Tag Archives: computers

My First Encounter with an AI

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Finding a saved then forgotten file in my Dropbox reminds me of my first interaction with an AI system a little over a year ago.

Back in March 2023, I started getting emails from Google inviting me to try their new AI system, Bard. I was curious so after receiving too many (in my opinion) invitations, I gave it a try.

March, 2023

I wanted to see what it would tell me about a topic I knew a little about: Haiku. Here’s my annotated exchange, which I saved in a text file on March 26, 2023:

Me: What can you tell me about haiku?

Bard:
A haiku is a Japanese poetic form consisting of three unrhymed lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively. Haiku often contain imagery and focus on nature or the seasons. The first line of a haiku introduces the subject, the second line develops the subject, and the third line provides a conclusion or resolution.

Haiku are thought to have originated in Japan in the 17th century. The earliest known haiku was written by Matsuo Bashō, a Japanese poet who is considered to be one of the greatest haiku masters. Bashō’s haiku often focused on the beauty of nature and the fleeting nature of life.

Haiku have become increasingly popular in the West in recent years. Many people enjoy the challenge of writing a haiku that is both concise and meaningful. Haiku can also be used as a form of meditation, as they can help us to focus on the present moment and to appreciate the simple things in life.

Here is an example of a haiku:

A single frog
Jumps into the ancient pond—
The sound of water.

This haiku by Bashō is a classic example of the form. It introduces the subject (a frog) in the first line, develops the subject in the second line (by describing the frog’s jump into the pond), and provides a conclusion or resolution in the third line (by describing the sound of the water).

Haiku can be a beautiful and meaningful way to express ourselves. If you are interested in learning more about haiku, there are many resources available online and in libraries.

I liked the definition of haiku that Bard provided, although I wasn’t sure about the phrase “Haiku have become.” Is haiku singular or plural? Bard used the singular form — “a haiku” — in the next paragraph. I don’t know and it isn’t what I focused on.

Instead, I focused in on the syllable count, which I was taught was important in a well-formed haiku. 5-7-5.

Me: Your example does not have five syllables in the first line.

Bard:
I apologize for the error in my previous response. Here is an example of a 5-syllable haiku:

Snow falls in silence.
The world is transformed into
A winter wonderland.

What bard could have pointed out was that it was a translation from Japanese to English, which I assume it was. Instead, it provided a new example with a problem in the last line.

Me.: Your new example does not have five syllables in the third line.

Bard:
You’re right, it doesn’t. I’m still under development, and I’m always learning. Thank you for your patience as I continue to improve.

I let it go.

June, 2024

Today, after finding that file on my computer, I decided to blog about it. After writing and formatting the first half of this post, I went back to Bard, which is now Gemini, and tried the same prompts. Note the differences, which I think are important.

Me: What can you tell me about haiku?

Gemini:
Haiku are a traditional Japanese form of short poetry. Here’s a quick rundown:

  • Structure: Haiku consist of three lines, traditionally with 17 syllables. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables, and the third line 5 syllables again (5-7-5).
  • Origin: They originated in Japan and are rooted in older forms of Japanese poetry.
  • Focus: Haiku typically focus on nature and capturing a fleeting moment or image.
  • Modern haiku: While the 5-7-5 syllable structure is a common guideline, modern haiku in English sometimes stray from this to focus more on capturing the essence of the haiku tradition.

Well, this was a better description that took into consideration many people’s belief that syllable count doesn’t matter. But it (cowardly) did not provide an example. So I asked for one.

Me: Can you give me an example of haiku?

Gemini:
Absolutely! Here’s a famous haiku by Matsuo Basho, a renowned haiku poet:

Old pond / A frog jumps in
The sound of water (5-7-5)

How interesting! It gave me a different translation of the same haiku? And it specifically indicated the syllable count.

Me: Your example does not have five syllables in the first line or seven syllables in the second line.

Gemini:
You’re absolutely right, I apologize for the mistake. Here’s a different haiku example that adheres to the 5-7-5 syllable structure:

Summer sun warms skin,
Cicadas sing their loud song,
Daylight fades too soon. (5-7-5)

I had no problem with this haiku written in the traditional style. In fact, I actually liked it.

Me: Very good. Thank you.

Gemini:
I’m glad I could help! Is there anything else you’d like to know about haiku, or would you like me to try writing one for you?

It apparently didn’t realize that it just did that. [insert eyeroll emoji here]

Me: No, thank you.

Gemini:
You’re welcome!
If you ever have any other questions, feel free to ask.

Is AI Worth It?

Despite this second encounter, I still believe using AI to teach and assist us in writing tasks is a big mistake. Not only is it prone to errors — even today! — but it consumes huge amounts of electrical power in a world already suffering from the effects of power generation on climate and air quality.

I could waste spend the rest of the day coming up with examples that showcase AI’s shortcomings, but so many people already have. I don’t understand why anyone would want to rely on a system that is clearly not ready for prime time and can do more harm than good.

I don’t want to live in a world where “intelligent” systems are telling us to put glue on pizza or eat rocks for their mineral content. Do you?

Back It Up, Folks!

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If you’re not backing up your important data, you’re just waiting to lose it.

I was chatting with a fellow pilot the other day about archiving all the videos we accumulate with our GoPro cameras.

“I went to the store and bought a 5 TB hard drive for under $100,” he told me. “Every single photo or movie I ever recorded is on that disk.”

“How often do you back it up?” I asked.

He looked at me blankly. The truth is, he didn’t have a backup for it. He had every photo on one hard disk drive and it wasn’t backed up.

Hard Disk Crashes Happen

I’ve lived through more hard disk crashes than the average person. I’ve even lost a manuscript to a hard disk crash. I think it was that loss that taught me how important it is to back up every file I don’t want to lose.

As I type this, my 5 year old iMac is copying files from its internal hard disk to a backup disk. The iMac has been acting funky for a while and it got to the point where it just wasn’t functioning at all. I booted from the internal recovery disk and ran Disk First Aid on it. It found sectors it couldn’t fix. When I restarted from the normal startup disk, Finder wouldn’t work. For those of you who use Windows and don’t know Mac OS, it’s as if Windows won’t open anything for you. The solution was to go back into Recovery mode, make a new startup disk on an external hard disk, restart the Mac from that, and back up all my important files onto that new hard disk.

You might say, “Maria! Didn’t you already have a backup?”

To that, I say, of course I did. I actually have TWO backups of the entire going bad hard disk. But how can I possibly know if both of them are good when the source is bad? Why take chances? I’ll copy all the files over to make a third backup I know is good. Then I’ll reformat the bad drive and, hopefully, the problems will go away. Then I can reinstall the data files on the newly formatted hard drive. Or, in this case, on the computer I bought to replace it anyway. (I need to get that old iMac running to trade it in for the maximum cash back.)

As for backups of the new computer — a brand new 15″ MacBook Air I got to replace a 2 year old 13″ MacBook Air and the 5 year old 27″ iMac — I’ll periodically back up to an external hard disk, but I’ll also likely back up to the cloud. It’s not something I want to do, but it’s a good and reliable solution and I’m already paying for that cloud space. It would be dumb not to do it.

My Media Storage Solution

Going back to my GoPro and other media situation…

My media file archives and backups work like this: Each year, I buy a pair of 2 TB portable hard disks. I name one for the year and one for the year followed by BU. So this year’s disks are 2023 and 2023 BU. As I travel about, I copy all of my photos and videos from my phone, my Nikon, my GoPro, and my DJI drone to the hard disk for that year, organized by date. So a folder containing the videos from a flight I do today might be named 061923 Wenatchee Flight. When I get home from my travels, I use an app like SuperDuper to synchronize the two hard disks, using the primary one as the source. So if I add or remove files on that primary disk, those changes are automatically reflected on the backup disk.

Understand that the video files I accumulate are huge and take up a ton of storage space. The more I have, the more disk space I need. I’m trying very hard to keep total storage per year under 2 T, but this year I wound up buying 5 T drives because that’s all I could find. I’ll still just put one year’s worth of files on it.

If any of my original or backup disks go bad, I still have the other disk for that year. To lose a whole year’s worth of media, I’d have to lose both disks, which are seldom in the same location for any considerable length of time. To lose all my media, I’d have to lose all of my disks — there are about 6 years’ worth at this point so that’s 12 hard disks.

My friend, in my opinion, is putting all of his eggs in one basket — and that is never a good idea if you don’t want to lose all your eggs.

The Video Editing Audio Workaround

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The hoops I have to jump through to get the cockpit audio right on my YouTube videos.

I’m in the process of switching from ScreenFlow to Filmora Pro as my primary video editing software. I needed an editor that could edit 360° videos to add title screens, callouts, and additional audio. To my knowledge, ScreenFlow could not do this. That didn’t surprise me since ScreenFlow was designed primarily as a video screen capture and editing tool and the only reason I was using it was because it was cheap and it supported picture in picture.

I should mention here that in the past, I’ve used iMovie (limited) and Final Cut Pro (the old version was great; the X version is not). I knew that Adobe Premiere would do what I needed it to do, but I was not at all interested in paying Adobe a monthly fee to be able to access the files I created with its software. I believe software should be bought — not rented.

Filmora has a bunch of really good tutorials on YouTube and it was pretty easy to learn — not that I know everything about it yet. And the “lifetime” price did away with the nonsense of software rentals, letting me buy the software just once and get free upgrades and free customer support forever (however long that is). It was $180 after tax, which fit my budget.

But…

It wasn’t until I’d begun using Filmora Pro that I realized that it lacked a feature I really needed: the ability to turn stereo sound into mono sound.

Let me explain.

My videos usually have two sources of sound, each for a different type of sound:

  • One GoPro Hero7 Black records ambient sound — normally, that’s the sound of the engine and rotors as I start up, fly, and shut down. In the beginning, I left this sound out, but a lot of my fans claimed they liked it. So I made sure I had one camera running to capture that, even if I didn’t use the video that went with it.
  • Another GoPro Hero7 Black records the sound in my intercom system — normally that’s the sound of me talking to the camera or on the radio or phone. (When I’m on the phone, you can only hear my half of the conversation.) That’s captured through a connection between the camera and my intercom system via an NFlightCam Audio Cable. Channel fans apparently really love my narrations — who knew? — and the sound of radio chatter, so this is an important component of my video setup.

The problem is, the intercom audio is recorded on just one stereo channel: the left. (This is a shortcoming of the cable which, according to the folks at NFlightCam, is a problem with the one part of the cable they buy from GoPro for their products. In other words, according to NFlightCam, it’s GoPro’s fault.) If I use this audio in my videos as is and someone listens through stereo speakers or headphones, they notice that the voice is coming from just one side. And they complain.

When I used ScreenFlow, it had the ability to turn stereo channels into mono. That combined the left (with sound) and right (with no sound) into one channel that sounds like it’s coming from somewhere in the middle. That got the complaints to stop — when I remembered to take the extra conversion step.

But Filmora Pro doesn’t support the combining of two stereo channels into one mono channel. So there’s no solution in this software.

Of course, there’s a workaround — export the audio only, convert it stereo to mono, and import it back into Filmora Pro. Here’s how I do that with the software I already have:

  1. QuickTime Pro Registration
    I save old software and I’m very glad I saved this application. My iMac is running MacOS High Sierra; I don’t think this will run under Catalina on my laptop.

    Open the video clip with the single channel stereo sound in QuickTime Player Pro 7. (Note that I didn’t say QuickTime Player, which is the current version of the software. No, I’m using the version from 2009: QuickTime Player 7.6.6, which requires a registration code. This was the good version of QuickTime, which allows editing and screen recording and includes all kinds of other neat features. I recovered and saved this version when it was overwritten by the limited feature version that came after it.)

  2. Convert to Mono
    Why can’t Filmora Pro have a Channels pop-up menu like this one?

    Use the Export command under the File menu to save the Audio Only as Sound to AIFF. Before exporting, click the Options button and be sure that Mono is selected from the Channels pop-up menu. This is how I convert stereo to mono, but the resulting file is not compatible with Filmora Pro.

  3. Double-click the resulting Audio file in iTunes to import and open it.
  4. Use the Convert command under the File menu to Create an AAC Version.
  5. Drag that version out of iTunes and into a Finder window to export it. I now have a version compatible with Filmora Pro.
  6. Drag the audio file into Filmora Pro’s media window.
  7. Drag the original video file into the Filmora Pro timeline.
  8. Unlink the video file’s original audio track from the video track.
  9. Delete the unlinked audio track from the timeline.
  10. Drag the mono audio file into the Filmora Pro Timeline and line it up exactly with the video track that remains. That will synchronize the two tracks.
  11. Link the two tracks together so they cannot be edited out of sync.
  12. Repeat the above steps for every video clip with a cockpit audio track.

And then…

From that point, all I have to do is add the second audio/video track — assuming I want the ambient sound audio track to play behind the cockpit audio — synchronize it with the cockpit audio/video so the sounds are right, unlink the audio/video from in that second track, get rid of (or adjust the size of) the second video clip, and add subsequent clips, doing the same for each, for the length of the video. I also need to be sure there’s 20 seconds with nothing much going on at the end so I can add end cards. Then I add the title screen with “theme music” and animation and any annotation text, including a reminder that the video description has lots of information that might answer viewer questions.

In all, I think the video editing process takes about 10-20x the amount of time in the video clip. So, for example, a 10-minute video would take about 100-200 minutes to edit.

Rendering varies depending on the length of the video, but at least it doesn’t require any additional effort on my part. Uploading to YouTube also takes a while, but only a few minutes of actual work as I fill in the form with the video information.

So yes, it’s involved.

A lot of folks think flying a helicopter is hard. I think it’s a lot easier than editing a quality video.