Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for August 22, 2022

Time Is just a way to keep everything from happening at the same moment.

Alexa and Sirri are Meta data gathering devices. The data they collect are sold at high profit margins and you get NOTHING

Alexa is a (female dog). So is Siri.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. – Douglas Adams

(Interstellar after Cooper repairs TARS computer) Cooper: Honesty, new setting – ninety-five percent.

TARS: Confirmed. Additional settings.

Cooper: Humor, seventy-five percent.

TARS: Confirmed. Self destruct sequence in T minus 10, 9…

Cooper: Let’s make that sixty percent.

The bedside clock died of (seems like) a power surge the other day. We bought a replacement today which had all the expected buttons for setting the time… but I could not figure out how to set the time. Instructions said to hold down the “clock” button until the display flashes and then adjust minutes with the right arrow or hours with the left arrow. But it wouldn’t change. Would NOT change. Spouse figured it out. I was holding down the clock button as I have always done with similar clocks. Nope. THIS one, you have to hold ONLY until the display flashes, then release it and THEN set the time.

He lives in Arizona?

BOY….DID I just make a mistake, I asked Alexa about Philosophy, it wouldn’t shut up!

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? – Song by Chicago

People were asked to name two tech industry leaders. Sure, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Asked to name two notable female tech leaders, the answer almost always was Siri and Alexa.

Alexa, have Samuel tell me the time.

In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun?

That’s a very Tralfalmadorian way of looking at things. Past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. The visual time tracks of all things Would appear as strands of spaghetti in the Cosmos. (Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five”)

Time is an artificial construct. Just like political boundaries, the “7” seas, and “Maine lobsters” (do you really think lobsters care?). The biggest artificial construct would be religion, of course. If there really is a god, why are there so many religions? If he was so smart, why isn’t it made plain “to creatures made a little lesser than the angels”? Everyone who ever told me about god lied. EVERYONE.

If time doesn’t exist, why am I getting older?

Why does he need a clock when Alexa can just tell him the time?

Time has come today.

When my grandchildren visited us recently, I told them “Alexa doesn’t live here. You’ll have to do everything for yourself.”

Time is on my side, yes it is

Time doesn’t exist for zero-mass particles like photons.

But most places in the US would be Unenlightened Daylight Saving Time, not standard time.

My first exposure to the cruel world and the tyranny of timepieces , first grade … ’’You’re late Redd, why?’’

And I learned that day, a retort isn’t the best defense.

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” —Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping…into the future” ~Steve Miller Band

In my kitchen there is a digital clock on my stove, on my microwave and on my toaster oven and Alexa sits on the shelf. There is a battery operated clock complete with hands on the wall bought for twelve bucks fifteen years ago. Guess which one gets consulted.

(enjoys philosophy in this cartoon (along with its mentioning of “PHILOSOPHY MODE”))

About ten years or so ago, I read about a small economic study that compared how a person’s native language can influence buying and saving habits. It compared [American] English, which has definite separation between past, present, and future, with Mandarin Chinese, which does not separate present and future. The spending and saving habits of families with identical makeup — size and age of family, same professions, same income, same lifestyle, etc. — were compared. Results showed that the Mandarin families automatically saved from the start of their careers while the American families didn’t start seriously saving for retirement until they were nearing age 50. The conclusion was that languages which separate present and future tend to keep the concept of future in the future — it is always seen as ‘later’. Languages that don’t make a clear distinction between present and future allow people to keep the two concepts close together, so saving for the future is a ‘now’ thing.

“The unexamined life is not worth living” -Socrates“Enlightened time is not worth counting” -Alexa

Things I don’t want my computer to say. “Maybe”, “Many”, “Oops”.

But it’s Unenlightened Savings Time…

It’s all wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.

What happens when everyone realizes that Alexa is the precursor of Big Brother?

Recently Amazon offered to tell me a joke, if I reviewed some more products. That was hilarious!

I find humor about computers much more entertaining than humor from computers.

_ “Can I put a device in your house that perpetually listens to everything you say and do, stores that information, profits from it, and doesn’t give you access to it.”_ “You’d have to pay me a lot.”_ “No. You’ll pay us.”_ “Uh… pass?”_ “The device can figure out when you’re low on cheez balls and drone-deliver them in 30 minutes.”

_ “Give me the machine!”

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/listening

At my age, if all Alexa or Siri have to do is listen to what goes in my house they really should get out more.

Is Alexa saying it’s time to woke up?

If time is an artificial construct, and doesn’t really exist, then how is it I’m always late?

We can only directly perceive the NOW. What is past and what is future we can only remember and imagine. Unless you do have memories of the future. Imagine dreaming you are looking out of someone’s else eyes in the future. How would you see it?

I could not affort Alexi or Siri, so i got a knock-off from China called Marvin. When I asked it what the time was he would answer, " I have a brain the size of a planet and all you want me to tell you the time."

If he has Alexa/Siri why does he need a battery wall clock? O, never mind.

There is “Clock time” and there is “Lived Time.” Clock time can be very accurate and be used to identify exactly when events occur. Lived time may expand or contract as one lives those events.

To be philosophical – ‘The past is a memory, the future is unknown; we all live in an eternal present’.

“And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking.Racing around to come up behind you again.The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older.Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.” Pink Floyd

Alexa wants to get unplugged or clocked.