Monthly Archives: December 2022

Meet George Jetson

July 31, 2022 is the recorded birthdate of George Jetson. Don’t believe me, George has a Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Jetson, in his future are his wife Jane, daughter Judy, son Elroy and dog Leroy.

The fictional birth of George Jetson must mean that the future is here or at just around the corner. Need some proof? Look at what we’ve got going in 2022. We have advances in science and tech are affecting our everyday lives for the better and the worse. For the good (?) and the music we listen to and the TV we watch algorithms are starting to make it easier for us to find other ‘similar’ tastes in entertainment. For the ‘worse’ the tickets we want to buy are being grabbed by bots and trolls beating us mere humans to the ticket box check out.

In 2022 there were other advances in technology and AI that may have reverberating effects on our lives. Here are three examples.

Remember when Google glasses first came out in 2014? They looked like you had attached a small camera to your glasses and that you might be spying on people rather than having a a world of information displayed on your lens. In 2022 Google glasses have evolved into tools to be used every day. While this is still in the concept stage I can see where these come in handy very soon. Here is more, https://thegadgetflow.com/portfolio/google-ar-glasses-are-a-conceptual-wearable-that-translates-for-you-in-real-time/.

Autonomous vehicles are here and will impact us all more than we might have thought. In 2016 , the Ontario government started a 10-year pilot program of testing automated vehicles. The government has engaged with more that 300 companies in their efforts t develop the technology and make it safe. The Automated (AV) and Connected Vehicle (CV) revolution took huge steps 2022. Loblaws is now engaging AV for delivery of groceries to your home, all taking place in the GTA. To help in this evolution the City of Toronto been mapping out the city with an AV Cartographer, https://driving.ca/car-culture/auto-tech/mapping-the-future-of-torontos-autonomous-vehicles. This is much more than seeing the Google Maps car driving in your to record neighbourhood.

Most noise made in the latter half of the year belonged to ChatGPT. Now I could try to explain what it is, but I’ll leave it to the ChatGPT AI. I asked ChatGPT to describe what it was. Here is the response I received:

“ChatGPT is a variant of the GPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) language model that was specifically designed to generate human-like text for chatbot applications. It was developed by OpenAI, a research organization that focuses on developing and promoting friendly artificial intelligence.

Like other language models, ChatGPT is trained on a large dataset of text and uses machine learning algorithms to generate text that is similar to the input it has been trained on. However, ChatGPT has been specifically designed to generate text that is suitable for chatbot applications, meaning that it is able to generate responses that are more conversational and appropriate for use in chat conversations.

To use ChatGPT, you can input a prompt or question and the model will generate a response based on its training data. This response can then be used as a chatbot’s response to a user’s input, allowing you to build a chatbot that is able to generate human-like responses to user input in real-time.

Overall, ChatGPT is a powerful tool for building chatbots that are able to generate human-like responses and engage in natural, conversational interactions with users.”

Make sense? Will ChatGPT be the end of the need for writers? I don’t know if I want to answer that, but it certainly is being talked about. The Hub, The Munk Friday Focus and The Hurle Berly are just a few podcasts that have mentioned and even used OpenAI to write opening their opening lines. Around here we tried it to compose a letter of resignation, a letter of sympathy and other requests. The technology is above my paygrade, so I’ll just drop a couple of links for you to explore: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/why-everyones-obsessed-with-chatgpt-a-mind-blowing-ai-chatbot/ and a link to the podcast Front burner with a good take on ChatGPT and other AI taking the world by storm: http://bit.ly/3YWfJ64. Needless to say, I think CharGPT is big, maybe it will be so big that government will need to get involved.

We should keep in mind that as much as many things in our life will be challenged by AI and automation, we like George Jetson still need to live for the humans in our lives. If we forget this and allow AI to completely control our lives, we may find ourselves quoting George Jetson, “Jane, stop this crazy thing!”

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I won’t finish another book in 2022

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That’s it, I won’t finish another book in 2022.

I started John Irving’s latest, “The Last Chairlift”, however there is no way I will get through the almost 900 pages before December 31^st.

My 2022 book read list ends at 27, that is up from 25 in 2021, here are the highlights of my reads.

I started my year in books with David Grohl’s “The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music”, his take on his life and how he has lived a life in music. While music is his life, it’s the life he has lead that allowed him to have the career in music. Grohl talks a lot about Taylor Hawkins and the brotherhood the two drummers had. I wonder how Grohl would have remembered Hawkins in words if the book was released after Hawkins death in March of this year. A must read for musicians and fans of music.

2022 was the year I picked up David Balducci’s Camel Club Series, I completed the first four in the series and have book #5 “Divine Justice” in my waiting to be read pile. It’s fast paced and entertaining, highly recommended from this reader.

The most fascinating book I read was Michael Hill’s “The Lost Prime Ministers”. The book covers the years of 1891 to 1896 where Sir John A MacDonald and Sir Wilfred Laurier are bookends to the stories of John Abbott, John Thompson, MacKenzie Bowell and Charles Tupper all served as Prime Ministers of Canada after the dead of SJAM. How each became PM is a story on its own, but the collective story of how leaders were once selected is full of political and back room games. I recommend this to anyone interested in our political history.

Moving along to political fiction, three books make the highlight reel. On the Canadian front it was Wayne Johnston’s fictional account of Joey Smallwood’s rise to Prime Minister and then Premier of Newfoundland in “The Colony of Unrequited Dreams”. First published 1998, though it is fiction, I somehow felt the novel turned more on the historical than the fictional.

I read solid books by Hilary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton. Each was aided by a well-known author, Louise Penny (Hilary) and James Patterson (Bill) to deliver a realistic stories that could have come from the world of cable news networks. They were great to escape to knowing the world was still safe by the final word.

My quirkiest book was S.J. Bennett’s “The Queens Men”, her second novel that follows HRH Elizabeth II as a murder solving sleuth. Like the first book “The Winsor Knot” Bennett weaves a tale with as many character as there are servants in the palace and has HRH puts the the pieces together once again. I wonder though if Bennett will continue with the series. I certainly hope so.

I heard Brian Goldman talk about the “The Power of Teamwork” on a podcast long before I read the book. It was an eye-opening account of the challenges of our present-day healthcare and presented creative solutions through unique teamwork and education exercises and seminars of medical and cultural professionals in North America. There is a lot to digest here, but “The Power of Teamwork” present the many out of the box solutions that lead to better teamwork which leads to better care. Our healthcare needs a big fix, “The Power of Teamwork” shows that it’s not necessarily one big idea that will fix healthcare but the accumulation of many great little fixes. This was the most interesting book I read this year.

My best fiction read was no disappointment, Amors Towles delivered “The Lincoln Highway” as the follow up to the “Gentleman of Moscow”. Towles brought us another great story that was hard to to put down. Like the “Gentleman of Moscow”, “The Lincoln Highway” delivered the twists that came back to deliver the ending we should have anticipated. I’ve said it before about reading Towles, remember the details because they will come back! The only disappointment about finishing “The Lincoln Highway” is the wait for the next novel, announced by Towles which will start in 1940 Cairo and finish in 1999 New York. No publish date was given.

Finally, the book that took the longest to read, Yuval Noah Harai’s “21 Lessons for the 21^st Century”. I started this last December – yes, December of 2021, for whatever reason it just seemed like too much. I had seen all the hype and reviews however it really seemed like too much. I went back to this in October and took the same approach to “21 Lesson” as you take to eating an elephant – one bite at a time, only with this, it was one lesson at a time. 21 Lessons makes sense, it should make sense to everyone, but only if the reader is ready. I wasn’t ready last December but was in October. I am glad I didn’t give up entirely on it.

I haven’t set any goals for 2023, though happiness would be finishing 28 books in the year.

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The ‘Thud” heard across Ottawa

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I will quote Ottawa Centre NDP MPP Joel Harden for only the second time in my life here. In his weekly email to Ottawa Centre he writes “a loud thud was heard across Ontario. The final report of the Ottawa Light Rail Commission dropped, and it hit the table hard”.

The sad thing is the main characters of the report were nowhere near the table. Former Mayor Jim Watson, recently resigned City Manager Jim Kanellakos and longer retired OC Transpo Head John Maconi are all gone and unlikely to be seen near City Hall any time soon.

Transit Committee Chair Alan Hubley is all that remains, and there doesn’t seem to be much responsibility to hang onto him. Nothing I’ve seen links the troubles to Councillor Hubley, though that didn’t stop former Councillor Diane Deans from asking for his resignation. To be fair to Hubley his time as Transit Commission Chair only covered the final construction and testing. There isn’t evidence, again that I have seen, that Watson, Kanellakos or Maconi ever confided in Hubley or that Hubley had much say in how the project was managed.

Questions remain including, will Jim Watson comment on the report and will he be apologetic or defensive? Who will lead the work needed to address and implement the 103 recommendations in the report? What are the costs to implement some of the recommendations? How does this report affect the 2023 City of Ottawa budget? What does this mean for LRT Phase Three and will the Provincial and Federal governments be more hesitant to commit to Phase Three?

There has been some terrific reporting on this report, CBC Ottawa’s Joanne Chianello has written very comprehensively on this, writing just about as many pages on the report that are in the report. You can catch all she’s said on the report on Twitter at @jchianello.

Really the only people speaking about the report are former Mayors O’Brien and Chiarelli and they didn’t mince words when CityNews Sam Laprade spoke to them (https://ottawa.citynews.ca/local-news/listen-former-ottawa-mayors-discuss-lrt-report-6190568).

There remains the questions of OC Transpo’s bus system, these are being overshadowed by this LRT report, some of the issues with the bus system are because of the LRT and the cuts in local bus service. Reduced service has caused waits for riders, fewer buses serving local neighbourhoods. This report has put more speed bumps on the road for recovery for the buses being run by OC Transpo.

Some may have called for the report to come earlier, some wanted it to be released prior to the Ottawa municipal election, but timing is good for the city to take the steps needed to fix the system – but at a cost that must be found. The blank slate the council has is helpful, so far only Mayor Sutcliffe has commented on the report stating that he will work with the new council to implement key recommendations. Sutcliffe’s pledge for transparency and collaboration in the end may save whatever future LRT Phase Three has.

There is alot to follow on this, the recovery is going to be months and years into this council’s four year term. I hope the work will be a shining example of a collabotative council rather than the spotlight of a dvided and split council of the previous term..

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