Happy Halloween! Here’s a funny vacuum story for you!
About 20 years ago, my wife used a 20 year old Rainbow vacuum. If you’re unfamiliar with Rainbows, they are water based. The motor sits atop a tank of water and the vacuumed dirt gets jetted into the water. The tank needs to be dumped and cleaned after every vacuuming. A gross job getting rid of five pounds of mud, but worth it because of how well a Rainbow cleans.
One day, a Kirby vacuum salesman came over to demonstrate what he said was the most powerful vacuum available at the time. So we let him in to see how a Kirby stacked up against our Rainbow on a deep pile carpet. His Kirby was an upright with a bag, and the hose could detach from the head to do upholstery. He also had a special attachment on the head that could accept 4" round filters for the demo.
For the first test, he spread dirt all over our carpet and had the Rainbow vacuum it up. Of course the Rainbow water was filthy. He then put a demo filter into his Kirby and told us that our vacuum couldn’t pick up all the dirt and that the Kirby would show what was left behind. After vacuuming the carpet, he was astonished to see that the filter was clean! He tried three more times with the same result, and with the last time he ran the vacuum over the spot for a good minute. He mumbled something about never having seen that before.
The second test was a reverse of the first where he spread the dirt around again and had the Kirby suck it up first followed by the Rainbow. He told us that we wouldn’t pick up anything because the Kirby got it all. So after a fresh water change, the Rainbow sucked up lots of dirt and the water was filthy from all the dirt the Kirby missed. The salesman was now getting nervous and was having trouble sticking to his script.
The third and final test was to put the Kirby’s and Rainbow’s hoses together with a piece of stiff cardboard between them to show which vacuum had the strongest suction. When he pulled th
I have dedcoded to best of abbility the moniters from several days, minus a hard to see monitor on one day in corner of room. enjoy. had to infer spacing since words dont seem spaced correctly.
text from oct 11panel 3it,s eto clea car?(either p or lit,sspar
panel 4 right moniterit,s timclean theit,s timesparkleit,s time the earthit,s time things
oct 12sparkle brightit,s time to savethe earth worldit;s time to set things righta.i. destroyedour world nowwe travel the unaning up a.i.
oct 15panels will go top left to rightisto spa r(i think)
cleanthe car(i thing)kpeth(only had top half of letter)
I am so out of the loop. I keep hearing about AI doing all these things but I think I’d have better luck learning to read Japanese than trying to understand this. I’m a millennial but I feel old. :(
I didn’t use to think that there was anything worse than social media. But AI has changed my mind. I read an article yesterday detailing all the ways that AI is ‘transforming’ business. Everything from chat bots to content creation… one organization thrilled because they could ‘save’ $2000 a week on freelancers and just use ChatGPT.
For one.. I really want to know what ‘news source’ that is so that I make sure I never go there. But two… AI not only steals all the information that is accesses but then lies about it because it does not know what is true.
The next article I read was some HR department claiming that use of AI wasn’t actually costing people jobs… well.. I’m betting the freelancers that used to write for that first company would disagree.
Well said cat. There many steenky long term implications. Steenky AI which ain’t really AI but just steenky marketing gimmicks by big corporations is notheeng but waste of time and resources. Not to mentions it gonna turns kids who use them into dumb zombies with zero creativity while severely hampering theirs intellectual developments and natural talents. Sure use em to autocorrect and grammars checking (as if they works properly in that in the first place). But using them to creating is just dumb theeng to do. And these steenky so called AI is help scammers and spammers to pollutes all over the internets even more than what they was before. Not to mentions killing orginal works, talents and creators. If only me could like this comic more than just once.
Just looks at this comic for example where the cartoonist is draws everything with her own hands. And colours everything with her own hands too. Now that is called talents, efforts, and dedication. Compares this to some lousy crooks using steenky “AI” bots and producing good looking steenky garbage en masse. It may looks good in first sight and most peoples in this low attention span era will no even observe much but closer inspection will reveals the steenk. And it well proven that original works was used by steenky AI to “trains” without permission or compensation to original creators or authors. And it not really “training” but just loading all that information on some steenky computer server and so called AI just some steenky complex computer program.
AI can’t “figure out” fingers because it can’t really conceptualize three-dimensional space. All it knows of reality is from being fed flat images. It “sees” fingers poking out from a sleeve or from beneath an arm, and it “decides” that fingers just like to poke out from things.
About this borg from yesterday: thank you to the people told gave me the reference. If something is from some sci-fi movie or tv show, I won’t be seeing it. The last Star Whatever thing I saw was the first movie in 1977. I think that was the year. I think I’m one of a few people who has never seen Game of Thrones. I don’t even know the premise of it. Same for any Harry Potter book or movie or comic book movie.
Sorry I haven’t been here so much this week. The business office at my university announced they’re moving to a new payments-and-everything system. I thought I had almost five weeks to get everything we need to order this semester, including book selections. Suddenly and with no notice I had four days. Ugh.
Beatrixia: Glad to see the Royal Procurers are back from Afar. Welcome back, ladies!
Violet-Ifa: It’s great to be back. We got some insights into what the Portentous Wind may portend.
Ta-Natash: It appears that A Thing often happens after a Portentous Wind.
Bea: Ooh! What could The Thing be?
Alice-Ata: We think that it may have to do with a legend lost in Futurity. I think there were a lot of pictures with too many fingers, and a lot of sweepers.
Agnes-Ata: Maybe Baba-Stet can shed some light. Her Enchanted Broom Family may have some answers as well.
Sometime Later
Broom-Sweepa: Yes. We have heard of sweepers from the future. They were from Outer Space and were dedicated to cleaning up something called AI.
Bea: How does that affect a Thing now?
Broom: From what I understand, the excess of finger pictures has inspired a new type of pasta called Biscetti. Or something like that.
So for the record, I’m no fan of AI generation and am definitely not against Georgia making any sort of statement against it either…but I do feel like doing it this way is maybe a bit TOO on the nose, y’know?
Thinking of Georgia and her family today as they have the visitation and funeral for her father. Georgia, may you have peace and comfort during this time of sadness as you remember and celebrate your father’s life.
Georgia posted: Bill Seymour, a reporter from the South County Independent, interviewed myself and others this week for a newspaper article about my father, his life, his struggles, and the positive changes he made in what were now to be his last few years. It’s a story that is sometimes hard to read, about a life that was sometimes hard to live. But this is the story; told in its complexity for a community that loved him, watched the difficulties unfold over 25+ years, and was left with a lot of questions… If if you can read the full version, I recommend it. Pick up a copy locally today, or consider supporting local news by paying to unlock the e-version.If I can add something: My father would have wanted others to know that recovery is possible and second chances can happen. You still have time, even later in life, to heal lifelong wounds and try to reconcile mistakes you’ve made… Or at least find a new peace in speaking honestly about the past and apologizing for your part in it. As he would have said “nothing’s over… until it is.” (That hits pretty hard this week.) If you can read this, and you struggle yourself or know someone who does, it’s not over. You’ve still got time. Make the most of it, because you don’t know how much. One of my Dad’s favorite songs was “Five Years” by David Bowie, a sci-fi tune about the world reacting to discovering it only has five years left before it ends. He used to sing it to me as a lullaby when I was little. (I’ll post a link in the comments.) After he got sober, we didn’t know it, but he only had a few years left until last Friday… I keep thinking of that. So much of my hurt this week comes from how it felt like we were still at the beginning of something, not the end. So much had turned around for him, he was making up for a lot of lost time. (We lost so much time, I keep thinking of that, too…Your loved ones want you in their lives. Not too late, never too late.) He was gathering together his best photos, he was
And every woman has large boobs and long, luxurious hair. Young writers seem to think AI is the way to go, but AI content can’t be copyrighted. If Amazon’s Kindle AI spots AI, it will remove a book from their virtual bookshelf. Currently, thousands of AI books are being submitted a day. No wonder no one can sell any genuine books.
I’m so confused … what does cleaning the carpets have to do with keeping rampant A.I. in check? Am I missing something, or do I need another mug of coffee to jump start my brain?
Interesting that the point of the strip – the dangers of AI – have been ignored so far. Georgia has a huge point; AI is the biggest threat to independent logic and human thinking, letting a human made machine make our decisions for us, and ripping off genuine human art.If I were a professional artist, writer, or any kind of creator I would be very angry at the arrogance and greed of the AI developers.
AI is theft. Plan and simple. It steals your hard work, creativity and years of experience as an artist, it steals your vision as an artist, it leaves empty twisted copies that have no soul or story to tell, only splashy colors.
Jora sat on the porch for a couple of hours last night to hand out candy. Not too long after she sat down, she had a most unexpected visitor. A raccoon came up on the porch and started eating the cat food she puts out. She sent me a text asking what, if anything, she should do. Then she sent a picture. A few minutes later, the first group of kids arrived and the raccoon high tailed it out of there.
Search for “l-TEAM: AI Scams; Do you know who you are talking to?” by Xavier Hershovitz. He used an online tool to clone and reproduce his voice then called colleagues and his mother, none of whom recognized that it wasn’t him doing the talking. The scary part is, it only took about 5 minutes for the AI program to successfully reproduce his voice.
Just read a summary on Slate Magazine of the problems with the new AI for iPhone. The major point of the article was not about phones but about the ‘progress’ of AI in general. The gist is that as companies work to expand their AI to scrape up more and more information, it will largely scrape up all the mis-begotten slop that current AI is generating thus producing even more and more slop compounding the current problem. So when I said “smother” in response to rs0204 above, I was apparently prescient. What a dismal thought.
Ricky Bennett 21 days ago
Happy Halloween! Here’s a funny vacuum story for you!
About 20 years ago, my wife used a 20 year old Rainbow vacuum. If you’re unfamiliar with Rainbows, they are water based. The motor sits atop a tank of water and the vacuumed dirt gets jetted into the water. The tank needs to be dumped and cleaned after every vacuuming. A gross job getting rid of five pounds of mud, but worth it because of how well a Rainbow cleans.
One day, a Kirby vacuum salesman came over to demonstrate what he said was the most powerful vacuum available at the time. So we let him in to see how a Kirby stacked up against our Rainbow on a deep pile carpet. His Kirby was an upright with a bag, and the hose could detach from the head to do upholstery. He also had a special attachment on the head that could accept 4" round filters for the demo.
For the first test, he spread dirt all over our carpet and had the Rainbow vacuum it up. Of course the Rainbow water was filthy. He then put a demo filter into his Kirby and told us that our vacuum couldn’t pick up all the dirt and that the Kirby would show what was left behind. After vacuuming the carpet, he was astonished to see that the filter was clean! He tried three more times with the same result, and with the last time he ran the vacuum over the spot for a good minute. He mumbled something about never having seen that before.
The second test was a reverse of the first where he spread the dirt around again and had the Kirby suck it up first followed by the Rainbow. He told us that we wouldn’t pick up anything because the Kirby got it all. So after a fresh water change, the Rainbow sucked up lots of dirt and the water was filthy from all the dirt the Kirby missed. The salesman was now getting nervous and was having trouble sticking to his script.
The third and final test was to put the Kirby’s and Rainbow’s hoses together with a piece of stiff cardboard between them to show which vacuum had the strongest suction. When he pulled th
azkfwecho Premium Member 21 days ago
That’s an interesting take on AI? Never heard this intrerpretation before. Oh, and Beatrix and Orazuzu toebeans! Yipee! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
poimen 21 days ago
I have dedcoded to best of abbility the moniters from several days, minus a hard to see monitor on one day in corner of room. enjoy. had to infer spacing since words dont seem spaced correctly.
text from oct 11panel 3it,s eto clea car?(either p or lit,sspar
panel 4 right moniterit,s timclean theit,s timesparkleit,s time the earthit,s time things
oct 12sparkle brightit,s time to savethe earth worldit;s time to set things righta.i. destroyedour world nowwe travel the unaning up a.i.
oct 15panels will go top left to rightisto spa r(i think)
cleanthe car(i thing)kpeth(only had top half of letter)
a,i. iour wo
yur frthorthim??lp
as afrien?to hel
oct 28wewanttohelp
comeinpeace
uncle snipe 21 days ago
Too many fingers spoils the Mona Lisa eh? Mickey Mouse is scary enough without 60 ears, and even worse with octopus fingers!
thelsrc 21 days ago
In Panel 1, Iggy is answering your question, Ora Zella.
andycat Premium Member 21 days ago
Anyone else notice how the Mona Lisa’s eyes are also askew in the second panel, much like Elvis and Puck’s?
Sue Ellen 21 days ago
Drumstick is rocking the chyron maker!
WelshRat Premium Member 21 days ago
Yay, the feed’s back! Burt, recruit this Raccoon!
Jungle Empress 21 days ago
I am so out of the loop. I keep hearing about AI doing all these things but I think I’d have better luck learning to read Japanese than trying to understand this. I’m a millennial but I feel old. :(
cat19632001 21 days ago
Time to turn your BCN calendars for – SPACE GOO!
cat19632001 21 days ago
Well … at least the AI didn’t add bunny ears behind Mona Lisa’s head.
Robin Harwood 21 days ago
AI does get a bit mixed up when it comes to fingers.
Calvinist1966 21 days ago
Mickey Mouse has had 86 years so far.
conuly 21 days ago
AI also has a huge carbon footprint
betsypoe 21 days ago
I didn’t use to think that there was anything worse than social media. But AI has changed my mind. I read an article yesterday detailing all the ways that AI is ‘transforming’ business. Everything from chat bots to content creation… one organization thrilled because they could ‘save’ $2000 a week on freelancers and just use ChatGPT.
For one.. I really want to know what ‘news source’ that is so that I make sure I never go there. But two… AI not only steals all the information that is accesses but then lies about it because it does not know what is true.
The next article I read was some HR department claiming that use of AI wasn’t actually costing people jobs… well.. I’m betting the freelancers that used to write for that first company would disagree.
Gent 21 days ago
Well said cat. There many steenky long term implications. Steenky AI which ain’t really AI but just steenky marketing gimmicks by big corporations is notheeng but waste of time and resources. Not to mentions it gonna turns kids who use them into dumb zombies with zero creativity while severely hampering theirs intellectual developments and natural talents. Sure use em to autocorrect and grammars checking (as if they works properly in that in the first place). But using them to creating is just dumb theeng to do. And these steenky so called AI is help scammers and spammers to pollutes all over the internets even more than what they was before. Not to mentions killing orginal works, talents and creators. If only me could like this comic more than just once.
Gent 21 days ago
Just looks at this comic for example where the cartoonist is draws everything with her own hands. And colours everything with her own hands too. Now that is called talents, efforts, and dedication. Compares this to some lousy crooks using steenky “AI” bots and producing good looking steenky garbage en masse. It may looks good in first sight and most peoples in this low attention span era will no even observe much but closer inspection will reveals the steenk. And it well proven that original works was used by steenky AI to “trains” without permission or compensation to original creators or authors. And it not really “training” but just loading all that information on some steenky computer server and so called AI just some steenky complex computer program.
The Wolf In Your Midst 21 days ago
AI can’t “figure out” fingers because it can’t really conceptualize three-dimensional space. All it knows of reality is from being fed flat images. It “sees” fingers poking out from a sleeve or from beneath an arm, and it “decides” that fingers just like to poke out from things.
DM3456 21 days ago
Like many of the classic 1950s sci fi space alien invasion films, there is a message for our times.
PN3904 Premium Member 21 days ago
Oh, today’s strip is a true classic! Totally agree about AI. Laughing out loud in truth.
And the little take on the Mona Lisa! True genius. Art is no longer found in museums. It is there every day on the comics page.
★彡[ʀᴇᴅᴀᴄᴛᴇᴅ♥️ꜱɪʟʟʏ]彡★(she/her) 21 days ago
That’s a perfect take on AI, bravo.
LtPowers 21 days ago
B’s description is a bit limited. Tortimer and Destry both use artificial intelligence. As do the robot Roombas themselves, presumably.
lsnielson 21 days ago
In reading all these comments I have never heard AI described so well.
Radkins27 21 days ago
Toucan Sam with 57 feathers!
diskus Premium Member 21 days ago
Just a glorified search engine that gives no credit to the true sources of information
Queen of America 21 days ago
About this borg from yesterday: thank you to the people told gave me the reference. If something is from some sci-fi movie or tv show, I won’t be seeing it. The last Star Whatever thing I saw was the first movie in 1977. I think that was the year. I think I’m one of a few people who has never seen Game of Thrones. I don’t even know the premise of it. Same for any Harry Potter book or movie or comic book movie.
Le'letha Premium Member 21 days ago
On you it looks good, Beatrix!
Sorry I haven’t been here so much this week. The business office at my university announced they’re moving to a new payments-and-everything system. I thought I had almost five weeks to get everything we need to order this semester, including book selections. Suddenly and with no notice I had four days. Ugh.
bonita.eley 21 days ago
Wisdom from the mouth of kittens!
Bucinka 21 days ago
Okay, folks. October is over, and it’s time to start discussing Thanksgiving menus. Who’s stocking up on cranberry space goo?
Ignatz Premium Member 21 days ago
That’s the best definition of A.I. that I’ve ever seen.
grocks 21 days ago
But they didn’t go straight for Kaepernick’s Lumi?
ladykat 21 days ago
I think I shall do my best to keep A.I. in my life limited to my phone and my Alexa.
Kitty Katz 21 days ago
Meanwhile, Back on the Nile
Beatrixia: Glad to see the Royal Procurers are back from Afar. Welcome back, ladies!
Violet-Ifa: It’s great to be back. We got some insights into what the Portentous Wind may portend.
Ta-Natash: It appears that A Thing often happens after a Portentous Wind.
Bea: Ooh! What could The Thing be?
Alice-Ata: We think that it may have to do with a legend lost in Futurity. I think there were a lot of pictures with too many fingers, and a lot of sweepers.
Agnes-Ata: Maybe Baba-Stet can shed some light. Her Enchanted Broom Family may have some answers as well.
Sometime Later
Broom-Sweepa: Yes. We have heard of sweepers from the future. They were from Outer Space and were dedicated to cleaning up something called AI.
Bea: How does that affect a Thing now?
Broom: From what I understand, the excess of finger pictures has inspired a new type of pasta called Biscetti. Or something like that.
scyphi26 21 days ago
So for the record, I’m no fan of AI generation and am definitely not against Georgia making any sort of statement against it either…but I do feel like doing it this way is maybe a bit TOO on the nose, y’know?
Kitty Katz 21 days ago
Nat King Cole: Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, some have drawn you
You are a pretty picture of a lady with a lovely smile
Do you really have an inordinate amount of fingers?
Or is that just an AI crazy style?
…….
Do you smile despite the AI software, Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to display modern art?
Are you classic, are you modern, Mona Lisa?
Roombas find you, and they clean up
Do you agree, do you like the roombas, Mona Lisa?
Or is AI just another kind of art?
Rauderi 21 days ago
I’m curious where the AI talk is going to go! The inconsistency and hallucinations are getting really troubling.
Susanna Premium Member 21 days ago
Thinking of Georgia and her family today as they have the visitation and funeral for her father. Georgia, may you have peace and comfort during this time of sadness as you remember and celebrate your father’s life.
Cassia 21 days ago
They asked Bea how she knew AI can’t be true
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, she, of course replied
“Fingers pasta-fied cannot be denied”
(Do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, whoa)
She said, "Someday, you’ll find Roombas above are kind
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, when Puck’s charts are lies
You must realize he’s been smoked from bad AI"
/Jerome Kern, Otto A. Harbach /Smoke Gets In Your Eyes /The Platters
mepowell 21 days ago
Georgia posted: Bill Seymour, a reporter from the South County Independent, interviewed myself and others this week for a newspaper article about my father, his life, his struggles, and the positive changes he made in what were now to be his last few years. It’s a story that is sometimes hard to read, about a life that was sometimes hard to live. But this is the story; told in its complexity for a community that loved him, watched the difficulties unfold over 25+ years, and was left with a lot of questions… If if you can read the full version, I recommend it. Pick up a copy locally today, or consider supporting local news by paying to unlock the e-version.If I can add something: My father would have wanted others to know that recovery is possible and second chances can happen. You still have time, even later in life, to heal lifelong wounds and try to reconcile mistakes you’ve made… Or at least find a new peace in speaking honestly about the past and apologizing for your part in it. As he would have said “nothing’s over… until it is.” (That hits pretty hard this week.) If you can read this, and you struggle yourself or know someone who does, it’s not over. You’ve still got time. Make the most of it, because you don’t know how much. One of my Dad’s favorite songs was “Five Years” by David Bowie, a sci-fi tune about the world reacting to discovering it only has five years left before it ends. He used to sing it to me as a lullaby when I was little. (I’ll post a link in the comments.) After he got sober, we didn’t know it, but he only had a few years left until last Friday… I keep thinking of that. So much of my hurt this week comes from how it felt like we were still at the beginning of something, not the end. So much had turned around for him, he was making up for a lot of lost time. (We lost so much time, I keep thinking of that, too…Your loved ones want you in their lives. Not too late, never too late.) He was gathering together his best photos, he was
FreyjaRN Premium Member 21 days ago
That was getting a bit surreal there.
Red Bird 21 days ago
(Shudder) A Mickey Mouse with 60 ears would be very unsettling.
marilynnbyerly 21 days ago
And every woman has large boobs and long, luxurious hair. Young writers seem to think AI is the way to go, but AI content can’t be copyrighted. If Amazon’s Kindle AI spots AI, it will remove a book from their virtual bookshelf. Currently, thousands of AI books are being submitted a day. No wonder no one can sell any genuine books.
dmah Premium Member 21 days ago
I’m so confused … what does cleaning the carpets have to do with keeping rampant A.I. in check? Am I missing something, or do I need another mug of coffee to jump start my brain?
I AM CARTOON LADY! 21 days ago
Talk to the paw, A I !
Caerin Premium Member 21 days ago
Interesting that the point of the strip – the dangers of AI – have been ignored so far. Georgia has a huge point; AI is the biggest threat to independent logic and human thinking, letting a human made machine make our decisions for us, and ripping off genuine human art.If I were a professional artist, writer, or any kind of creator I would be very angry at the arrogance and greed of the AI developers.
Rista 21 days ago
AI is theft. Plan and simple. It steals your hard work, creativity and years of experience as an artist, it steals your vision as an artist, it leaves empty twisted copies that have no soul or story to tell, only splashy colors.
MemaJean 21 days ago
Truth and glad she’s bringing this up. Well done Georgia.
Font Lady Premium Member 21 days ago
Jora sat on the porch for a couple of hours last night to hand out candy. Not too long after she sat down, she had a most unexpected visitor. A raccoon came up on the porch and started eating the cat food she puts out. She sent me a text asking what, if anything, she should do. Then she sent a picture. A few minutes later, the first group of kids arrived and the raccoon high tailed it out of there.
Sue Ellen 21 days ago
Search for “l-TEAM: AI Scams; Do you know who you are talking to?” by Xavier Hershovitz. He used an online tool to clone and reproduce his voice then called colleagues and his mother, none of whom recognized that it wasn’t him doing the talking. The scary part is, it only took about 5 minutes for the AI program to successfully reproduce his voice.
rs0204 Premium Member 21 days ago
Suffice it to say. A.I. will surpass human intellect sometime in this century—a terrifying thought.
Susanna Premium Member 21 days ago
I wore my Killer Roombas sweatshirt to work yesterday. I was a bit disappointed only two people commented on it.
Aspen_Bell 21 days ago
OT: Foxy’s Big @#&1ing Adventure
arolarson Premium Member 21 days ago
Just read a summary on Slate Magazine of the problems with the new AI for iPhone. The major point of the article was not about phones but about the ‘progress’ of AI in general. The gist is that as companies work to expand their AI to scrape up more and more information, it will largely scrape up all the mis-begotten slop that current AI is generating thus producing even more and more slop compounding the current problem. So when I said “smother” in response to rs0204 above, I was apparently prescient. What a dismal thought.
willie_mctell 21 days ago
Getting back to the Roombas…
Aspen_Bell 21 days ago
OT: HOME
ars731 21 days ago
I guess Georgia is not a fan of A.I as all artists shouldnt be. (Typing an prompt does not count)
KrisJustKris Premium Member 21 days ago
I don’t really understand AI but, from what I’ve read, it’s not a good thing.
scaeva Premium Member 21 days ago
OT: