So much for my plan to watch a presentation that was available online after the fact - in contrast to the announcement, it was not recorded after all, and is thus not available. It would have been something on backstrap weaving, but due to time differences, the real thing would have been at three o'clock in the night hereabouts. My love for textiles runs deep, but my love for sleep is at least as profound, so I would have passed even if I had known that it will not be recorded. 

Still, funnily, it makes a difference somehow to be disappointed because it's in the middle of the night and one will not join in, or to be disappointed because it was announced to be recorded and then be told it was not, after all. Not that the outcome is any different. 

I am not complaining, by the way - something may have happened, technical or otherwise, to have things turn out like that. What I'd rather complain about (well, among many other things that are of a more political or social nature, but I am planning to do other things this evening as well and will thus not even get started) is how much AI has made searching for stuff on the 'Net harder than before. Back a few years ago, when I was looking for something, there was the occasional thing that was repeated on a few websites. Mostly it was easier to identify and thus fairly quick to sort out - but now, searching is much more cumbersome just due to the sheer amount of copy-and-paste stuff, and repetitions of things quite clearly written by AI. Add that to the fact that some things are hard to search for anyways ("spindle" can mean way too many things, for instance, and some other terms are, well, not advisable due to NSFW reasons) and it gets unpleasant.

Unfortunately, that does not look like a problem that will go away any time soon. This AI stuff is here for a while, and will most probably continue to spew shitty hallucinated texts all over the 'Net, and then gobble them up again to feed itself with the basis for even more, even wilder hallucinations.

You can clearly tell that I'm no fan of the AI boom. Yes, I know that there are some use cases where it's a real help, and I am using AI assistance for those as well. Such as translation help, so you don't have to look up every second word in the dictionary, and yes, I am old enough and old-fashioned enough that there were texts in my life that I had to tackle like this if I wanted to read them. Or programming assistance when it's a common software and a problem that you can very clearly describe, and very clearly describe how you want to solve it. My guideline these days is that if I could find the solution written out by someone (someone real, human, breathing and thinking) on the 'Net somewhere, it's something that may be solveable by AI. If not... nope. With a little nope cherry on top. It's basically a very, very large cross-language dictionary, and that is, in my opinion, all that it's good for, and all that it will be good for. It also has the desire to please you, so chances are high you won't get any solid or sensible advice. Which means... it's a large dictionary with a bias.

In addition, all that "free" use of AI comes at quite a cost - because these servers don't run themselves, and there is a considerable amount of energy and logistics going into them these days. Especially the image generation eats up quite a lot of resources, and with a lot of that being, more or less, utter crap, and also a lot of it being just for fun... well. Meh.

So. Rant over. For now. I'll now go and have a nice, analogue, non-AI (maybe even non-intelligent) evening.

If we're looking for the current pig being chased through the (global) village (and please excuse my crude translation of "die neuste Sau durchs Dorf treiben", a German phrase to point out the current big thing that's being made the Biggest Thing Ever and gets mixed in everywhere) - I'd say it's certainly AI.

Personally, I'm very, very torn on that topic. Yes, it can be a great help, and very useful in specific instances. But then there's so many not-so-good things about it. 

For once, I look with a shudder on the immense amounts of energy that go into generating, running, and using AI. It's slowly approaching a whole percent of global energy consumption, at a time where we'd all profit from dialling down a bit and trying to reduce what we use, so that we can stay within sustainable limits.

Then, a lot of it is just... bad. It already starts with the high-handed decisions of the AI trainers to just use anything that is there to train their models, regardless of copyright. Books, images, music, you name it. I have had issues with piracy of the book I wrote together with Gillian Polack (The Middle Ages Unlocked), which did cost both of us a good chunk of potential royalties income. This AI training - it''s piracy on a whole new level.

Artists complain as they are getting pushed out of their jobs, understandably so. A lot of people seem to think that AI will solve all their problems in the future, and make things, and better plus quicker than people. We will not be able to turn back time and go without AI, so my personal opinion is that it's smart to keep an eye on the developments and not reject all of it in every case, across the bank (even if personally, I'm a little tempted to do that, and please don't ask me why). In some cases, I have used AI to assist me, and I have found that it can be very helpful in some very specific situations. Like when I have a text in a language that I don't really read fluently, and I get translation assistance. (Quality differs between models, and it's always necessary to stay alert to possible hallucinations and mis-translations.) Like when I have a small, very well-defined programming issue where the language and (best case) the problem are rather well-known and have been handled and solved on the Internet somewhere, in some obscure corner, before, and I can describe in detail and very exactly what I need to have done, but am not able to just write out the code. Basically, another translation/language problem with a large pool of knowledge accessible in general. Or when I have a large, multi-page website and I need to find one specific bit of information on it (the case was a search for a VAT number that was not in the imprint). 

In these cases, it has served me really well to use AI. Regarding the translation, it's a really helpful tool for me that aids me a lot, and makes reading texts that I'd stumble on and spend a long while leafing through dictionaries (or typing words into online dictionaries) much quicker and much more painless. In other cases that were close to my successful use-cases, but not quite as specific and well-documented, well, I tried, and it tanked spectacularly. Which means that now I am very motivated to be very specific, and think hard about whether it is an AI-solvable problem, or probably not.

If I could wish for something, it would be people using AI like ChatGPT less for everything. You really don't need it to generate you a recipe for Butter Chicken, there's plenty of them on the web already, written by humans, just use one of those. You can just, well, use a search engine (preferably one with the search function turned off). And while I can somehow understand the temptation of having AI render a photo of you into an action figure, or a cartoon character, or whatever else... I'd wish people would not just use it so freely. It has a high hidden cost, and at some point, the price will have to be paid.

I won't go into any speculation on whether liking to use old programmes is somehow linked to being an archaeologist or not (it might just be me being cheap and lazy, after all), but, well... I did the jump from Windows7 to Win10, which should tell you a lot already.

Now the end of support for Win10 is approaching quickly, and I'm here with a still perfectly functional computer that is, as the Win11 evaluation programme tells me, not good enough to run Win11. 

This, as you may have guessed already, irks me quite a bit. And not only for me and my system - after all, I bought this machine refurbished four or so years ago, which can be considered as quite a while in IT terms - but also for all the millions of computers that are now forced into obsoleteness. The amount of unneccessary trash that makes, it's mind-boggling.

For a bit now, I had already decided to draw out any change or upgrade to the OS for as long as possible. Today, I looked into possibilities of extended support, at least for security patching... and found some interesting things.

Firstly, if you have the latest version of Win10 installed, you might even be eligible for free extended-life support by Microsoft. This life extension with security updates was offered on previous versions of Windows, but usually just for companies, and at a price (quite hefty, too). It looks like they are now offering it to everybody, and in some cases for free. The some cases are either using Microsoft Rewards points, or syncing your Windows backup to OneDrive (5 GB are free). I have not found out if the sync option means you have to backup everything there, or just the Windows settings, but either way it's not an option that I personally find attractive. You can read more about the MS extended support here or here. The extension is planned for at maximum three years, although there seems to be a plan to extend Win10 support for some companies until 2032. (Don't ask me how you get this, I have no clue.)

In case that all doesn't sound attractive enough for you, I also learned that there is a company specialising in security support for outdated programmes and operating systems. It's called 0patch (pronounced zeropatch) and they have adopted Win7 before, and still provide it with security patches so the machines are safe to use. Now they will be offering the same for Win10, and their plan is to do that for at least five years.

I will definitely look into this!

There's a German saying that goes "Reisen bildet" - travelling will make you more knowledgeable.

Well, this is certainly true for me and this last trip to Switzerland. You see, I have been there before, and I had noticed that the Swiss have different wall outlets for their plugs, but I had only brought the nice slim very versatile "Euro-Stecker" before: 

...and I had never run in any problem with that.

This time, though, I brought my laptop. Which doesn't have the "Euro-Stecker", but the larger, round "Schutzkontakt-Stecker" - and that's a different type. I had assumed that it would also just fit into the outlets, with its two prongs in about the same width and the same constellation as the Euro type, but, alas, the outlets that were available were all a recessed spot. And the form of the recess was, of course, the shape of the normal Swiss plug.

The German Schuko plug is too fat for that. 

So I was dashing off on the quest to find a different cable (since the trefoil connector is the same), but they had none. And then, the technic guy turned up with an adapter. I wasn't in the room at that time, but I imagine the adapter was procured, happily attached, and then it was found that it was what the Swiss call a "Fixadapter".

Which means that it is designed to turn a German-style electrical thingummy into a proper Swiss electrical thingummy. It is to be attached and never ever in the life of the device removed again.

So basically, I left my computer unattended in a Swiss conference room for a few minutes, and it went full-on native! Well, at least the end bit of it did. The one closest to the plug.

Fortunately, this cable is easily replaced (I have a temporary, borrowed replacement as I type this), and it meant that the presentation went well with no fear of running out of battery.

Also it makes for a very funny story, I have learned something (Reisen bildet!), and for my next foray into Switzerland, I have the proper plug!  

Today was definitely and undoubtedly an Aaargh! day. 

If you've been following this blog for a bit, you will be familiar with my search of a new image database to use instead of my old one, which is not supported anymore. Well. I had a go again yesterday at the migration process, looking at some possible pitfalls... and there was not just one, but two rather large ones. 

The first is the lack of support for videos. I asked in the support forum, and they'd like to add it, but that has not made it to the development timeline/plan yet... so whether it will come at all, or if so when, is unclear. That would have meant organising all the video files in a separate programme, or in a somehow separate way, which would have sucked.

The second one, though, was the absolute bummer. My current system relies on there being a watch folder; the programme, as the word implies, watches that folder and imports everything new into the database. No caption, no tags, obviously, only the exif data contents - but then I can go through the new files and finish giving them metadata. Tropy, the thing I thought would save all my problems, also allows you to set a watch folder. Unfortunately, though, it allows you the setting, but at least in my case it does not do the watching. None of the files in the watch folder appeared in the database. 

And that makes it a hard no, and a back to square one for me. 

So. Any of you has a hint on what programme runs locally, refers to an existing file structure without re-naming or shifting or copying files, supports video formats (at least to include them, internal viewer entirely optional), supports fuzzy dates (as in a date range, or only the year), has keywords/tags, and bonus points for it being free/open source or at least a single-pay license, and the possibility to sort into albums/boxes/lists or whatever virtual subgroups independent of the folder structure. Oh yes, and it should be possible to install, set up and run it without learning how to program first.

Sometimes it's really frustrating.

So... AI. You know, that ChatGPT guy and its colleagues.

There's quite a few things that I do think these helpers (because that's what they are) should not be used for, and I am not too happy about how some of them were trained. (Yes, I'm looking at you, illegal use of books for training, without informing or paying the authors.)

However... for some things, AI assistance can be really nice. A two-liner just helped me fix a website problem that I had, and my only complaint is that I should have done that earlier, as it would have saved me quite a bit of reading help files and trying to figure out what to do that needs to be done. 

My problem with code is that I can understand what I'd need to do from reading the help files, but I lack the basic knowledge to know what environment I need to do it. So... yeah. That's a slightly awkward place to get stuck in, by the way.

In this case, it was integrating a font in a special way - and my workaround only worked halfway, because one of the commands in the workaround just refused to do what it was supposed to do. Enter the Most Patient Husband of Them All, who let me explain the problem, tried to see if there was anything I had overlooked (yes, he did, but while that would have prevented the best code from running, it did not solve the non-existing sufficient code problem)... and then, as I was about to let it rest because I had already lost way more time than intended, he casually said something like "and this is actually where AI can be a real help, you tell it to write a php-file for you to do the job you need done, and then you only have to check if it's all okay and correct". Well. I can check code, I just can't write it. 

So, five minutes or so later... problem solved. 

(Another use that can be a real help, by the way, is translating chunks of text. You will still have to check to see if it's not weirdly wrong at some points, but it saves my dictionaries from a lot of wear and tear.)

And now I can try to actually get some other things done!

Ebay sent me an email a while ago about changes in their Terms and Conditions, ending with the sentence "You do not need to do anything". They are valid from yesterday - and apparently if you don't do anything (like I did), it grants ebay permission to use your data for training of KI.

Aaargh. And have I mentioned aargh? Thankfully I have the Most Patient Husband of Them All, who sent me info about this today, including on how to deny this. (Obviously if they already used your data, that's done, but at least you can disallow anything new to be used.)

If you want to read a bit more in German about this, here's a Spiegel article. And if you only care for the "f* off and leave my data alone"-link, here you go. You will have to log in, then move the slider from the "yes" to "no" side.

And just in case you have not guessed yet: I am very much not amused.