True Confessions

Quirks of AI

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I’m still enjoying my FORM goggles. They’re my first foray into using a smart device to track something on my body. After my inaugural smart swim, I was impressed! The goggles seemingly knew what stroke I was doing. It also tracked the number of yards and cool stats about my strokes.

After getting used to the goggles, I decided to try the subscription services. The main attraction for me was the built in workouts. I’ve been doing the same sets for years and it’s good to change the routine. What I didn’t realize was the level of customization. The workouts match my specific objectives and skill level. After finishing one, the next is based on whatever technique or skill I need to improve.

This is a great use case for AI. I’m provided with a custom-plan based on my progress. Even more impressively, in a few short weeks my technique is (slowly) improving. I know because my technique swim score (called FORM) has been steadily creeping up after starting the workouts. Prior to that, it remained flat.

Along the way, there have been a few weird things with the goggles. For example, if I stop to shake water out of my ear, the goggles start recording this as swimming. Another strange thing is that the goggles can’t seem to recognize side stroke. I almost always do two laps of side stroke to finish off my workout. Sometimes, when I swim breast stroke, the goggles consider this as rest time, too. A little weird, but not a deal breaker. However, the last workout amplified the difference between a coach and goggles.

While the goggles may track some things better than a human, such as head position and calculating strokes, they can’t adjust sometimes. During my workout, I had to do 2 x 50 front crawl. This means across and back, rest, then across and back again. However, I was in the zone and started the third lap without resting. The goggles wouldn’t count the lap until I stopped in the middle of the lane to “rest”. They recorded the extra lap, but not as part of my second 50. I ended up on the wrong side of the pool for the remainder of the workout and it messed up my stats! That half lap counted as my best time for the session. After the sophistication of everything, I found this surprising.

Human Archives

Spring Blossoms

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Few things delight me as much in spring as the first, nascent flowers appearing. Despite the cold, rainy, gray spring we’ve been having up north, the sun came out on mother’s day weekend. It was just in time to catch the end of the magnolia blossoms at the Royal Botanical Gardens. They have little fragrance. However, their creamy white petals tinged with pinks, magentas, and yellow provide a feast for the eyes. One tree sports a star-shaped blossom that is the sweetest smelling of the bunch.

Shortly after the magnolias drop their petals to the ground, the lilacs start blooming. Again, due to the unseasonably cold temperatures and large number of rainy days, I thought this would delay the blossoms. But to my joy, the lilacs continued to grow and bloom, same as always. This reinforced the magic of spring to me, always coming with its relentless and persistent energy each year. No matter what the weather is like, spring is determined to arrive, bringing with it a bounty of flowers, soft wind, and warm sunshine.

We went to see the lilacs two weeks after the magnolias. The lilacs, I learned, bloom at different stages, early, mid, and late. Our visit coincided with the tail end of the mid-bloomers. After this round there was still at least another week or two to go for them. I was too busy enjoying the fragrant smells of the lilacs to take any pictures. However, I captured the picture below of the blooming Redbud trees, offering a spray of bright pinks against the verdant background.

We definitely lucked out with the weather on our two visits to see the flowers. It was a nice reminder of what spring can be like. This after experiencing a long, cold, snowy winter followed by more gray, rainy weather. The sun shone today providing some much needed rays for the lilac in my own backyard, which still has yet to bloom.

True Confessions

The Printed Word

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Earlier this week I read an article about a group of teenagers creating a weekly newspaper, called The Ditch Weekly. For the moment, it’s only available in the summer months. According to the article, the teens actually make profit with the newspaper.

What struck me about this endeavor was the desire to produce something in print. I also appreciated the teens finding ways to engage that didn’t require them to use social media. A lot of newspaper reporting requires talking to people, even if the talking may happen over technology. There is still the promise of face-to-face time, going out and exploring, and fact checking. All of these seem like good skills to develop to combat rapidly developing AI and a lack of original content creation.

I also felt a little surprised that these teens seemed to want something more nostalgic. Producing a printed, weekly publication in the summer sounds like something from my childhood. Albeit in today’s climate, I’m sure their printed publication looks way better than anything I could have designed and it’s probably easier to get copies made. Small things like that would have taken ages in my time. However, the technology can really speed up some of these process while also making it easy to create something that looks high-quality and professional.

While reading the article, I couldn’t help but wonder is this the start of the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. Perhaps the constant information bombardment on our phones fatigues us making a small publication seem appealing. After all, it forces us to slow down to read the pages instead of skimming and scrolling. The amount of content is manageable. We can enjoy the tactile sensation of holding something. It’s easier for people to share and read together, instead of hunching over a tiny screen. And it’s nicer on the eyes.

I don’t typically interact with teenagers, but I did feel curious to understand why they’re craving these types of experiences. Do they see something with the devices that we don’t notice because we’re using them so often? Though to be fair, I didn’t grow up with smartphones and social media. I’m sure that would have been a stressful experience for my teen-self, even though I probably wouldn’t have been aware in the moment. But maybe these teens can see how damaging some of these technologies can be and they’re making different decisions.

Social Media

Is There a Future for Online Dating Apps?

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Last week I heard an interesting interview with Whitney Wolfe Herd by the Lulu Garcia-Navarro. For context, she helped to found Tinder in 2012. Shortly after, she left Tinder and founded Bumble, another online dating app. Bumble’s design lets women make the first move by initiating conversation with men they find attractive.

In recent years, Bumble has not been doing well in terms of finances and slow growth on the app. After taking a year off, she recently returned as CEO with plans for a new direction. There will be emphasis on getting people off their phones to connect with others in person at local events. Other plans include using AI to suggest finely tuned matches. These matches will occur based on quizzes and questionnaires members fill out, combined with some kind of algorithm in the back making the “magic” happen. Therapists and relationship experts will help design the input questions. Also discussed was the availability of human dating coaches on the site to provide advice that doesn’t come from a chatbot.

I haven’t used an online dating site in almost 10 years. I’m also not opposed to idea of using AI to help match people faster and more accurately. When using online dating sites, I often felt overwhelmed, bored, and irritated at having to scroll through so many profiles to get a couple that seemed interesting. Having AI generate a few quality matches to explore sounds like a promising feature. Providing real-world opportunities for human connection sounds like the most encouraging advancement.

However, no matter how sophisticated AI might seem in creating matches, nobody has figured out how to use it to match chemistry. This is a critical factor for dating and coupling up with others. I’ve ended dates early because I don’t like the way my date smelled. Some years ago I had a custom perfume created with AI based on some inputted data. Though I would personally feel creeped out to do it, I’m sure there is a way for these online dating apps to sample and match chemistries.

But in the end, there’s only so much the AI can do. After all, a lot of other factors come into play beyond smell and values. More than can be matched with quizzes, questionnaires, endless swipes, and complex algorithms churning away in the background.

Productivity, True Confessions

Digital Calendar Dilemmas

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I’m definitely somebody who lives by my calendar. I used to love using a pocket-sized paper planner. My favorite style was the Quo Vadis Sapa, with the weekly view. One feature I enjoyed was being able to see a 12-month spread by flipping to front of the planner. Other things I liked included knowing how much time had passed. For example, every week indicated the number of the day out of 365, and how many weeks had passed since Jan 1. It seems trivial, but I noticed.

Over 10 years ago, I switched to a completely digital calendar. I did this rather reluctantly, I might add. Although the paper planner was quick and easy, the reliance on digital invites made it start to feel impractical. Many invites and appointments now provide an option to add to my calendar seamlessly. Most times this also includes important details such as location, or a link, if the event is virtual. Way easier than rewriting everything in a paper planner.

Today I read an article about families that use Skylight, a customizable, touch-screen calendar. The design makes it easy for families to share and view what everyone else is doing. It can also help with chores, tasks, planning, etc. However, my big question is, can the calendar really help families with all the planning and organizing? I personally feel the effort of creating a calendar style that worked for my family would outweigh the benefits. Then there’s the challenge of making sure everyone in the family fills it out! Otherwise that can also defeat the purpose.

Although I’d like to think I can keep everything organized with a calendar, or task management system, the reality is a lot of details still remain in my brain. Then I’m stuck with a dilemma of the effort and time to add every tiny thing to the planning. Or assume some things are part of the routine and understand they will never be on the planner. I’ve been blogging weekly on The Deletist since June 2013, around the same time I switched to a digital calendar. However, I never record anything in my calendar about writing and posting my blog. Rarely I’ll add “write blog post” to a task list. But mostly, it’s been a part of my routine for so long I know I’ll do it.

True Confessions

The Economy of Words

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Last week I listened to an interview with Isabel Allende. Last year my book club read Violeta. I liked it so much I read The House of Spirits, her first novel. I’ve slowly been making my way through Paula, one of her more well-known novels chronicling the death of her daughter. The topic is heavy and sometimes the writing is dense, making it tough to read quickly.

In the interview, I was surprised to hear about Allende’s long relationship writing letters with her mother over decades. By her estimate, she thinks the collection of their letters is around 24,000! In my younger years, before texts, messaging apps, emails, and video calling, I used to write letters to people. I also used to prepare packages to send to loved ones whom I didn’t see often.

According to Allende, letter writing is a lost art. What struck me most listening to her talk about letters is how often we write quick, short messages, even though technology affords us the ease of writing as much as we want. Instead, we prefer to dash off a hurried note, full of slang, abbreviations, and emoji to convey our thoughts. Some people only write “k” now instead of “okay” or “ok.” I think two letters is already pretty short, but yet it gets reduced further.

I use a special app that monitors certain aspects of my writing. It’s similar to a grammar or spelling check, but instead focuses on things like inclusive writing, passive voice, sentence length, and starting words. One of the flags is for paragraphs longer than 150 words! For some authors, that’s only part of a sentence. I’ve noticed in older books that sometimes one paragraph lasts longer than one page, routinely. What would those authors think of the 150 word restriction on a paragraph?

It’s curious to think about why we use less words, shorter sentences, and reduced paragraphs when it’s so easy and inexpensive to write as much as we want. Before my time, sending telegrams used to cost a lot of money and take time to prepare. It made sense to have a short, abbreviated message. Now, we don’t have those excuses, and yet, we still reverted to minimal words. I suppose it’s because now we receive so many messages from so many places we’re trying to reduce the load where we can.