Yes, It’s Me, Your iMac.
Surprised? I bet. First, thanks for running me with that new T5 SSD. The internal HD (2012) is in sad shape & was driving me nuts. — you too I bet.
I hear (told to me by your iPhone) that you’ve been spreading the gospel about problem-solving to a bunch of 6th graders — in person. Impressive, especially since the class starts at 8:35 AM. Bit early for you old man.
BTW, I saw a couple of their Scratch projects. Excellent. Glad you are teaching them the proper way to organize code. I’m not a big fan of many of the internet course offerings that promote bad habits. Maybe the authors, just don’t know? Your problem to figure all that out. Me, I just calculate & am scary good at it.
I appreciate that you’ve mentioned that I can do several million calculations a second — and never miss. However, when you say that we are all, “dumb as a rock”, don’t you think that’s a bit extreme? I mean, it’s true in a sense —We’re just electronic machines, after all, but couldn’t you soften it a bit? Look at Watson — it’s getting featured on TV — pretty impressive.
How about beating that GO master — and the chess champion? We machines could use a little love. The weather forecasting could do some work, but that’s not really our problem. Blame the software programmers. We just calculate (perfectly) their recipes. If they say salt when they should say, sugar, the cake won’t taste good — right! It’s a recipe problem.
Granted, a good chunk of all this AI hype is just that. Mostly, BS (Before Socrates) but all of that is software. We can only do what the programmers tell us to do. Thinking is not in our charter. Hey, folks built us, you should know that. Like asking a fish to climb a tree. Silly.
Speaking of calculating, I know that you can only directly talk to me if you know how to give me instructions and data in binary. Also, you human types have a big problem and have built all kinds of languages and translators that are more suitable for you. Even so, nothing happens with me unless I get the proper zeroes and ones. Same with all my Bros.
The beauty of binary is that calculations are so simple. How are you at multiplication? Know your tables? Binary is easy. Only two rules: (1 times 0 = 0), and (1 times 1 = 1). That’s it. Addition is a bit harder. (1 + 0 = 1), but (1 + 1 = 10). That’s because we can’t use 2 so when we express that we need another place.
[Now you can get the joke: “There are 10 kinds of folks in the world. Those that understand binary and those that do not.”]
I know, the numbers get very long, but I’m very comfortable using 64 places (sometimes 128) for each number. Quickly, what’s the value of 100111001011? 2507 Ha! slow human! Took me less than a millionth of a second. Remember, I’m good at detail and don’t miss — well, maybe if you spill some of that coffee on my innards.
I’ll probably talk to you again in a few weeks. Keep “beating” on those kids. Teach them the proper way to think about “talking” to us. We’ll happily calculate anything — we just need the recipes.
BTW, there are 578 words and 3115 letters in the above text. For the record?
iMac C02K6RWADNCR
