As a man of science I’m surprised you are not aware that Albert Einstein also proved that all that is required for a shave is warm water.
Unless it’s something that I’m unable/unwilling to carry up The Precipice [6m of elevation up narrow steps from my street door to house door] eg a complete kitchen’s worth of IKEA flat packs and accessories, collecting from a drop-off point is the only way I can be sure I’ll get whatever’s been sent.
The default delivery vehicle is, in Brit vehicle-speak, a Luton
My street has a 1.75m pinch-point just before my house. There’s a sign, complete with a ring of flashing LEDs, warning of this.
The good guys park at the top and walk 150m to my door with the item/s. The bad guys take one look at the sign and drive away. From where I sit I can see them do this!
The good but very stupid guys give it a go anyway. One guy tried and then, backing up, slipping the clutch, burned it out where the lane goes from steep to very steep. Great clouds of smoke and the lane blocked for 24 hrs before the recovery truck turned up.
But it can work out profitably. A battery for my van was shown as delivered but actually wasn’t. As an Amazon purchase, the refund came chop-chop. I bought another from eBay and collected it.
Then, with no prior warning, the original turned up at a collection point some days later. The general public can’t send car batteries in the post so the seller told me to keep it. I sold it today on LBC! €55 for me. A half-price battery for the buyer. Win-win!
Thanks, but - BA Fine Art, MA Fine Art, PhD(RCA) isn’t an ideal education for a man of science…
Despite prior ignorance of Einstein’s theory of relatively uncomfortable shaving (reason he didn’t shave his top lip?) I probably know more about shaving than science
I avoid anything AI-ish because - from what I have seen - it’s likely to have inaccuracies which are difficult to spot. I really don’t see anything useful in the AI-generated material I have seen, and much to dislike.
Sorry to disagree, but I could not have got our gite wired up to our house live box (fibre) in time for our guests this year but for ChatGPT.
The reason why ChatGPT worked for me is that I could go on adding idiot question after idiot question and get really simple, straightforward, non-techie answers back, without any hint of increasing irritation at my continuing stupidity.
The gite (100m away) now has 90mb internet/wifi upload and download.
When our guests came last year they were having to put up with 3mb through the gite’s copper telephone wire and livebox.
There are times when AI is very useful and entirely to be trusted.
Videos and blogs by tech-guys are never ever simple enough for me - within minutes they launch into language and acronyms that I don’t understand. For example POE. What??? I cannot ask a video “what do you mean?” I can ask ChatGPT.
It raises the point about decision makers asking for advice and I think it echoes my experience asking technical people for advice. Ask more than one human for advice and if they give different answers one is going to be hurt (or annoyed) if their advice isn’t taken. I’ve had that with techie friends who sulk when I choose to do something different.
Imagine a Prime Minister asking for advice and then ignoring it! How does that go down I wonder? Look for a variety of inputs from AI and some of them are rejected, the AI doesn’t sulk - unless it is HAL.
I always believe that advice is ‘given’. Once given it no longer belongs to the giver, and the receiver may do or not do with it what he/she wills.
I put this into practice myself quite often in restaurants. I ask for description of the specials and despite a lengthy enthusiastic description, I chose something else. . But I do at least say thank you nicely.
My husband gets very annoyed if I ask his opinion and then don’t follow it
I’ve tried to explain that for me, asking advice is like testing the waters. It’s my choice to swim or not. I’m afraid he feels his word should be my command.
My wife never follows my advice except on adjustments to her paintings.
But I’m sure she goes out of the way to wind me up by doing really daft or dangerous anti-H&S things when cooking. Her speciality is the large chef or santoku knife left on the work-top with the handle sticking out into space. Catch it accidentally and it’ll flip up in the air and come down who knows where.
NB. Not trying to lay the foundations for a future defence argument after my wife has been found dead on the floor with a chef’s knife sticking out of her chest!
. But I do at least say thank you nicely.
