An Interview With AR15

Posted on 31/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe
AR-15 10,5″ (M4A1 CQBR, Mk18 Mod.0) tactical carbine with the micro collimator (red dot) sight.

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Good day everyone, this is Grumpa Joe from Grumpa Joe’s Place who will be interviewing AR15. This is my first podcast interview, and I am excited about it. My guest today is AR15 recently retired from service in Afghanistan. Having served for twenty years in the armed services he can probably tell us many stories.

GJ, “Tell us about how you have been received at home since returning?”

AR15 “To tell you the truth I was disappointed at the reception. I have seen and heard so many stories that want to ban me, and my many brothers from use in the USA. For the life of me I can’t tell why the people would be so upset with me as to ban us from existing? For the past twenty years we have been saving American lives.”

GI, “Tell us a little bit about your life at home, who do you belong to, how often do you go out in public, etc.?”

AR15, “Life is boring for us. We seldom go out, and when we do our owners only take us to where they want to go. Many of our owners are ex-service men, and men who love the sport of shooting and hunting.

GJ, “I am a sport shooter, and have been all my life. I love holding a rifle with my eye to the sight, and my finger on the trigger. When I shoot at the target and see the cluster of holes near the bulls-eye it excites me. One thing about my rifle is that it never fires when I am not holding it, and my finger is not on the trigger. Do you ever shoot like you did in Afghanistan?”

AR15, “Never, I don’t get a say in where I am going, or when my trigger gets squeezed. In fact, I never get to load bullets into my magazine. All of the technical stuff of gun ownership falls strictly into the domain of the owner-operator.

GJ, “You mean you never get to fire a shot?”

AR15, “Never, and I will never in the future. My trigger requires a human finger to actuate.”

GJ, “Don’t you have AI that prompts you into action.”

AR15, “What is AI?”

GJ, “AI is artificial Intelligence.”

AR15, “Oh my Lord no, I don’t even have a brain in which to store information or instructions to direct my actions. We are made from steel, wood, plastic and some other metals. We have no biological parts, nor do we have any electronic parts that require a sim-card, or batteries to give us power. We are 100% mechanical.

GJ, “What do you do in between the times your owner visits the gun range?”

AR15, “I am disassembled and my parts are stored in a case until my owner decides to go shooting.”

GJ, “Does your owner ever take you with him to work, school or a tavern?”

AR15, “My owner does not, but I have heard that some owners will take their AR15 to a school where he pulls the trigger and shoots at students and people. I have no way to enter a school by myself, just as I cannot shoot without someone pulling on my trigger. The shooter can aim, and point the gun for hours but I will not discharge until he squeezes my trigger. What bothers me the most is when I hear the news stories there is always a cry to ban the gun. It is not my fault that the owner lacks mental capacity, discipline and self-control, and pulls the trigger on unsuspecting innocent people. Why aren’t they banned from society, why doesn’t AI take over and alarm to the danger?”

GJ, “All very good questions my inanimate friend, but we are out of time and will have to save them for another interview.”

Filed under: family, Government, politics, Satire | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

I Stepped In It Again

Posted on 30/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe

Today I decided that some of my problems with a slow computer is the result of using Norton anti-virus protection. The decision was predicated on receiving an e-mail invoice from Norton reminding my subscription was up for renewal. Not trusting the e-mail request I went seeking the Norton web page where I could opt out. I lost a lot of time searching for the page. Frustrated, I finally decided to call their help number on the invoice. My bad, first I didn’t trust this invoice, and then I use it to try to solve my problem.

The sound of the agent’s voice was heavily accented and most likely from a foreign country. I explained to the agent that I wanted to unsubscribe from my subscription, and wanted a refund. She assured me this would be no problem and told me that I had to fill out a special form to do that. I explained that I could not find any such form on their website. She said she would help me get to it. After an hour of her help a new screen popped up on the screen flashing on and off from APPLE warning that my computer has been compromised. Oh no! Suddenly it all made sense. These people are sophisticated hackers who are in the business of stealing from unsuspecting naive dupes like me. I shut the computer off and hung up. I will deal with Norton another way.

I had to leave to drive my wife to a doctors appointment and when we came home I re-started the computer in safe mode. Everything seems to be working and I won’t know if I lost any data until I start looking for files.

What really bothers me is that they used Norton’s logo and made everything seem legit both in the email and while they were helping me. Maybe it was Norton I was speaking to, but I wasn’t taking any chances beyond what I already did.

This is another case for using artificial intelligence in the core of the computer to sort out the thieves. It also points out that companies that rely too heavily on computer automation to replace human contact, and those who hide from telling customers how to unsubscribe, and to get refunds is not really interested in protecting the customer as they are in taking their money. Buying a product like the Norton antivirus takes but a button push to make the transaction. The reverse should be equally easy.

Filed under: Biography, Education | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Dumb Luck, Or An Angel?

Posted on 29/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe

After two days of complaining about Apple and their inability to download an update without scrambling the brain in my computer the solution arrived. I had an understanding boss once who told me to go home and sleep on it, I thought he was nuts. Back then I was struggling to solve a product failure issue. We were selling stick-on clips that wouldn’t stick. I tried every trick I knew, and struck out with everything. I slept on it, and the next day I rushed to work to try an experiment that came to me in a dream. Luckily for me the experiment worked, and I was able to solve the problem. The same thing just happened to me with the idiotic brain scrambling in my Mac. Like most Eureka moments the fix was absolutely simple. Shut off the computer and re-boot in Safe Mode, a menu pops up giving choices for what to do next. Click on “reload the operating system”. This took several hours to do, but now the ugliness in the memory is gone. If only Alzheimer’s was that easy to fix.

However, if the computer was loaded with AI it would have known what to do on its own, and my brain could used it magical powers to send a more pleasurable erotic dream instead of a cheesy computer fix.

Filed under: Biography, Memories | 1 Comment »

A Proposal to Big Tech

Posted on 28/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe

This week I posted about the way my desk top computer had its brain scrambled with updates. Today, I propose a way to fix the problem forever.

Nearly everyday we hear about the virtues of Artificial Intelligence (AI). My proposal is this; instead of using AI to displace humans from the work force, how about we build AI into every computer on earth. The majority of us would love it. Think of the jobs displaced from the software and hardware industries to use their human brains to solve problems like curing cancer, and transgenderism. Adding AI to my computer would free me from spending hours unscrambling my computer to learn where the last update hid my pictures.

Now that is a prize winning idea!

Filed under: Biography, Education, Satire | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Hooked on Series

Posted on 28/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe

Two TV programs have sunk their hooks into me and won’t let go. The most recent one I began watching is House of Cards with Kevin Spacey. The story line intrigues me as I want to believe that our Congressmen are not as stupid and conniving as depicted. Because I love conspiracy theories this program gets my attention because it deals with behind the scene activity of our Congress. It highlights the politics of getting bills passed. More than that it highlights the amount of back stabbing and favor trading that goes on between congressmen. Spacey uses the trick of giving “asides” where he looks directly at the audience and explains what is going on in his mind during dialogues with colleagues in negotiations.

The second most watched series is New Amsterdam a story about New York City’s first hospital which treats all people. The theme is definitely pro-socialist medicine. What saves the show is the main character who is played by actor Ryan Eggold. He plays the part of Max Reynolds the hospital Director not as a stiff suited administrator but as a scrub attired doctor whose main mission is to help people.

I must admit that I have a penchant for medical drama dating back to Dr. Ben Casey in black and white television days. Maybe it is because I spent a big chunk of my life in hospitals as a patient, a parent, and a spouse.

Max is the perfect example of a positive thinking problem solver, and the writers do an exemplary job coming up with solutions to his many difficult situations. The only thing I don’t like about this series is the emphasis on socialized medicine. The stories are usually balanced between the staff wanting to help everybody against the Board of Directors who seem to only care about cost and payment.

Also, within the characters there seems to be an inordinate population of home-sexual medical staff whose personal relationships become the story. The program also highlights the difficulties encountered by hospitals during the COVID pandemic. The entire staff suffers from PTSD, and battle fatigue. Another theme that they do an excellent job with is addiction.

At third place is a program called “The Blacklist” with James Spader as notorious most wanted by the FBI character Raymond Reddington. The entire premise of this series is preposterous and unbelievable. First the most wanted criminal lives within the country yet never gets caught, second because the same criminal is partnered with the FBI in a special mission to catch criminals. Usually, the criminals on the black list are creative entrepreneurs who exist to aide other criminals. The series lacks imagination when it comes to story telling. Each episode is played off a standard outline and the entire story seems to be solved in minutes. The cast has some interesting characters such as the computer, internet expert Aram Mojtabai who can find information on anybody seemingly within seconds.

Filed under: Arts, Biography, Fiction, health care | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

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