Unhappiness is contagious, sadly
Wounds tend to expand in its wake
When you're too tired to even be angry
There's only palliative relief when the heart aches

So upset at this point, quite frankly, it's just sad.
The damage is done, there's no point getting mad
The preceding half hour of vitriol only added to the dismay
There's no comfort to be had, this is very far from okay

There's no prospect of breaking down the door
Resign yourself to this rupture, wallow in the sadness
Divided for no reason at all, this is your house
Probably best tonight to sleep on the couch

Relentless, the cloud, trouble seems to follow you
Even when you hold your tongue, others want to argue
This social disease is unfair, to be broaching loneliness
The path forward is unclear, such is the way of unhappiness

Unhappiness, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Glad to be Unhappy by Billie Holiday
• Trouble, Heartaches & Sadness by Ann Peebles
• Melancholy by Milt Jackson
• Unhappy Blues by Mississippi Sheikhs
• Glad to be Unhappy by Nancy Wilson
• Little Unhappy Boy by Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderley
• Melancholy by Louis Armstrong
• Glad to be Unhappy by Paul Desmond
• With Sadness by Chet Baker
• Melancholy Mood by Bob Dylan
• Poisonous Afternoon of Unhappiness by Bossa Nova Brazil
• Glad to be Unhappy by Sarah Vaughan
• Trouble, Heartaches & Sadness by Candi Staton
• Glad to be Unhappy by Frank Sinatra
• How Sad by Jazzyfatnastees
• Winter Sadness by Kook & the Gang

File under: life, culture, observation, perception, emotion, poetry, toli

Writing log: November 14, 2022

20/20 vision is a minimum, the requirement is nigh perfect eyesight
Also an ability to forget mistakes, perfection is a matter of hindsight
Twitchy sharp reactions, prior experience required with video games
Competitive and driven, a team player who is willing to inflict pain

The best candidates are baby faced, call them bloodless assassins
On-the-job training provides numerous opportunities to crash weddings
With major flexibility in working hours, you can embrace the impromptu
And enforce the home truth: "Visit America before America visits you"

A tapestry of pixels pored over for distinctive signals
A keen test of reflexes as you launch the predator missile
GPS-directed, with spotter verification to paint the target
Like the Brimstone missile, the system is designed for "fire-and-forget"

Working at a remove from the ground action
Remote control, pushing buttons with abandon
The bearer holds to the belief in things unseen
Detachment of spirit, signature strikes, this is the American dream

Classified findings laid out the executive decrees
Gave the benefit of the shadows, the veil of secrecy
Thus protected by covering memos providing limited liability
A free reign, then, to sow the seeds of excess mortality

Someone who takes pride in their tools, a skilled master
Nicknamed their vessel the mobile widow maker
An early recruit, adept at the drudge of targeted killing
Televised slaughter, quiet as it's kept, can be so thrilling

Yet it's not all fun and games, even with precision munition
This daily front seat, private viewing of target acquisition
Spheres of influence, inventive vehicle for force projection
Delivery platform, artisanal even, for heat-seeking execution

Gamer heroes
Beast mode
Player ratings
Cheat codes

The new warfare, defense authorization for collateral damage
Our benefits package leaves you anesthetized from the foreign carnage
Sharp maneuvers, joystick exertions that satisfy
Pax Americana, raining vengeance out of the sky

Top Secret. The role calls for security clearance with polygraph
Mentoring skills are sought after, you'll be managing junior staff
Pinpoint expertise wrought from a distance while wearing a headset
An exciting workplace, with only the occasional regret

Burn out is a possibility, but is cast as acceptable loss
For this kind of wet work, even at a remove, has its costs
Conscience optional, foot soldier of the war on terror
The clean and delicate hands of the drone operator

Drone Operator, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Remote Control by Loose Ends
• Out of the sky by Van Hunt
• Cold Blooded by Rick James
• I've Committed Murder by Macy Gray
• Cold Blooded by Common
• Remote Control by Beastie Boys
• Cold Blooded by Gary Clark Jr.
• From a Distance by Bette Midler
• Kill Screen by Shadow Shadow
• Automaton by Jamiroquai
• Drone Operator's Lament by Radarcave

Bonus beats albeit very destabilizing: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Killer by The Meteors

File under: humour, satire, hatchet job, blood, war, alienation, modernity, USA, politics, culture, outrage, observation, perception, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: December 18, 2022

Concussion protocols, truly, the stakes are high
Punch drunk, the injury that sparks a debate
Undoubtedly every player would want to continue
A grand stage it may be, but impaired judgment is the danger

Stunned, weary and dazed after the clash of heads
A misguided notion, this business of grin and bear it
To stand in judgment, weighing the shelf life of a human being
Out of a sense of obligation, the point is not to indulge machismo

When caution comes up against commerce, there's a world of trouble
Conflicting imperatives at work, the reluctance is understandable
Surely though, it's best to take the decision out of their hands
The mind may will it it wants, but the body is the ultimate arbiter

Concussion Protocol, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Concussion by Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
• Punch Drunk by Sade
• Struck by You by The Bar-Kays
• Warriors don't cry by Beres Hammond
• Sit Down and Hurt Awhile by Denise LaSalle
• Blow to the Head by Abram Wilson
• Hard Knock Life by Jay-Z
• You can't stop the prophet by Jeru the Damaja
• Stop in the name of love by The Supremes
• Carry On by Jean Knight
• Caution by Maxi Priest
• Hard Knocks by Joe Cocker
• We Carry On by Portishead
• Hard Knocks by Elvis Presley

After: Punch-Drunk Slugnuts: Violence and the Vernacular History of Disease by Stephen Casper


File under: health, standards, best practices, concussion, brain, biology, sports, policy, culture, observation, perception, poetry, toli

Writing log: December 18, 2022

America bestows gifts
To its favored sons
But exacts a heavy price

Giving rise to job titles that confound,
The nature of the dream is a patent lie
This land of plenty
Dispenses the characteristic headline:

"Active shooter response consultant shares insight"

Threat readiness, crisis training.
Developing situational awareness
Uneasy phrases marketing a lucrative industry.
A growing corporate business

A proud legacy
This bloody exceptionalism,
The fruit of tribal sacrifice

A balm of thoughts and prayers
In this austere ceremony
Roaring while closing one's eyes

After: Retired police officer, active shooter response consultant shares insight after Walmart shooting

Tuesday’s attack in Chesapeake is the 15th mass shooting location that Marko Galbreath has visited since he began his training.

(November 25, 2022)

Action Items, a playlist

A soundtrack for this lament (spotify version)

• What's Going On by Marvin Gaye
• Right and a Wrong Way by Keith Sweat
• Prayer by D'Angelo
• The Moment I Feared by Slick Rick

See previously: Action Items and Prone

File under: USA, blood, violence, absurd, culture, observation, modernity, perception, language, bureaucracy, corporation, work, life, poetry, outrage, The Rough Beast, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: November 26, 2022

The test fleet had been taken to Australia the previous week
My colleagues, two cubes over, were all aflutter, I asked, "What gives?"
It was the kangaroo problem, I was told. I was rather bemused
For it seems that the autonomous vehicles were rather confused

You see, they had come across some of those long eared creatures
Beasts of burden, sporting those unmistakable features
But they were a new breed in their eyes, the term of art, unknown objects
Simply put, the recognition engine wasn't able to easily detect
Something about the gait and motion of the kangaroos they encountered
The road less traveled, in other words, had left the cars flustered

So now the data scientists were looking for more training data
In a bid to augment the intelligence of the onboard sensors
Scouring National Geographic and YouTube
  to update their detection algorithms
Loading up hours of videos of marsupials
  to finetune the classification schemes





Why did the chicken cross the road?
 Are you blind? It was a kangaroo
Consider, if you will, when a large object starts moving towards you
It seemed to me that the nature of the calculation was rather clear
That it shouldn't matter whether it was a kangaroo or a drunken deer

That any human driver out of caution would seek to avoid collision
Evasive action was clearly called for in this kind of situation
No matter how loping its gait, I'd hope, or how eccentric its motion
Avoid impact and ask questions later, was surely the solution

In this fraught scenario of exigency
 there'd be no time for semantics
Boffins, instead, were bent on reducing things
  down to matters of semiotics
When ontologies raise their specter,
 I rather fear you might be losing the plot
Meanwhile, over their shoulders,
  I saw the visualizations, the bounding boxes
True, they spoke at some length about the determinants
 of stopping distance
At the back of my mind, I recalled the wisdom
 of buying collision insurance





As to the tangible limitations of this artificial intelligence
How to teach the ghost in the machine to learn how to sense
To move beyond the basics of calculating velocity and acceleration
Plotting feasible trajectories while being mindful of sensor calibration
Lessons in obstacle avoidance, the perils of synthesized perception
A panoply of newfangled electronic equipment: cameras, radar, lidar
A catalog of known objects: car, truck, pedestrian, guardrail or barrier
Even in this hostile environment, prudence, protect the least of us
Rodent or marsupial was beside the point, let alone a desert fox
Surely a safety policy would be that you shouldn't hit the bus

The real world is highly unstructured,
  one can hardly play fast and loose
Object identity is rather academic,
 whether horse, camel, donkey or moose
On a grand tour of Mongolia,
 you might run into a herd of cashmere goats
The prime imperative of driving on the road:
  active safety foremost

The state of the art, then, of machine learning is no great panacea
Expect the unexpected, deal gracefully with chaos and disorder
What with near misses or close encounters in Peru with errant llama
Let alone the outrageous daily scenes you meet on an African street
Routine maintenance, force majeure, life is a veritable bestiary
A human marketplace replete with vibrant textures and shapes
The kangaroo problem was the tip of an iceberg of category mistakes





...


Activity, aflutter, what strange creature is this?
Elliptical motion, elusive, proudly prominent proboscis
Apt to be misconstrued, roaming, bounding without effort
Near collision, operator intervention, he filed the incident report
In the aftermath, then, the root cause analysis
Prompting among the boffins an identity crisis

Kangaroo Problem, a playlist

A autonomous soundtrack for this note. Drive safely. (spotify version)

• Can't you see me? by Roy Ayers
• He miss road by Fela
• You don't see me by Amel Larrieux
• Make the road by walking by Menahan Street Band
• Drive by The Cars
• Road Safety by Tony Allen
• (I'm a) Road Runner by Junior Walker
• Sensitivity by Ralph Tresvant
• Drive my car by The Beatles
• Chicken trying to cross the road by Buddhafunk
• Road runner by Bo Diddley

...

This entry on failure modes is part of the Toli Technology Series

...

Cultural Sensitivity in Technology is my perennial theme; everything is local and sensor calibration is paramount...

File under: humour, technology, culture, observation, perception, classification, robocars, software, algorithms, sensitivity, best practices, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log. Concept March 2018. December 14, 2022

Just once I knew what life was for.
The hoarders though, once they got
their hands on it, said once is not
enough. Ones, tens, twenties, currency
in whatever form whet one's appetite
for more and more. For a taste, just once
what would you give or give up? Once, we
lined up for ashes, the ones drawn in
the shape of a cross: reminder that wants
are different from needs, that once this
life is done, one's status and wealth are
of no consequence. Once upon a time, I
wanted just as much and hard as any. 
Once, I thought I knew what life was for.