Ruminating on recycling, artificial intelligence, and wild weather

For once, we had a beautiful ride to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh on Tuesday Dec. 11. The sun was not yet up, the sky was dark and clear, and there was one bright star or planet in the heavens that was very visible.  The weather was much different than most of the recent mornings the Old Men of the Mountain have been used to driving in on these early morning restaurant trips.

The OFs started a conversation that was somewhat different on Tuesday morning. This conversation was on recyclables.

Generally the first chatter of the group is quite redundant (like most meetings) and with the OFs it is quite a comedy show until someone brings up an unusual topic. This particular OF recollected how (just a few years back) we had to separate everything going to the transfer station.

Glass had to be separated by color, green with green, brown with brown, etc., and no caps were to be on bottles. The metal and aluminum were to be separated. No aluminum pie plates were to go in the trash. Power cords were to be removed from appliances.

It was a real chore at home to do all this, but we did. We even had a separate bucket or bin at home to hold the different recyclables.

This has changed now. We can’t get anybody to buy the recyclables from the towns. What has happened? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Some OFs think it is still a good idea and we should still use items made from recycled paper, glass, aluminum, metal, and plastic.

One OF said, “Like many products and even problems we rarely go back to the source. We don’t need plastic bags — paper bags are fine and come from a renewable material source, the tree.”

“However,” another OF said, “the current way I discard my trash is to chuck the bottles with tin, separate the plastic, paper, and cardboard and that is what I’ll do.”

Rambunctious robo-vacuum

Somehow the OFs continued on with the cleaning theme.  It wasn’t exactly like the garbage theme but it was about vacuuming. This time. the subject was the new high tech robo-vacuums.

One of the OFs was telling how the one his kids have works. The OF said, “He (son) likes it; it is a lot of fun to watch.”

The OFs asked him, “How much can it vacuum? They look rather small.”

Another OF asked, “Don’t they have to keep dumping it out all the time?”

The OF said he didn’t know about this because he never asked.

The OF told of an experience his kids had with this robo vacuum. “One of the kids kept hearing this thump, then another thump.” The OF said the kids told him there was no rhythm to the thumps.

“Sometimes there would be four or five minutes between the thumps, and sometimes it was thump, thump, and thump in quick succession,” he said. “The kids finally tracked it down to one of the bathrooms.”

The vacuum had apparently hit the bathroom door and the door closed. The thump was the vacuum trying to get out of the bathroom, finish the vacuuming, and get to the docking station. The OFs got quite a chuckle out of that little story.

To this scribe, unfortunately, it indicates the scary part of AI (artificial intelligence). This little vacuum cleaner was given a job to do and that was to complete its mission of vacuuming, and returning to the docking station to revitalize itself.

That was its job; AI will do anything to complete its assigned task and revitalize itself.  The next robo-whatever may not be assigned to just do vacuuming, mowing the lawn, or plowing the driveway, but it could be something much more sinister, and the AI will complete the task and return to its revitalizing station.

Climate change?

The OMOTM talked about all the nasty weather this week that brought havoc to the Carolinas and Virginia in the form of snow. The pictures were just like here when we have a nasty storm only they are not ready for it.

One OF who has relatives in Virginia said they missed it. There again it is like some of those storms that nail us. Where these storms hit, they hit!

Sometimes the area is not too wide, and at other times, as one OF said, “Our storms cover from Canada to Pennsylvania and the whole East Coast.” Another OF has relatives in the Carolinas and they reported, “This storm was just like the ones we used to have when we lived in Plattsburgh.”

Yet another OF said, “Maybe there is something to this climate change or global warming.” That brought the swift answer that the world has been through all this before but there were fewer people around for the storms to directly impact them.

Now the population has increased and people get really disturbed because they plopped their fancy homes directly in disaster areas and some have encountered tragic situations as a result.

One OF said, “That is kind of tough talk, but I have to agree it’s true.”

Another OF thought that even applies to some of the OFs, which took the OFs back to “when we were young.”  (Oh dear, here we go again to “when I was your age,” but this is always fun).

“You can’t stop progress”

This time, the OFs talked about how far it was from farm to farm, and how even going to town for supplies took planning. One OF said that he purchased a home on a dirt road; the home was not quite finished. Just beyond his place, the road was shut down during the winter months because it was too dangerous to drive.

This home was purchased so the OF would have privacy and be alone, but not hiding. The OF said he likes and enjoys people but doesn’t want them living on top of him. The OF said now there are 40 houses around him.

“You can’t stop progress — just like the robo-machines that do the work so we don’t have to.” an OF said.

The OFs who made it to the Middleburgh Diner in Middleburgh and want to stop the world so they can get off, were: Roger Chapman, George Washburn, Miner Stevens, Robie Osterman, Bill Lichliter, John Rossmann, Wally Guest, Harold Guest, Kenny Parks, Rev. Jay Francis, Gerry Irwin, Mace Porter, Lou Schenck, Jack Norray, Elwood Vanderbilt, Allen DeFazzo, Mike Willsey, Warren Willsey, Harold Grippen, and me.