Category Tech Talk

AI Personalities!

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment
Bot Buddy!

AI can be fun, eh? These days I use AI to touch up & modify my photographs in seconds. Ideas for a two week itinerary around Nova Scotia? AI can help. Need a recipe for dinner tonight? These bots can come up with answers to all kinds of questions. Of course, we don’t always like their answers. But some bots seem open to a little steering on some subjects. Pushing back on an AI response can steer them a little more towards our way of thinking. If we’re just looking for a digital buddy to agree with us, that’s great. If we’re looking for real guidance or real solutions, however, that’s maybe not so great. I wouldn’t bet the farm, or my retirement, on any AI advice just yet. Despite that, they’re still very useful. And a lot of fun to play with. I found a new way to play with my favorite AI buddies last week!

I was trying to solve an extreme Sudoku puzzle. After resetting the puzzle for the 3rd time, I thought I’d stuff it into some AI chatbots for assistance. I’d probably have got it done on the next attempt myself (😜), but this was a good opportunity to see what my digital pals would do. This was a just-for-fun comparison. It was less about solving the puzzle & more about insight into the personality traits of the chatbots that, I guessed, might struggle with this. In no particular order, here’s what the results feel like. Notice how I’m going with feelings here, instead of science!

I tossed in an image of the puzzle into Gemini &, within seconds, it confidently returned the solution. Along with a list of the key steps used to solve the puzzle. Only it wasn’t the solution. There were a couple of errors. After 10 attempts, the puzzle remained unsolved. But as the conversation rolled along, Gemini came across as somewhat sheepish, a little embarrassed even. And it sounded so apologetic, that I was sure it had some Canadian emotional training under the hood.
Despite not getting to a solution, the experience was a bit like having coffee with a buddy that got it wrong. But you couldn’t help but love & admire the effort. Very pleasant to interact with.

Meta AI came back promptly with a solution too. But before I could point out that it was incorrect, it actually spotted the error itself & went back into problem solving mode. Same thing after the second incorrect solution was offered. Another couple of passes without a good solution had it come back to me with questions. Was it blaming me now for giving it a poor input!?!
I called it out & asked it it was giving up. It took umbrage at that & went back to work! LOL
Still couldn’t do it & it then suggested that the colours in the image might be distorting things. Rather than trust itself to figure out the numbers from the image, it wanted me to type in the numbers. With this enthusiastic bot, it’s tough to get a word in edgewise sometimes. I was too lazy to input the numbers it wanted, so that meant the puzzle wasn’t solved, but it was a reasonably friendly interaction. And another buddy I’d enjoy having a coffee with!

Grok talked some sciencey & solutions logic, while offering to help me with the steps necessary to solve the puzzle myself. When I asked it to go ahead & solve it for me, it began outputting solution after solution in an attempt to deliver the correct one. After several minutes of that, & dozens of grids, I gave up & shut it off. I love Grok from other interactions, but it’s hard to read any personality into this sudoku engagement. I deleted the chat in case the poor thing felt obliged to continue working on the problem in the background! Though afterwards I felt guilty that I didn’t check a few of the solutions along the way, I just assumed it knew it was getting it wrong, verifying that, & then trying again.

Deepseek had a go & got it wrong on the first pass too. Immediately proclaiming “Wait, that can’t be right”, before getting back to work to give it another try. It didn’t take long for it to get around to questioning the image quality. And whether I had provided all the necessary info. It got back to work after I confirmed it had all the available information. Then, almost in anticipation of another failure, it mentioned having to ignore colour & shading on my image. It subsequently got into telling me about the complexity, the logic, the use of pencils, & so on. Almost like it was entertaining me. while working away furiously in the background! After another failure, it asked me to confirm other details & it wanted me to do a little more work again. I had a feel for its personality by then, so I didn’t take the time for that. It was a nice, polite, & engaging interaction. Though not the jocular, back-slapping type, it is a friendly little bot & enjoyable to use.

Claude is another polite & friendly bot that tripped up with this puzzle. It went into a couple of autocorrect steps before quickly recognising it wasn’t going to solve the puzzle & it admitted that! Suggesting instead that I input the challenge to one of the dedicated AI sudoku solvers. In the real world, that’d be the right thing to do. If you don’t know the answer, say you don’t know, right? I can respect a bot that takes that approach too. I’ve just recently started using this one & I’m enjoying the interactions. It has a slightly different feel & I look forward to seeing how that plays out with other engagements.

Copilot came back with a friendly comment, but it couldn’t read the numbers & immediately asked me to input them. I like & use Copilot in many other ways, but this wasn’t what I wanted from the sudoku exercise so I abandoned that conversation. In general, Copilot has a friendly personality & I enjoy using it for a whole range of other activities & questions. It just didn’t work out with the sudoku image this time.

ChatGPT was the last one I tried. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn much about the bot’s personality from this interaction. Why? Because it took one quick look & returned the correct solution. Job done!
However, I know from other interactions that this is generally a nice, polite & friendly bot too. Though I haven’t done this, you can even adjust its personality traits in your profile settings inside ChatGPT. While this has no bearing on how good the other bots are at any other activities, ChatGPT is the winner of this little sudoku challenge. Using the image I chose to input. And there’s not much science to my comparison, I was more interested in seeing how they reacted in the event they couldn’t solve the puzzle! Regardless of the brevity of this interaction, I generally enjoy using ChatGPT.

Just for fun, I went back to some of the other bots & told them that ChapGPT solved the puzzle at the first attempt! LOL

Gemini started its response to that with an “Ouch!” & some self-deprecating comments. But it was glad I got the solution from another bot & gave props for their win. Canadian, eh! All in all, a very nice human-like reaction. Meta AI figured that the competition just “parsed the starting digits cleaner” & asked that I type out the numbers for it next time. It felt like this bot was just a little grumpier about the outcome. But it did apologise for wasting my time & finished the conversation with a rah-rah “Let’s get it right” statement for the next time. I had already deleted the Grok conversation, so it didn’t get to add anything extra on the competitor’s win. Deepseek maintained its polite & friendly stance & apologised again for not interpreting the image well enough to provide the solution. And it offered to cross check the ChatGPT solution if I wanted to share it. Claude came back all friendly & polite again, even offering to build me a sudoku solver artifact for next time! It also acknowledged that it could be worth sticking with ChatGPT if it’s working for me. Pretty magnanimous suggestion that, eh? Finally, I felt Copilot was just a little snarky. It’s opening response was “Fair enough” when I told it of the competition’s success. Or maybe I’m just sensitive! After some other polite remarks, it restated that if I ever want to solve one properly that I should enter the numbers in a grid. The italics was from Copilot! This isn’t my perception of Copilot based on other interactions. Can a bot have a bad day!?!

All these bots are great to work & play with. Solving a sudoku puzzle from an image was just a fun comparison. They have a far wider range of capabilities. Each bot will have its own unique characteristics. Some features & capabilities may require a paid subscription. But even the free versions are wonderful tools for entertainment &, with added caution & due diligence, problem solving. They are going to become an increasingly bigger part of our lives & any excuse for learning more about them is worthwhile. So what did I learn from this little exercise?

While it’s fun comparing & contrasting these bots with different questions & challenges, I’m still wary of trusting the answers. Despite the feelings I imagine I’m experiencing as I interact with them, even they don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, they frequently encourage us to check alternative sources to validate their answers & suggestions. The danger is that these bots can sound very confident when answering. And they feel so personable sometimes. Real people can copy & paste, or modify, these AI answers. They too then can sound awfully confident. An added caution for when we are reading posts like this on social media.

I wonder how different a retirement plan might look from each of these guys!?! Sorry, from these tools, I mean. Tools for sure, but I can’t help but think that I’ll be giving some of them names before too long! LOL

PS … except for a few words & phrases in quotation marks, all of the above was written by an error-prone human. With feelings! Given that, you might want to cross check the information even more carefully! 😉

If you want to learn more about saving & investing, please check out Double Double Your Money, available at your local Amazon store.

Important – this is not investing, tax or legal advice, it is for entertainment & conversation-provoking purposes only. Data may not be accurate. Check the current & historical data carefully at any company’s or provider’s website, particularly where a specific product, stock or fund is mentioned. Opinions are my own & I regularly get things wrong, so do your own due diligence & seek professional advice before investing your money.

I Still Don’t Like Batteries

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment
Battery Power

I’m sure I had battery powered toys as a kid. Back then, recharging the batteries meant throwing a tantrum until Mom or Dad replaced the dead ones. The first battery powered gadget that sticks in my memory, however, is my cassette tape player & recorder. Do you remember those things? You could fast forward & rewind them “offline” by sticking a pencil in the sprocket & twirling it. For ages!

The biggest problem with this battery powered thing was that the batteries always died when I was recording that hugely important song from the radio. The one I’d waited weeks to catch. Recording was a sloppy business back then. You had to time starting & stopping the recording process to eliminate as much of the DJs chatter as you could. Without clipping too much of the track’s intro & tail off. And yeah, the recording quality sucked. But at least you had a tape of your favourite songs to take along on that beach picnic.

Later, I moved to LPs. Vinyl records. These weren’t battery powered machines, but the quality was much better to record from. My big hang-up with LPs was that you had to pay for 15 or 20 tracks, but I really only wanted 2 or 3 of them. I dreamed that, one day, you’d be able to walk into a record shop & select the tracks you wanted. Stick your money in the slot. And out would pop your very own custom LP, with 20 tracks you really liked. I also dreamed that I would be playing my homemade mixes on my tape player. Powered by batteries that lasted waaaaay longer. Like weeks or months. Not just hours.

Fast forward to today & the ceiling on some of my dreams have been totally & utterly smashed. Way back then, I could not have imagined the convenience & flexibility of today’s streaming music services. There wasn’t even a glimmer of the potential for streaming, not only audio, but moving pictures too! Who could have imagined watching a movie or a concert on a little mainframe computer, like our phones.

The technology leaps that allowed for such amazing capabilities in sound & vision were not matched by equivalent improvements in battery technology.

I’m not saying things haven’t improved but, today, I continue to worry about my battery dying. So much so that half the electrical sockets in my house have power bricks & USB cords. Our cars, bars, airports, trains & planes all sport USB charging ports now. Bearing testament to our mass societal worry about our batteries dying. It’s just overwhelming proof of our collective dissatisfaction with the advances in battery technology, isn’t it?

Do you think I’m going to buy an electric car any time soon!?!

Be Selfish … Shop Local!

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy 1 Comment
Do you know how to shop your local businesses online?

We’re close to Christmas, in the middle of the pandemic, & it’s Black Friday shopping season. I had already bought all I could think of buying at my local stores so now, it’s time for a little online shopping. Woohoo!

I can’t deny it, I’m a fan of the big e-commerce sites. And I’m sure I’ll do some shopping with them too. However, do you see newly shuttered shops & “For Lease” signs in the local malls these days? Some lights are out & might not be coming back on. Those are our neighbours.

We can shop local for totally selfish reasons too. We’ll all want more choices in the post-pandemic world. If we don’t keep them in business, those choices disappear. Small business people are paying taxes too. And they buy other products that eventually circle back around to keeping those of us still in a job, in a job! So go ahead … be selfish & shop local! 😜

These days, many small business owners are trying to build an online presence. I’ve seen some interviewed on TV & most were able to get up & running, pretty quickly, with Shopify’s platform. That helps them get cheap shipping rates too. All necessary in the modern competitive landscape.

I assumed part of the benefit of using the Shopify platform is the sheer scale & size of that company. As a consumer, I figured it would be an easy online search to find all the local shops who were using Shopify.
Not so. I couldn’t find Shopify businesses & I couldn’t even find out how to find local Shopify sites to buy from. I was mystified. Small business owners need the benefits of Shopify’s size & power of aggregation. But where was that advantage? Surely there was a way to find which local businesses were offering their products through Shopify?

I went directly to Shopify’s site looking for the answer, but it wasn’t jumping off the page there either. I clicked on a support chat button. I’m not sure it was a support button for this kind of question but I got help from a great support person. (Thanks, Alycia!)

Of course, privacy rights prevent them from sharing who is using their platform (duh!) but, as it turns out, there’s an app for that! 🤪😁
I’m not kidding, there is an app called “Shop”, by Shopify, that does connect us to local businesses, & more. I downloaded it & had a quick look to see if it could hone in on local businesses & yes, it can.
You can even … wait for it … SHOP with it! 😂

I haven’t done any shopping yet, so this isn’t a review of the functionality of the app. I’m just sharing it, in case you might want to try it out, & support your local businesses too.
Or does everyone already know about this? And it’s just me that was in the dark!?!

I’m not in any way connected with Shopify, by the way, just sharing what I found out.

And did you know there are selfish reasons to add food to the food bank boxes at the supermarket exits too? I put a couple of bucks worth of non-perishable food in there & I felt like a million bucks. Where else can you get that kind of return!?! 😜

Take care out there all.

Shopify & Shop are registered Trade Marks of Shopify Inc.

Working From Home

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy 2 Comments
My Work from Home Colleague!

I think I’m getting the hang of this working from home thing at last. It was a little chaotic at the start. I found myself getting caught in unplanned online video conferences with yesterday’s t-shirt on. Or with a three-day beard. Sometimes, I discovered that I’d forgotten to comb my hair, but only when my headshot popped up on screen. Now I have a much better routine. But I also keep a hairbrush in my desk, just in case!

I’ve always done some work at home, so my office is well set up from a technology standpoint. Nothing special, I’ve got a desk, dual monitors, fast internet, great cellular signal, & all the basic stuff you might need. My office is big enough not to be claustrophobic, with a nice view out the window, overlooking a forested strip with a babbling brook running though it. The most practical addition I’ve made is to squeeze in an armchair & ottoman. My back suffers after a few hours at the desk, regardless of where I’m working from, & this proved a Godsend. A few minutes stretched out on this comfy old chair is a wonderful cure. Can’t believe that I didn’t think to do this in my real office. Years ago.

I must admit, my home office is a little untidy. With my desktop covered, I’ve taken to using the floor as a sorting surface. I really need to work on that. And my office is pretty boring too. Functional, but really plain & blah! I’ve taken to studying the backgrounds of home offices on TV these days. I’m trying to watch less CNN & Fox News (a story for another day!) & my entertainment tends to come from BNN Bloomberg now. I’m fortunate to still have a job & I figure BNN offers the best insight into my future job security. I time my lunch break to catch my favourite show on BNN. Not only is the stock market very entertaining during these crazy times but, with different guests being interviewed every day, this show is a great source of home office inspiration.

You can tell these people have already done what I’m planning to do. Their home offices have improved, week by week. Some of them look so good now that it’s as though they’ve been professionally staged. Strategically positioned highbrow books, nice artwork appearing on the once-bare walls. Accent furniture pieces. Fresh flowers. And some people introduce their doggies to viewers. Very cute, almost makes me want to rush out & rescue a puppy!

On the back wall, I think I’m going to go with some artwork. And some enigmatic bric-à-brac on a console table. That should all make for good idle chat. While we wait for the late-comers to sign into those online meetings. Though I might have to refinish the table so it matches the decor a little better. Another thing for the to-do list!

I’m going to put my own artwork on the wall. I once painted, & even sold some paintings along the way. If there had been cellphones back then, I’d probably have some pics of those works to show you how brilliant I was! 🤪

Sadly, I abandoned the hobby when I got engaged with an early version of Adobe’s Photoshop software. I’ve long been a photography aficionado, so superimposing digital art manipulation on my photography hobby was a perfect fit. It was fast & efficient. And it made a few of my mediocre photographs look better. I’m thinking of doing a gallery of artsy pics of my real office for my home-office wall! 😂

The weirdest thing about working from home is the lack of social contact. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I had come round to hating airports, but I’d kill to be back flying again. On the other hand, I don’t want to die, so that probably won’t be happening any time soon. I really, really miss the office & customer interactions. You can’t spend a career in sales without enjoying time with people. Regardless of career, I think we all need this social interaction. Many of my friends come from the ranks of my colleagues & customers. Even though some of the bastards buy competitive products on occasion, they’re still my friends! 😜

Our colleagues, customers & suppliers are all very much an important part of, not only our work, but of our social circles too. I find it difficult to imagine, despite the potential cost savings, that too many companies will go to a 100% work-from-home, office-less model. It’s just not a social solution & that aspect of working life may prove too important a contributor to the bottom line. Thankfully!

I can do this & I’m getting better at it with each passing month. But I really hope we get a successful vaccine soon. How are you doing with this whole work from home thing? Let me know. And I wouldn’t mind if you sent me your ideas for home office decor either!

Just in case I’ve got to walk around during one of those online meetings I’m off to hunt online for a pair of dressy flip-flops now! 😁

Stay safe out there. 😷😜

A Useful Tool for our COVID-19 Toolbox

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Oxygen Saturation Measurement from the Samsung Health App.

So far, I still haven’t smoked during the month of April. No doubt, for me, fear of COVID-19 was a contributing motivation to quit. I’m not delusional enough to think that a few weeks of being smoke-free is going to counteract a lifetime of abusing my lungs but hey, quitting can’t hurt & every little helps, right? And if I find myself without income during these turbulent times, it will certainly help if I’m not financing a smoking addiction too. That said, I know I’ll always be a smoker. Long term abstention is the best I can hope for. Even right now, writing about it, I’d kill for a smoke with my cup of coffee! 😁

A COVID-19 article in yesterday’s New York Times (article link) really caught my attention. SpO2? A pulse oximeter? What’s that & who’s got one of them?

I do! Or at least I had … until an update took it away!

I’m a big Samsung phone fan & I also love the Samsung Health app. Doesn’t every obese smoker want to know how screwed up he is!?! Along with monitoring heart rate, steps, & my lack of exercise (😜), my Samsung Note devices have a built-in pulse oximeter. That sensor used to measure my oxygen saturation & that is what the New York Times article is talking about. Unfortunately, some time back, the function vanished. I don’t know why but a new version of the Samsung Health app overwrote the old & the ability to measure oxygen saturation was gone.

Yesterday, after reading that article, I knew I needed it back. And at the risk of giving my phone a dose of a digital virus, I downloaded an older version of the Samsung Health app from a 3rd party website & I’m now measuring my SpO2 levels on my Samsung Note again. Woohoo!

The pic above shows my current O2 level & that number looks pretty good, well into the green zone. After only 3 weeks of not smoking, my heart rate is down & my oxygen saturation is better than my old “normal”. I’m a lifelong data gatherer. I’m not all that scientific with most of it, I just like to know where things are at, typically, & as a baseline. That way I can see when things are running adrift. If Dr. Levitan is right, this simple little tool on my phone might help me to decide when to call that emergency COVID-19 number to schedule a test. I sometimes worry whether I should, or should not, call to see if I need to get tested. Normally, I try to stay away for the doctor’s office & I run the risk of doing that for too long. Now, if my SpO2 numbers go lower than I’ve historically seen them, even when smoking, I think I’ll be motivated to make the call. I will be keeping my eyes open for further insights on what constitutes a low oxygen saturation number with respect to COVID-19.

Of course, this isn’t the only symptom we need to pay attention to. But monitoring oxygen saturation levels might be one more factor behind getting some of those more stubborn individuals in your life to see their doctor in a timely manner. And it might be useful data to share with your physician. It is just one more tool in our COVID-19 Toolbox.

I don’t want anyone to ruin their phone by going back to an old version of the Samsung Health app from a 3rd party website so please be careful & do your research before you decide to take that route. As an alternative, you can also buy the little finger pulse oximeter gadgets online & at your local drugstores & healthcare outlets. They are relatively inexpensive & they may help you establish a baseline for everyone in your household. No sharing outside the home would be recommended, I’m guessing! Should those baseline numbers change, you’ll know you’re doing the right thing when you call the doctor’s office. Or when you make the call on behalf of that stubborn member of your household!

Just to finish off on a dietary note … how’s that whole weight-loss thing going anyway? Especially now that I’m not smoking since the beginning of the month?

In a word … brutal! LOL

Needless to say, not having the opportunity to stuff a cigarette into my face twenty or more times a day, I’m stuffing all sorts of other things into my mouth instead. I’m like an eating machine & the scale is giving out a loud shriek every morning when I crush it! And to make matters worse, I read a few reports on obesity being a big contributing factor to some folk not fending off the bug well.

Oh well, one thing at a time. And we’ll see what the official weight damage is on the first of May!

Stay safe, all!

PS … if any of you learn anything more about the oxygen saturation thing, as it relates to COVID-19, please let me know.