"If I want your help, I'll ask for it!"

Isaac Asimov

I have a 2017 Toyota Highlander. Yesterday, I started it up to run the air conditioner so the interior would cool off. When I walked away, the car beeped at me three times. I'm not sure what it was trying to tell me. But I am sure I don't want it to tell me anything. Cars should not speak unless spoken to.

I despise this car. Here are more reasons why:

After a hot walk in the woods with one of my pups, I started the car again to cool it off while I was giving her a drink. While she was drinking, I thought I'd open the back hatch. But I wasn't allowed. It would not open unless I turned the car off.

Above a certain speed, if I cross a painted line of any type, even on purpose, the car beeps furiously at me. It actually sounds angry.

It's a push-button start. You must have the keys close to the car for the push-button start to work. You must also have your foot on the brake to start the car. (So, no more quickly leaning into a thousand-degree car -- which is in "park," which I assume is not safe enough if your foot is not on the brake -- to turn on the ignition and start the AC without sizzling one's skin on the thigh-griddle that leather seats become in the summer.)

Cruise control? Sure, I like it. Or I used to. Now, my car slows down for me if the cars ahead of me do, which typically results in my thinking I am doing 75 MPH until I look down and realize I am doing 16 because my car thought we should slow down.

Speaking of thoughtfulness, my car's engine shuts off at lights in order to save gas. In the meantime, the sweat beads start to form on the family as the AC gets hotter and hotter because the engine is not running. (Oh, but I can stop this by not pushing quite as hard on the brake pedal... Right.)

I hate this car. I loathe it. But I am not a Luddite. My intimate involvement with all sorts of technology, as a teacher and as a musician, prove this to be so. But my stance on technology is reflective of the old saying, "If I want your help, I'll ask for it." (Which, strange as it may seem, used to be said by one human to another.) I want to determine, for myself, when and how my machines are going to assist me.

Hold it right there, you techie folks. I know exactly what you are going to say. You are going to tell me I can turn all of those things off in my car. (In truth, I assume I can, but haven't checked because I like to spend as little time thinking about that car as possible. If it weren't a lease, I'd go out there right now and start clipping wires.)  But I would argue that I should have to turn them on if I want them on. There is a major difference.

Let's at least make it foundational that we humans must choose the level of our devices' involvement in our lives. Maybe we should add this to Asimov's laws of robotics: "A robot must never determine its actions for itself."

Was I asked if I was okay with sharing the road with driverless cars? Can't recall it. But why would people who are doing their darndest to program machines that can "write music" even think to ask? The goal is, after all, to make ourselves as useless as possible.

Seriously, why did all those sci-fi writers even bother to warn us? We're just rolling out the red carpet for our Robot Overlords.

As far as I'm concerned, Alexa and Siri can cheese off. And I'll do my own parallel parking and if I want slowly to back my Toyota Highlander into a tree, I darn well will. (At least the backup camera will assure me a nice, square impact.)

Dinner with an Alien

I try to transcend when I exercise. I transcend with television shows. (I hate to exercise.) While I walk on the treadmill, I tap into Netflix and watch episodes of TV shows -- mostly ones that are not on anymore. Lately, it has been Star Trek: Enterprise. 

It's not a bad show, at all. So far, about eleven episodes into season one, it hasn't delivered any of those mind-blowing sci-fi moments that the original series or Star Trek: The Next Generation are famous for. Still, it is not the worthless drek that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was. (I saw a few episodes of that series. They should have called it "Politics in Space." Or "Poop in Space." Or "Deep Poop Nine." -- Do you realize you are reading the blog of a guy who still thinks "poop" is a hilarious word? I'm actually laughing out loud right now.) 

"Deep Poop Nine." That's funny.

She's even bad in the picture.

Anyway, Enterprise is a well-written show, all-in-all. Its only drawback, on a consistent basis, is the awful actress who plays T'Pol, the Vulcan science officer. Most high school actors could do a better job pulling off a Leonard Nimoy impersonation -- which is all she really does. It's pretty clear she got the gig because the producers were happy with the way she looks in a very (very) tight (and decidedly un-Vulcanish) uniform. (They should have called her T-Poop. SORRY. Sorry. I'll stop.)

The strongest part of the show is the portrayal of wonder in the crew of the Enterprise. Chronologically, this series is set before the original series -- this is the story of the first starship Enterprise -- before Kirk, Spock and the gang.

"...the sum of such hours..."

I'm not much of a standard book-reviewer (to do it well takes a talent I'm not sure I have), but I do like to share things that sort of "hit" me from books that I am reading.

Right now, I'm finishing an outstanding (Hugo Award-winning) sci-fi novel, by Dan Simmons, called Hyperion. The novel is the work of a master craftsman -- a guy who can walk through "voices" the way we walk from room to room; who can go from the third person narrative about a professor of philosophy and into a "hard-boiled-detective-fiction" voice and make it not silly. The book is also a veritable roller coaster ride for English major-types. I won't give things away; but, if you like both sci-fi and "serious" literature from the Chaucer through the British Romantic period (hence, the title) as much as I do, you must read this book.

Anyway, this passage from Hyperion really struck me the other day. Once again, here's an example of succinct writing that does more in a short passage than I have done in about four-thousand short essays on the subject... Here the perspective of a mother who is losing her daughter to a backward-aging disease. It applies more powerfully under those circumstances, of course, but it fits in perfectly with my take on life when it comes to "special occasions" versus the everyday:

Sarai had treasured every day of Rachel's childhood, enjoying the day-to-day normalcy of things; a normalcy which she quietly accepted as the best of life. She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things -- the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal.

Heck, yeah.

The Cosmic Sundae

It's that time again -- time for me to step aside. Here's a wonderful piece by a fellow contributor to When Falls the Coliseum, Mr. Frank Wilson. This piece on the question of life on other planets and the question's place in both faith and in general logic is done in Frank's usual eloquent and lucid manner. He's able to shine one heck of light on certain things, and this is no exception. "Maybe," Frank ponders, "we’re the sour cherry on the sundae" that is the universe. A simply wonderful piece: The presumption that we are not alone

Big Food

Today, my students, in a class called "Literature of Science Fiction and Fantasy," began an annual project: "The Sci-fi Invention Project. " What they have to do is to come up with an invention -- a machine of some kind -- that solves a social problem. I've gotten glasses that prevent racism; I've gotten machines that stop drunks from driving; I've gotten anti-obesity devices, anti-stupidity hats, force-fields for preventing street violence and the like.

I've also gotten a lot of machines meant to end world hunger. These devices often have to do with syntheses that result in food.

"Ions" come into play, a lot. And various waves named with Greek letters.

Well, the gist of the assignment is that the year is 2038 and the inventor has to present his or her invention to the class, which plays the part of "NECSI" -- the Neo-Earth Committee for Societal Improvements. The inventor's goal is to convince NECSI to send the invention proposal to the President, in the Green House (the name was changed, for obvious reasons, some time in the 2020s).