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Good for you @mlroseplant I think it is so good to give the younger generation compliments. They get so many negative ones now, to the point where they now say a high schooler has the stress levels of a graduate student of 20 years ago. As a father of daughters I always tried to encourage them to dress nicely and at times insisted on it. And of course their mother also dresses nice which hopefully will show them that dressing nice is important in life. That is nice though that you complimented her and in a real, complementary way and one that was not creepy. I think today where encouragement is so often lacking that when it is done, it is ten times more powerful then the suggestions to dress like a slob.

One thing about AI, it is notorious for creating fake facts and references to fake articles. Many judges have banned lawyers from using the work created by AI in their court rooms due to the creation of fake legal cases used to bolster an attorney's testimony and documents.

I am no fan of AI either. Or the gaslighting hucksters who relentlessly promote it. As a photographer and writer I am deeply distrustful of it. I have done everything I can - or that I am aware if - to keep my work out if the clutches of these people and their robotic technologies but I don’t trust them not to steal it anyway. As for the technologies on cars etc so much is done simply because they can - not because there is a need. It’s all about the ego of the people who create these things, then telling us we need them and through the force if their market clout forcing us to buy by depriving us of alternatives. its becoming a very ugly world

I don't trust AI not to steal my work. Once you put anything into AI, that AI now owns it. So, I keep my stuff out of AI.

Haha, I only do it in the name of promoting high heels! I did not really introduce myself, but thinking about it in retrospect, the girl most likely already knew who I was. I mean, how many others dads show up to every band event wearing heels? Now, if only I could get my son to have a middle ground in his own style. It's either ratty t-shirt and jeans or suit and tie. And only the suit and tie when he is forced.

Admittedly "old school" and stubborn here for sure. Nonetheless, I feel that much of this AI/tech stuff is highly overrated and actually a hindrance to everyday life. How the heck does anyone drive a newer car these days... All this "stuff". Trying to learn how to operate it is quite the undertaking. The vehicle owner's manual seems to explain the stuff only about 80 percent effectively, usually leaving me with more questions than answers. And in the end, what does it accomplish compared to the more basic vehicles of years gone by. The darn heater/AC control on my newer car is so complex, and the problem for me is that I can not really operate it without looking down on the control panel, not a great idea when driving. Showing my age here, but operating the heat/AC/defrost on my old 73 Chevy could be done "by feel", you knew what you were controlling by the feel/positioning of the levers/detents/positioning of the fan control. Now tell me what features this newer car has that make it any better than the old one? "Dual zone" temp control?? Now that is a darn nuisance. Now you have two temp controls to deal with that are oftentimes competing against one another. How about controlling the radio?? Forget about it... Still reading the manual on that topic. And this new/fancy radio surely does not have better sound quality than the older car, and lousy signal strength as well. So many screens/options that really offer no big advantages, just add to confusion/frustration. I wanted to get the more basic trim level on my newer car, but gave in to the fancier trim level for two options that I do appreciate: I like the blind spot warning system in the side view mirrors, and the back up camera. And the beauty part of these features is there is nothing to control or adjust, the feature is either switched "on" or "off". Like you say, I will get more onboard with this crap when it can do the mundane stuff like emptying the trash or cleaning the cat box... For now, I think the so called "advantages" are just an illusion.

I’ve a Vetus 42hp diesel engine with two 95 amp alternators, one for the starter and the other to charge the domestic battery, which is a Victron lithium set up. Also 600w of solar. Lithium can easily overwork an alternator which is why there is a separate BMS to control the charge. The original domestic alternator may have been faulty or the BMS may have failed but it burned out. The original electrician who installed it turns out to be the Basil Fawlty of electricians (a character on an old British comedy). the professional I called in has replaced the alternator and the relay - which also burned out.

You’re not kidding about power generation. I’ve been sidelined because of a power issue - actually the big problem was the idiot electrician from the boatbuilder who misdiagnosed a simply matter and turned it into a mess. He was even more idiotic because it was all under warranty so he didn’t make a penny out of the mess. I eventually gave up and got a competent marine engineer and in an hour he figured out the problem - when even a non technical person like me had already guessed: a burned out domestic alternator. And now it’s fixed. The idiot still swears it’s much more complicated and that he was right all along …

To me AI only does the "fun stuff" or at least for me. I like to write and draw, picking out my word choices, structuring sentences and getting my point across, or making some picture in my mind into a nice book cover, and AI is either butchering that, or stealing from what I have written online somewhere, or God forbid, one of my many novels. I do not need a computer to regurgitate in repeated fashion what I already know, or can get information about, let AI do my dishes, clean my house, or wash my clothes; you know the drudgery of life and let me be creative. Instead, it is the other way around, doing the fun stuff in life leaving us to be more and more bored and relegated to doing miserable stuff with our time. I do think it is interesting that they claimed AI would make the blue collar worker obsolete and it is actually now the opposite. AI is taking white collar jobs while blue collar jobs are soaring in demand and pay. And nuclear power in the United States is starting up again as AI data centers are being plugged in behind-the-meter to nuclear power plants directly. 3 Mile Island is now being taken out of mothballs to fire up a AI Data Center. Who would have thought!

We have a similar community here, but rather than live along canals they moor to public docks. There is a monthly fee because they are plugged into shore power with their vessels, but its their home full time and year around, which here is important because the Coast Guard does not break ice in every harbor. I knew of some people that lived like that and it was its own, unique community. I was not a part of it, just invited to go see how they lived, and know they really looked out for one another just because they really had too. I was a mariner myself then, but it was much different as I lived on tugboats which is a more industrial form of how you live @shyheels . So we were always in and around those that lived in the harbors. Sometimes they needed this or that, and because we were so self-sustained, we would lend them a hand when we could. (I was an engineer aboard). Its how I got my job now which at that time was keeping powerplants and generators running, and now I do the same, but am land-based in doing it. It still has the same problem though, power generation on land or at sea is a 24/7/365 task.