out to get coffee when I experienced a… grey-out let’s call it. I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out but I didn’t feel in control of myself and felt slightly dizzy. I told her she better drive. I started to feel progressively dizzier. I told her she better drive me to urgent care. After a delightful visit to UC where the doctor checked everything but my ears (heart, lungs, etc, he really wanted it to be a heart problem) I was sent home with an order to follow up with my doctor.

I was feeling dizzy for the rest of the day and it started to get worse on Saturday. By Sunday morning I was throwing up and could barely walk. My poor wife had to pour me into her mother’s wheelchair and wheel me out to the car. She drove me to the Emergency Room early Sunday morning where I spent the day getting pump full of anti-nausea and anti-vertigo drugs, as well as mega-doses of Tylenol since I also had a high fever. I had an IV in each arm. Fun stuff. After about 8 hours my ER doctor, Dr. Poon, (yes, that’s his real name) came in and declared that they had “fixed” me. I wasn’t throwing up any more, I didn’t feel dizzy, and my fever broke so they kicked me loose. That was great, I really didn’t want to spend the night in that torture device they call an ER bed.

For the next few days my fever came back but Excedrin finally knocked it out. And I was dizzy again. I finally saw my doctor a few days later and he gave me a prescription for the vertigo which finally knocked the dizziness out permanently. However, I was losing weight. It was rapid enough that it concerned me. 15 lbs in two weeks is a bit much. My doctor’s answer; “You need to lose weight.” Thanks doc. For the next two weeks I had no energy and could barely get out of bed. I finally started feeling like I could drive and maybe go to work the following Monday. This was on a Friday.

That night my wife was laying on the floor doing some stretches when she called to saying that she felt dizzy. Uh oh. I helped her up into bed. She had vertigo.

Hmmmm….

I was still recovering but the next day I tried to help her with everything. She threw up once in the morning but that was it. She spent one day feeling really dizzy but by Sunday she was ready to go grocery shopping. How’d she do that??? By Monday she was fine and I went to work.

I asked my doctor if this could have been a virus or something. His answer, “Nope. Just a coincidence”

Hmmmm….

I get back to work the following Monday after being off for two weeks. I’m talking to one of the guys here in the office who said the exact same thing happened to him. He and his wife were driving somewhere and he started feeling dizzy and had to pull over and let his wife drive. He was diagnosed with vertigo. It took him two weeks to fully recover.

Hmmmm….

Once coincidence is just that. Two coincidences are not coincidences; they are a pattern. Be careful out there. Wash your hands constantly. I’m starting to think there is another virus going around out there that targets your inner ear. It’s an awful way to lose weight. Trust me.

John Paul Van Artsdalen, Senior (Jan 5, 1923 – Aug 24th, 2022)

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion2 Comments
John Paul Van Artsdalen, Senior

My father John Paul Van Artsdalen, Sr born on January 5th, 1923 passed away on August 24th, 2022 after a long and full life of 99 years. He served his country in the US Navy for 25 years and he served his family for many more.  He was very loved and will be missed terribly.  He is preceded in death by his two daughters Paula Jean Connor (Harold), Sheila Ann Grant (Ronald), his grandchild Elizabeth Kaitlin Hopkins, and his bride, the love of his life, Alice Nadine (Schooling) Van Artsdalen.  He is survived by his remaining children, John Paul Van Artsdalen II (Amy), Melanie Hopkins (Randy), and Scott Douglas Van Artsdalen (Cristy), his grandchildren, Cathi Jean Below, Michael Steven Connor, Tracey Alleyne Bakewell (Scott), Dianah Avelarolmos, (Juan Carlos), John Paul Van Artsdalen III (Ashley), Scott Douglas Van Artsdalen II, James Patrick Hopkins, Angela Cristine Van Artsdalen, Thomas Henry Hopkins, and great-grandchildren, Emily Bakewell, Kyle Bakewell, Vianca Avelarolmos, Juan Calos Avelar-Olmos, Alexis Van Artsdalen, Brooke Van Artsdalen, His quiet life of service and hard work for his family are his legacy and will continue to echo throughout eternity.

John and Nadine Van Artsdalen, the people who brought me into this world

A Message To The Unvaccinated

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Faith, OpinionLeave a comment

This was forwarded to me by my wife. It was posted on Telegram by General Flynn. It’s a message of encouragement to those who are unvaccinated. It should not be construed to be an indictment against those who are vaccinated. It’s just an encouragement to those who chose a different path.

MESSAGE TO THE UNVACCINATED:  

“Even if I were pollinated and fully vaccinated, I would admire the unvaccinated for withstanding the greatest pressure I have ever seen, even from partners, parents, children, friends, colleagues and doctors. 

People who were capable of such personality, courage and critical ability are undoubtedly the best of humanity. They are everywhere, in all ages, levels of education, states and ideas. They are of a special kind; they are the soldiers that every army of light wants to have in its ranks. They are the parents that every child wants to have and the children that every parent dreams of having. They are beings above the average of their societies, they are the essence of the people who have built all cultures and conquered horizons. They are there, next to you, they look normal, but they are superheroes. 

They did what others could not, they were the tree that withstood the hurricane of insults, discrimination and social exclusion. And they did it even when they thought they were alone, and believed they were the only ones.  Banned from their families’ tables at Christmas, they never saw anything so cruel. They lost their jobs, let their careers sink, had no more money… but they didn’t care. They suffered immeasurable discrimination, denunciation, betrayal and humiliation… but they kept going.  

Never before in humanity has there been such a “casting”, now we know who are the best on planet Earth. Women, men, old, young, rich, poor, of all races or religions, the unvaccinated, the chosen of the invisible ark, the only ones who managed to resist when everything collapsed. 

That’s you.  You passed an unimaginable test that many of the toughest Marines, Commandos, Green Berets, astronauts and geniuses could not withstand.  You are made of the stuff of the greatest who ever lived; those heroes, born among ordinary folk, who shine in the dark.” 

— Author unknown

COVID-19 in 2022

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion, Travel, Work1 Comment

It’s been a while since I updated the blog and it’s been for a good reason. COVID! What?? Who get’s COVID anymore…? Well, we did. Working at a hospital for 2 years during a pandemic and I didn’t get a sniffle. Now that it’s over, we all caught it. Here’s what happened.

It was on our camping trip that I just blogged about. We drove up to Roseville to meet a friend at a dive bar called The Almond Tree. We had dinner, a few drinks, danced a few times to the campy two man band they had playing live music and then called it an evening and headed back to the trailer. We enjoyed the rest of our short weekend getaway and drove home.

After putting all our stuff away and taking the trailer back to the storage lot I began feeling a little tired. Kind of that “oh no, I’ve got a cold coming on” kind of feeling. By bedtime that night I was really feeling bad. I woke up feeling even worse. I had a suspicion so I took one of those “at home” COVID tests. 15 minutes later it registered positive for COVID. Well shoot. I didn’t believe it so I drove to work and took one of our covid tests from the hospital. A few days later I got an email stating I had tested positive for COVID. Double shoot. About this time Cristy started feeling bad. Triple shoot!! Then our daughter, and then Cristy’s mother. Well…. I’m all out of ammunition.

For the next week I endured the worst sore throat I can remember having since having strep throat in my teens. Terrible headache. I’m used to those but the rest of my family is not and that was the worst part for them. We never lost our sense of smell or taste but every food we ate ended up tasting SUPER salty even if there was no salt in it. It followed pretty much the same pattern with all of us so we knew we all had the same thing. It also spread very quickly. Cristy had stayed away from her mother but her mother caught it within a few days of us returning from our trip. The pattern was; feeling sick, bad headache, feeling very weak, no nasal congestion but a cough quickly developed and held on for weeks. I had to sleep upright on the couch for a week because every time I laid down I began coughing uncontrollably.

I took some cough medicine that was super strong and supposed to stop any cough. It didn’t. The only thing it did was to make me pass out for the first time in my life. I’m sure the disease had something to do with it too. I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night (from all the water I was drinking). I remember feeling a little dizzy as I was leaving the bathroom. The next thing I remember was waking up under the vanity in the bathroom and crawling back to bed.

Thanks to Cristy’s foresight we had both hydroxychloroquin and Ivermectin (in pill form) on hand. The hydroxy. came from some friends who had some to lend us. The Ivermectin was purchased ahead of time just in case. We took the Ivermectin first and when it ran out we started on the hydroxy. I’m not sure if it helped us or not but we’re all still here. Cristy’s mother did end up getting an IV of monoclonal antibodies and ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. But at the rip old age of 89 she recovered too. Without these medications I’m not sure she would have made it.

It took me almost three weeks to get back to work. And though the symptoms left me almost as suddenly has they came on, the brain fog that COVID left behind took a little longer to get over. My first day back at work I couldn’t remember the commands that I would normally type in to configure our network devices. It took about a week more to recover my mental state. Cristy took a little longer to recover. My daughter was back at work a week before I was. Cristy’s mother spent a week in the hospital and then three more weeks at a convalescent home. Cristy was prevented from seeing her mother this entire time. She would sneak onto the care home grounds and visit her mother through the sliding glass door in her mother’s room. However Cristy remained outside so she wouldn’t get her mother into any trouble. Her mother is still receiving in-home visits from physical therapy nurses to help her regain her strength. In another week she shouldn’t need them.

So it was a very not-fun two months in January and February, but it’s all in the rear view mirror now. AND we have the best immunity you can have, natural immunity! Thank God for bringing us through it all!

2021 Year End Wrap Up

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion2 Comments

I always find it so hard to write these year end wrap up type posts, but when I do write them I’m away glad I did. It’s nice to look back over the years and see the changes. And this year has brought some changes.

Daughter gets new job: My daughter switched from working at a medical office to working in the field of security. She went from booking appointments and setting up therapies to tracking ankle monitors. It’s more money and a much easier job. Plus this company offers her more in the way of advancement. So happy for her!

Still unvaccinated: I still have the pure blood (relatively anyway) that I was born with. I believe in natural immunity and I don’t trust this new brand of “vaccine” that was rushed out under an emergency use authorization. It’s difficult because I work at a hospital and they have been pushing everyone to get vaccinated. I was able to file a religious exemption and so far they have honored that. I have found that the people who know me respect my choice. Those that do not know me, once they find out my vaccination status fall into two groups: they respect my choice, or hate me with a passion. My favorite “hater” quote is, “Why don’t you just kill yourself now since you’re going to die anyway.” I’m still here, sucker.

Still married: I’ve gotten to spend yet another year with the most marvelous woman God ever created. She has been my moral support, my cheerleader, sometimes my crutch, and always my best friend. Out of love for her and everything she is I have started trying to speak her native language to her more often. And she has become open to teaching me more. I firmly believe that everyone woman should be told “I love you” in her native language, whatever that language is. So to my wife I say; minamahal kita, ngayon at magpakailanman!

Still have a son: He lives in a group home and by all accounts is doing well. We still take him to church every other week. We attend another church in the off week. We also take him to his job on Saturdays. He’s in a good place.

We took a vacation: We didn’t really go anywhere in 2020 because the world was still in panic mode. This year we went back to Sedona and really enjoyed ourselves. You can read the past few blog entries as witness to that. Cristy and I also did a lot of self-exploration and entered a new phase of growth in our marriage on this trip. Growth which has continued long after the vacation ended. We are much stronger and happier as a couple than when the year started. And we started the year pretty darned good. Life just gets better with her.

So many other events this year that I can’t name them all. I’ve been blessed with having a job through this entire pandemic. I’ve been blessed with health through this entire pandemic. My boss caught COVID-19 and even though I was closely exposed to her (through touching, sharing a keyboard, working shoulder to shoulder) while she was infectious I never caught the disease. No one in my family has caught the disease. We’ve truly been blessed. God has preserved us through it all.

I won’t even try to forecast what this year holds. Cristy and I have made one conscious decision though; call it a resolution if you like. That we are going to get out there and enjoy life more this year. We are going to meet more people, cultivate new interests and relationships, and not waste one moment. Carpe momentum, samantalahin ang sandali.

Sedona Trip 2021 Day 11 and Closing Thoughts

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Opinion, RV Life, TravelLeave a comment

We hit the road around 7:30am or so. We were about to drive through the windiest portion of the trip home. Winds were manageable but were forecast to pick up as the day went on hence the early (for us) start. We did encounter higher winds between Barstow and Tehachapi. I kept my eyes on the traffic moving in the opposite direction looking for RV’s specifically. My thought being that they were coming from where I was going to, if they made it, I could make it. The wind was on our nose the entire way. The truck had to stay in 3rd gear just to maintain 60 MPH! We stopped for lunch and ate it in the trailer. I can’t even remember where that was. Some rest stop out in the desert. When we finally hit Tehachapi it was such a relief because the wind just stopped. We climbed up to the pass and made the long decent into the Central Valley and finally into sunny skies. We finally got home around 3pm.

Closing thoughts

We truly enjoyed our trip to Sedona and surprisingly Cottonwood. It was a wonderful time of reconnection with ourselves and with nature. We enjoyed our hikes and the beautiful scenery. We had long conversations. We discovered new things about ourselves. This year’s Sedona trip helped us begin an exciting new journey in our lives. This trip opened up within us a new resolve to not only seize the day, but to seize every moment; carpe momentum.