Everything But The Orchard Atop The Cliff...

Parcel From London Arrives

I will have to thank the Lidgley's for the Christmas parcel that arrived 4 days ago, now, through this blog.

Amidst all the tumult around here, and the good news/bad news scenarios, the good news is that my laptop is automatically connecting to my neighbor's wireless router.

Good, because he has access to unlimited data, so I can update this blog and search for things on Google...

But the bad news is that, using his router, I now get an error message when trying to use gmail or Facebook or Youtube.

The Google search engine is stuck on "safe search," also...

This last bit doesn't confront me much, because I hardly ever search for "adult" material.

I seem to recall that, just 25 years ago, if I were to search almost any term, using the Excite "portal" which endeavored to be a launching pad to anywhere I wanted to go online, like a huge directory of websites, and if I were to not have the "safe" search filter on, I would invariably get a lot of links to porn sites, sprinkled in with the general results.

Almost any search term had some kind of back reference to the porn sites. If I was to put: "How do you determine the sex of a kingsnake?" in the search box, as I once did, I would see links to herpetology sites, but wouldn't have to scroll very far down to see little icons of nude women holding snakes and perhaps a link or two, to some porn star's site, amongst the beautiful reptile photos.

At the public library, their watchdog type filters would forbid the searching for a lot of innocuous terms that had porn connotations. Sorry, this search term is likely to return adult content, search forbidden. ...I can't search for pictures of "hot air balloons;" ...really?!    

So, I guess the web "community" has come a long way in 20 years; with "them" having cordoned the porn sites off into their own sub-universe.

Now, it is the A.I. or artificial intelligence that is driving the algorithms, which is something that Google seems to be on the cutting edge of.

It makes sense that when people frequently buy one product along with another, then another person buying the first product might be interested in ads for the second.

Maybe some day soon, Google's algorithm will be able to be artificially intelligent enough to show what we humans would call "love."

Maybe it will know if a certain video is going to upset me and will not even suggest it...

What if I pause a movie for more than a minute to leer at a still frame of a certain actress? After that movie ends, maybe Google will someday pop some ads up for posters of her, and maybe her Wiki page...

Right now, though it's probably in my imagination, Google seems to want to assuage my viewing of political content from sites like NewsMax, by proffering other content as if to say; "Hey Daniel, you've been glued to the tube for 4 hours watching people complain about the election results; why don't you take a break, and watch Larry Bird drop 62 points on the Atlanta Hawks, back in March of 1984?"

If not, I guess here's another pissed off ex poll worker blowing another whistle over voter fraud...

The suggestions I get are divided into three groups, with the political stuff juxtaposed against guitar lesson videos and stuff about the history of music -rare black and white footage of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing in concert two weeks before getting on that plane -the one that the band Aerosmith considered purchasing, but passed upon- and then sports stuff, as the third group.

The Skynyrd videos might be the algorithm deducing that, as a white male, aged 58, who used to Google from a computer in Middleburg, Florida, a mere 3 miles from where the band grew up, then suggesting a Lynyrd Skynyrd video is a no-brain-er for any artificially intelligent machine.

Maybe because I buy guitar strings online, a band that had 3 lead guitarists would have a high probability of appealing to me. Maybe there is still a glitch in the program and somehow, the classic song "Freebird" becomes convoluted into the suggestions that I watch Larry Bird shooting free throws. Only Google knows...

But, the point is that I am thanking the Lidgley's for the parcel here, because I can't get into my gmail account.

I won't be able to, until the 10th of the month, when 4 gigabytes of data is added through the free government phone. Or, if I get paid either a stimulus check or the unemployment that I just opened a new claim for.

I have sent a photo of my ID to them, and have received back an email saying that they got it. 

Working Towards Getting Unemployment Checks

It seems to be an efficient and automated process, and hopefully, since I just duplicated the same info that I gave them back in July, I will start getting twins of the stimulus payments and the weekly "unemployment" checks.

I don't know how anyone else could live off the minimum of $107.00 a week that I had been getting, but it seems to suit me.

I am another person, like the one I read about in the Edgar Cayce Handbook (for creating your future) in that, years ago, I sat down and applied myself to a worksheet similar to the one in that book, where the exercise was to envision an ideal future, with no limit to the grandeur of it, as if you were all powerful and could conjure any circumstances into existence. Then, the next part of the exercise was to write it all down, so as to involve the other half of the brain, perhaps; and get both sides working for you.

Right: The left side of my brain.

I think I wrote down that I would like to have a studio where I could spend all day every day working on music, and would have money magically appear from somewhere, so I wouldn't have to leave the house except to shop for food. I pretty much described my apartment, except I imagined it on something like the 4th floor.

Like the exemplary person in the book, if I were to unfold that paper now and read through it, it would describe my current situation. Of course, I had to endure things like years of homelessness and having to play music for a living as a busker; but that could all be seen as part of a divine plan.

How else would I have met the Lidgley's, who send me parcels, laden with guitar strings, vitamins, a Starbucks card, some cash, chocolate and a couple packs of smokes, along with busker wear, in the form of dark colored shirts and pants and underwear? And, there is no telling how much better a musician I now am, after having played for 14 years for my food and my beer, and my guitar strings.

The only thing missing from my dream life is the orchard of apple, pear and cherry trees at the top of the cliff overlooking the ocean, and the windmill -to generate the power to drive my amplifiers and recording equipment...