A real job for Artificial Intelligence

A few months ago I came up with a few suggestions for how to work Artificial Intelligence into our lives. I have a few more, starting with making some sense of my WordPress subscriptions.

Most of the blog posts I read, I read in my email. For me it’s just easier as I can read a post, review the morning headlines, read a post, see which neighborhood was the scene of a shooting, read a post, check out the daily specials at Keurig, Lowe’s, and the local garden center, and then wrap up breakfast with a read of one more post. Last week I noticed my mailbox was quite thin on blog posts.

Given that it was Memorial Day week, the official day of remembering mattress sales, propane grill specials, and summer vacation deals, I thought a little more than nothing about it and assumed some of my favorite bloggers were taking a needed break. As the week went on, a few posts popped up, but the offerings were not even close to meager. A quick check on the WordPress Reader revealed some of the posts were there, but not in my mailbox, the couple that showed up in mailbox were not there in my Reader feed, and three lucky souls had their blogs in neither place. A quick back search through my subscriptions found them still active. Further investigation found I was no longer subscribed to many of the blogs and I began the arduous process of figuring out to which I was still subscribed, of those which was I still to receive notice, and of those was my contact information intact and correct.

So if you noticed some bizarre activity like me subscribing, unsubscribing, or maybe even doubly subscribing to your blogs, I offer my apologies while I continue to rebuild my subscription list.

And I offer, blog subscription maintenance as a fantastic job for some overachieving AI assistant.You know, maybe that’s the only one for this week.I mean, if it can figure out WordPress, it’s done plenty to earn my respect!

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Can you be happy without being joyful? Can you be filled with joy and not be happy? The most recent Uplift! takes a closer look at these emotions.

Approximate reading time – 4 minutes

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Remember why we remember

Most Memorial Days, a blog post writes itself.

• Remember why we remember.
• They gave so you can live.
• It’s not all about parades and picnics.

Toss in a graphic with a soldier kneeling in front of a cross holding a helmet and we’re ready to move on to next week’s post.

This year feels different. I just know those whom we remember when we get around to remembering didn’t give themselves over to our faulty memories for what we’ve turned their country into. I think I can say that because I too served.  You likely didn’t know that. I’ll mention it now and then but it isn’t what defines me. Just another one of the many “used to be”s I used to be. But I used to be one long enough that I spent much time getting to know why we do what we do, or did.

Most of the people I served with were volunteers, those who weren’t had long served their obligations and their continued service was by choice, so we were all there by choice. People chose to serve for a variety of reasons. Some traded education for service time. Some looked to the service to learn or strengthen skills. Some looked to it as an end in itself, a career. Some just felt the need to do something.

None of the men or women I served with were killed in action while we served. Their names won’t be called out at noon today. It makes hearing the names, the bells, and the wail of a single bugle that much more meaningful to think others who held the same positions, did the same jobs, work the same duties would not be picnicking after noon.

Fortunately they won’t have to see what a mess we’ve made of their country.

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We are called to serve one another and most days, there are plenty of opportunities to do so. Good caring friends can serve others to make life more meaningful. The most recent Uplift! explains how even among 3 geese, friend mean a more meaningful life!

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Do it for the dog

This weekend I got to do something I haven’t done for probably close to 20 years. Stay alone – overnight – away from home – with a dog! [woof]

Throughout my adult life, there had always been some sort of animal living with us. (Considering some family members you could say that has been true for my entire life, but that’s a different post for a different day.) When the last dog who had my name on her license as owner went to that big off leash park in the sky, I was already battling Wegener’s and was having difficulty keeping a strong hand on the care part of the care and feeding of pets. I knew my limits, and pet owner was not within them.

Not so though for my daughter who continued the tradition and is and has been for many years the proud dog mom of a now maybe 6 or 7 year old pointer/husky/yeti. There have been times that I have been called upon to provide doggie day care services and have successfully and enjoyably fulfilled those duties, not to mention the meeting the daily expectations of proud grandpop to the grandpup. But when the daughter needs dog sitting of the extended overnight sort, I am not the one called into service. Not that I wouldn’t, I just couldn’t. Let’s say if I were to take the dog for his evening or morning stroll, and upon spotting a follow member of the canine community, or one of the more feisty neighborhood rabbits, and he so decided to pursue fellow canine or feisty rabbit, he would never be accused of being in violation of the leash laws, being firmly attached to a strong, appropriate length lead. It would nevertheless be a questionable defense as it would be very unlikely that the other end would still be firmly attached to my right hand.

Thus, when the daughter anticipates overnight travel (that doesn’t involve an airplane (he doesn’t do well much higher than ground level)) she considers pet friendly destinations or arranges alternate billeting for the pupster. For this occasion she was unable to secure either and I was called and asked if I felt up to just one night with the little fellow. “Of course I can” I replied and oh so nearly convincingly told myself I could do it. Given that she has a fenced in backyard and I don’t, and that the dog, although getting older by the day, still thinks of himself as young and energetic, it was decided I would visit him rather than he stay with me.

And that is how I found myself, Saturday morning, packing an overnight bag including laptop (with drafts for 2 articles and a speech all due within the next month) and heading out the door for the quarter mile walk to the daughter’s domicile. And straight into a pouring rain. A veritable downpour. A like “pair up the animals and ready the Ark” type rain. Concern for the environment be dammed, I headed straight up the driveway and plopped myself behind the wheel of my car for the short but soggy trip, and even that seemed not quite up to the challenge but I don’t own a boat. I felt right then that the next 36 hour period was going to be a mismatch. Unfortunately, when I could be accused of either hyperbole or understatement, I tend toward understating.

To make a long story short (I know, too late), he enjoyed our time together immensely! He was at his tail waggingest, face lickingest, muddy pawed jumpingest best behavior, which for him, are all the things that exhibit good behavior. He never tried to take advantage of an unsuspecting keeper and ate very little of my meals off my plate when his bowl was filled with yummy kibble (and only when I wasn’t watching), did not hide the television remote too well among his toys, and let me have the pillow in bed Saturday night which was only fair since he was using my legs as his. All in all he seemed to have enjoyed my company.

Me? Well I did get to unpack my laptop though never actually opened it, only had to go outside once to forcibly drag him back inside when he refused to come in after treeing some unsuspecting woodland creature, and discovered the desktop cup warmer I got my daughter as part of her Christmas stocking last year works really well. I guess you could say I seemed to have enjoyed his company too!

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Well, that dog story was a good story of perseverance. Sort of. Here’s a better one in the most recent Uplift! We know we can do it, whatever the “it” may be, but someone else feels we can’t, but we will try anyway. Because the realty is we believe in ourselves. And reality is more important than feelings. Approximate reading time – 3 minutes

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Motivating the motivators

Readers who read my posts all the way through know at the end of each I have to link to some other blog (Uplift!) at some other place (ROAMcare.org). If you never read all the way through, now you know too.  While this blog is (usually) fun and (almost) always lighthearted (last week’s post notwithstanding), it generally reflects how I’m feeling at the moment. ROAMcare is a different animal. In partnership with my dear friend and once upon a time work colleague Diem, we created a space where you can go to “Refresh your enthusiasm for life by dealing with challenges, confirming your choices, or just finding that extra motivation you need to push through the day!” I know. It says so right on the home page. Something to Uplift! our visitors. We’re not psychologists, behaviorists, sociologists or any kind of -ist, just a couple people who’ve been through and seen a lot and want to share our experiences with others. And in fact, those blogs are born of Diem’s and my experiences, most often only one or the other, although occasionally we might be doing the same or a similar something.

Anyway…now you know there’s another blog out there and it’s always been more of a motivational tool than this one here. Something else we have on that site is what we call our Moments of Motivation (and the real reason for this particular post). These Moments of Motivation are quick, hopefully catchy and easy to remember nuggets of positivity that we post every Monday to all our social media sites and to the website. Over the last couple years we posted 90 of these little guys. Here is last week’s, which is probably the least motivating moment we’ve posted.

The point to all this is that over the last couple years of doing what we can to motivate others, I found myself being the most motivated I’ve been in years. Many years! There was a time when I thought that eventually we would run out of motivation. “Who is going to motivate the motivators?” I would ask. Even Norman Vincent Peale must have had a couple negative thoughts. Didn’t Steven Covey have any bad habits? Are we sure there wasn’t at least one guy who could tick off Will Rogers? Surely they all had their down times, as these were people with credentials who knew what they were doing. How could we hope to refresh anybody’s enthusiasm or give them that extra motivational push to make it through the day. Ah, but thought was fleeting. So fleeting I barely remember having it, because before you knew it, we were back brainstorming motivational moments.

Our process was simple. Every so often we get on the phone, or online, or or a video call and talk. What lifted our spirits this week? What good things happened and why if we know. What held us back from doing something? Then we distilled those thoughts into 4 or 5 word sayings. We’d work on a plan of how we’d match phrase to picture and create the graphic. Then I’d expand the thought to a 20 to 30 word blurb, add a link and the tags, and post away every Monday morning. (You can find this week’s sometime after 8am Monday at ROAMcare on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, even Twitter, and at www.ROAMcare.org) You’d think turning it into such a production would turn it into work and the words become just words for us. I don’t know how all the -ists manage it, but for me, that’s what made it even more motivating!

Maybe it’s because we spend so much time saying aloud the things we find motivating. Maybe it’s because we take each phrase and rephrase it 3, 4, 5, more than 5 times and hear it over and over. Maybe it’s because we spend so much time with each phrase. Or maybe I’m just easily motivated. But it’s true. I’ve been my most motivated since we started these motivating moments. Do you need some extra motivation. At the risk of putting myself out of business, maybe you just have to tell yourself, “Get motivated and do!” Moments of motivation. Moments that really do add up to a lifetime.

Oh, where were they when I was working for a living?

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No job is just one job, but a series of steps to an ultimate goal. Is “You had just one job” a punch line or a new learning opportunity? We give you our take in that in the latest Uplift!

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Untitled

I had a very busy month the last couple of weeks. Yes, you read that right. I had more things going on in April than there were days in April! Some of them resulted in more than a few hilarious moments and were more than blog-worthy. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to write about any of them.

Last week there was an unsettling piece in the local news.  Four and a half years almost to the day after the Tree of Life shootings added Pittsburgh the list of cities that had hosted mass shootings, jury selection finally began for the trial of the man seen on camera, walking into a local synagogue and shooting 13 people, 11 fatally, while they were attending Saturday morning services. Four and a half years those families had to watch other families of victims of violence find some solace and maybe even some closure from crimes that happens years after the massacre that took their loved ones. Are we so jaded by killing we can take our good old time seeking justice?

During those 4-1/2 years over 1,900 mass shootings have happened in the US (I’m using the definition of mass shooting is one where 4 people excluding the shooter are killed or injured in a single incident.), 53 in April. Perhaps the most heinous was one of the most recent occurring on April 29 when 5 people were killed after asking a neighbor to stop shooting his gun in the front yard in Cleveland, Texas.

After each of the 1,940 mass shootings in the last 4-1/2 years, calls for gun control have been made and successfully opposed in the name if the Second Amendment. You remember that one.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Some day, somebody from the NRA can tell me how killing 5 of your neighbors because they asked for some quiet, or killing 11 of them while they worshipped their God, is “necessary to the security of a free State.”

I’ll try to find some hilarious anecdotes for next week.

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Too often we are defined by the work we do. Is that because we surround ourselves with work friends? We owe to ourselves and our closest contacts to see that our “loved ones” truly are our loved ones. In the most recent Uplift! we talk about why.

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A day in the life

Has anybody else been blogging long enough to remember when the “my day” posts were popular? A blogger, typically with pictures, would take his or her (or its) readers through a pictorial tour of a particular day. Typical or atypical, both were fair game. Typically, both were quite boring.

Oh look, here’s my chai tea to start the day. I haven’t had coffee since I found out about the fair trade laws and how few roasters comply.

Oh look, here are my clothes laid out for the day. They look so small laid out in the bed. It must be due to the 487 pound weight loss I recently experienced.

Oh look, here is my designer cockapoo. I would have preferred a schnoodle but the breeder said I have to wait at least 7 months and even then he couldn’t guarantee a champagne schnoodle, so little “Doodle,” the champagne cockapoo, came home with me. Doesn’t he look a dear when he has to go wee wee.

And so on and so on throughout the day.

I never considered doing a “my day” post. First of all, any one of my days, typical or atypical, would bore the most ardent reader. For example, let’s take a look at my last week.

Sunday, I went to breakfast with my daughter. Typically we do a Sunday lunch, one of us hosting and cooking. Because I was scheduled to move Wednesday, most of my kitchen was packed, but because I was going to be unavailable for much of Monday and Tuesday, I needed her help packing the last of the “all but the most last of the last minute” items, so it made more sense to eat early and eat close to me, then we’d work together until everything was packed as planned. So for Sunday, my photos would be of my eating a local diner special, cheesesteak omelet (which was very good!), and then putting stuff in cardboard boxes. Yawn.

Monday, I worked. Snapshot of me at the computer reviewing charts for 10 hours. Double yawn.

Tuesday, I waited through 1&3/4 of the 2 hour arrival window to meet the internet service provider technician at the new location who did the install of the lines and modem, then wait through the two hours for him actually to do the install. After that, I rushed to the old apartment to disassemble and pack the computer pieces. Yawn and a half.

Wednesday, moving day! The only part of the whole day that I remember is the movers hoisting the living room sofa up onto the patio, one fight up from ground, to take it through the patio door because it wouldn’t fit through any other door.  That would have made a good video had I known where my phone was while it was happening.

Thursday, because I was scheduled to work Friday and Saturday, priority was given to unpacking, re-assembling, and connecting the computer, and second priority to making the kitchen cookable and the bedroom sleepable.  My sister came to help and we could have gotten some action shots of her emptying boxes or me unthreading 135 feet of various cables. I did take time that evening to go to my Toastmasters club meeting. With all that was going on, why would I take off for two hours of prime unpacking time. Because they’re fun meetings with good people and because I deserved it!

Friday and Saturday were work days. See Monday.

Sunday, we were back to our normal Daddy Daughter Lunch dates with lunch prepared in my new kitchen and more unpacking by the two of use, assisted(?) by her dog, after. Maybe we could have gotten a decent picture of me making chicken enchiladas but mostly another yawn day.

So now you see why I never did a “my day” type of post. And if you’re still here after hearing about “my week,” hehe, my plan worked!

Have a good week!

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Life lessons from hockey? Yes, hockey holds many lessons on how we can be better people. From courtesy and respect to people and time management, the most recent Uplift! explores how hockey could be the best life coach ever!

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I’ve been had

They’re out to get us!

In the course of 12 hours on Saturday I got 45 legitimate, expected emails. I thought that was a lot. That’s why I counted them. But there they were and there they were all with a reason for being there. They were headlines form the two local papers and headlines from the Associated Press and from Apple News and updates from two magazines I subscribe to. Three were from clubs or associations I belong to. There were five from Word Press, three new blogs from those I subscribed and two were stray “likes” to older posts of mine. A few were from stores I routinely order from, one was a delivery update on an order I am expecting. Oh yes, and there were even a handful from real people checking in. I had accounted for 45 emails that didn’t surprise me by being there.

Unfortunately during that 12 hour period, I had received a total of 141 emails. Sixty of those were shuttled to the Junk email box. That left 36. Those 36 were hanging out in my regular Inbox but weren’t expected to be there, nor were they from legitimate correspondents. Yes, they were spam. And not the tasty kind Hormel packs into those neat little tins. These were not only spam, they were phishing schemes designed to wheedle personal information to leverage my embarrassingly low financial accounts. Well, 28 of the 36 were phishing schemes. The other 8 were just annoying.

And just to make things a little more interesting, of the sixty emails that were sent to the junk folder, two were from my electric company following up on the power outages created by the storms during the previous week. Yes, the people who created the rules for our spam filters thought that I would be interested in “Real Russian women looking for love” but not in service updates from a legitimate public utility. [sigh]

Why do I bring this up now. Well, a couple of things happened that make this all a little more interesting. I don’t recall if I mentioned in a recent post but I am in the midst of a move, a personal relocation, a “pack everything you own into 80-100  itty bitty boxes and some strangers in a big truck will get them to your new abode” activity. One of the related activities is notify everybody who routinely sends you real mail – banks, insurance companies, magazine publishers, and such – of my new physical address. The last time I moved, all that sort of stuff had to be done in person or by phone. Now, many of them can be done on line. In the process of updating all the personal information profiles in all these sites are requests from them to add, confirm, or change any emails I’d want from them. From most I prefer no email correspondence. In fact, in most instances, I prefer no correspondence from them. Of course there were some companies I had not had a previous “internet connection” (tee her) and had to complete their profile including an email address along with a local street address, and all of them with the obligatory, “check here to confirm you have read and understand our 574 page statement of privacy practices.” Now I’m wondering if one of those that I so blithely clicked my way through was informing me they would be selling their mailing lists to the highest bidder. And maybe even the second and third highest bidders as consolation prizes.

Yeah, they’re out to get us, and I’ve been gotten.

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Into everyone’s life rain falls. We can’t control what happens in life but we can control how we respond. That’s why in the most recent Uplift! We suggested that when life gives you lemons, make banana bread! Read about it here!

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Something I said?

I was speaking with a friend who was stuck for something he couldn’t remember. “Oh, you know. It was something you said, you must remember.” “Something I said?” “Yeah, something you said. Oh, we were at, umm, give me a minute, hmm hmm hmm,” and that point he started humming. Humming.  A tune, a little ditty, a song. It could have been my imagination stemming from his comment “something you said” added to the fact that I and just gotten out of the car and the David Benoit song, Something You Said, was playing on the radio, but I was certain that was the tune he was humming. Whatever it was, he had hummed his way to remembering. “Yeah, I got it. You said…” and off we went into our conversation, that to be honest, right now I don’t remember at all. Maybe I should start singing to myself and it will come to me.

All sorts of people, from the giants in cognitive sciences to everyday bloggers, have written about memory. There are tips and tricks to tackle, vitamin pills to pop, herbs to brew into faux teas, and almost none of them work…except for the one that works for you. I’ve heard that if you want to tell somebody something and you don’t remember what, go back into the room where you first thought of it and it will come to you. I’ve heard if you recreate the original environment in which something happened, it will comeback to you. Cook something from your past, look at pictures from your past, all great ideas except…how do you know what room to go back to if you don’t know what you want to remember? How will cooking Grandma’s almost famous pear butter help you remember where you put your insurance card and car registration the nice police officer just asked for? If you remember that you forgot something but you don’t remember what it is, how will you know what environment to recreate? You could be reliving your third date with the second person you dated in your first year of grad school when you should be soaking in a hot tub on the back patio with fireworks booming over the city just on the other side of those trees.

It is said scents are a powerful memory aid as is music, but I think those are more for abstract memories. You smell something and it reminds you of something you did or somewhere you went. A particular song jogs free a recollection of a specific event or a special, or even not so special person in your life’s past. But if you want to remember where you put the combination to the suitcase locks that you use maybe once a year, sniffing all the pineapples in the produce section isn’t going to loosen that bit of information, not even if you want the suitcase to pack for a week in Hawaii.

No, for that kind of memory jogger, I believe we’re stuck with the classic folk remedies and you might as well get to retracing those steps and rebuilding that scene. Actually, there is something to those methods, and to my friend’s humming interlude, that is far superior to the “fling everything in the air and see if you can spot what you’re looking for coming down” method of remembering – they all force you to calm your mind.

I’m no cognitive scientist so I’m likely wrong about this, but I don’t think it has anything to do with where you are, what you’re smelling, or what size kettle Grandma use for that pear butter. Think about it, when you retrace your steps. What are you doing? You are saying to you self, “Self, look around and see what seems special about here,” or, “okay, Grandma had 3 really big pots, now what color were they?” or, “why did I tie this string on my finger?” All of them are other ways of saying, “calm down and think. You can figure this out.” It doesn’t matter whether those old wives tales are true because they aren’t actually jogging your memory. But it matters that for you, there is a truism among them because it is the one that gets you to calm yourself and allow you mind to pull that memory into your consciousness.

So the next time you need to remember something, just tell yourself, “I can do this. Let me think calmly and rationally. After all, it was probably something I said.”

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In the most recent  Uplift! we explore not just wanting to help but actually doing something to help, being passionate about being compassionate!

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https://youtu.be/BQE0pZbhG10

One thousand and then some

Okay everybody, this is, this really is, this absolutely is, the day we’ve been waiting for. This is the day I post RRSB #1001, as in one thousand and one posts, the start of a new millennium of mish mosh! Some how I have managed to publish one thousand versions of absolute nothingness, sometimes not even bad enough to be called drivel, but other times incredibly profound. And now, it’s time to start again

A thousand posts may not be much to those who post daily, or to those some people who post 2 or 3 or 4 times a day! But for me, what started out as twice a week and even that got to be too much so I dropped it to once a week missive, that is a long time. A long time that started on November 7, 2011.

Where were you in November 2011. I was working at a job I loved that I promised myself would be my last job, I would stay there forever. Well it was my last job and forever came less than 3 years later when health issues and the desire to live trumped the desire to work. I was with a semi-partner who I thought would be with me forever and likewise, forever came less than 3 years later, when health issues and her desire to have a life trumped my desire to just keep on living.

That was okay on both counts. Eleven and a half years later and I’m healthier than I had been, smarter than I had been, and certainly wiser than I had been. I discovered that I didn’t have to be working to be useful but found useful work anyway. I discovered a daughter I had never spent enough time with and that spending enough time didn’t mean all the time, but what we called back then “quality time.” I discovered a handful of friends who added more to my life than I could ever give back to them and that love was shown to me by the ones who would call every week or every day or twice a day, just to make sure I was doing okay, had everything I needed, or just to say, “Hi, now don’t go getting lonely.” I discovered a true love of my life who indeed will be with me forever, just not in the way I envisioned “with me” would happen. And I discovered people who love each other can reach out and touch each other without ever having to touch each other.

Among those one thousand posts were stories of frustration at the little things that shouldn’t be frustrating like people who can’t count back change when the cash register display isn’t there to tell them how much to give back. There also were stories of motivation and how everything I ever knew about how to be a gentleman I learn from hockey. There were those of inspiration and how people would rally behind me in undoubtedly my time of greatest need and although she wouldn’t give me the shirt of her back, she would give me her kidney. There were stories of silliness like how the happiest place on earth is a dollar store. There were predictions of what people would do when (or at that time, if) the pandemic ended. There were moments of absolute terror when I revealed that I believe in miracles not knowing how it would be taken, then of absolutely relief that I could reveal that I in miracles and I don’t care how it was taken because I had to say it and I said it for me. And there were even tales of true wisdom when I posited if you’re willing to say you love pizza, what’s to stop you from telling your friends you love them? (And yes, there were a lot about that groundhog, too.)

What will I do for my second thousand posts. Well, for starters, I’ll have at least one recalling the first thousand. After that, stick around for a few years and we’ll discover them together.

And that’s what I think. How about you?  

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It takes work to grow and protect friendships from falling apart. In the most recent Uplift! we suggest three steps to maintaining and growing friendships.

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As I Like It

Guess what? Today is not the day we’ve all been waiting for. Maybe next week.

Lately I’ve had a lot of random old posts garnering new “likes” which is nice that people find something in an older blog post that still generates a smile today, but is also a little disconcerting because I don’t think there are real people behind all of those thumbs ups. Why would I question their validity or even reality you reasonably inquire? Well…

I seem to get these random “likes” in waves. Someone (or perhaps “someone”) will like a post from 2017 and within a week, 20 other people (or maybe “people”) have liked the same post. It is possible the “someone” made mention of that post in his/her/their/its/one’s blog and all the “people” who follow him/her/them/it/one all rushed over, read it, and liked it just as well and wanted to make their (whew!) own acknowledgment of likedness. (No, that’s not a typo.) Then the following week, a post from 2020 suddenly captures the attention of a dozen random readers (or “readers”).

No sooner do the “likes” start popping up that new “followers” hop on board the RRSB bandwagon. Of course they could be real people. If they are, they really should reconsider their blog name. Perhaps they are just trolling for followers of their own and forgive me questioning the sincerity of Icangetyoudiscounttraveldealsdotcom, but really, he/she/they/it/one can do better than that!

Please know that I have nothing against people liking my posts. “People” liking them is another thing. I’d rather have 2 people like a post than 22 “people” liking it. Nor do I scoff at followers. I can use all the followers I can get. Tracking followers isn’t as easy as one might think. According to WordPress, my blog has 938 followers but my average visitor rate is 121 views. My blog posts are distributed in their entirety in the email blasts that accompany the online publication, so an email recipient can read the entire post and never enter the blog site, thus not be counted among the readers. I doubt that means 817 people are reading this particular blog in their emails every week. In fact, I know it doesn’t. The follower count never goes down. People unsubscribe, leave the platform, mark the emails as ‘junk,’ or otherwise give up on reading blogs – in general or mine specifically [sniff]. When that happens, it happens, but it isn’t reflected in your followers. This blog has been running for 7&½ years. Over that time, subscribers have given up on it but who knows who or how many.

If tracking followers is difficult, tracking “likes” should not be. People read a post, their like it, the click on “like.” Occasionally they click on “comment” and, umm, comment on it. I can pretty much be sure those are real people. Advancements in AI notwithstanding. And typically within a week, everybody who is going to read a post and either “like” or “comment” on it, or not, will have done so. But then every now and then, something strange happens in the world where posts never go to die. Are there really random people who genuinely liked “Remotely Technological” from August 2018?Perhaps, but 27 random people?

Sounds more like “people” to me.

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Although our days are finite, they offer us infinite opportunities. Even when you feel there aren’t enough hours in the day, there is always enough time for what’s important. Ask any turtle. Better still, read about it in the latest Uplift!

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