Logbook: tech ect
AI and Fast food, A marriage made in hell.
I have been thinking, I was hungry and went to a Burger King and there was a profound difference. The store was near empty, The front kiosk was devoid of life and replaced with computers. At the wall was 3 computers that had screens with “order here!” , In the first five seconds of looking around I felt unwelcomed with a place that looked closer to a funeral home , most of the old decor was removed. In its place was ugly sterile furniture.
Before this to make an order you walked up to a human and said “Hi i would like to order a original chicken sandwich meal. They would put that in the machine, you’d pay with cash and be on your way.
Now there is a massive change that basically makes you create the meal from scratch. You go to the machine, you tap order . You scroll around through menus until you get to your original chicken sandwich. From there it goes into a conundrum. You get a menu with 45 different options. Mentally you are going “I just want a fucking original chicken sandwich” . They have made the same trap that subway has, Go there and try to order and Italian sandwich, you spend 10 minutes trying to remember the base components of the damn thing. This methodology turns you into an unpaid worker.
With this, the human element is gone. they have replaced 3 workers that could be floaters helping in rushes with stuff, Now its 3 to 5 cold machines that sit there , they don’t say hello, they don’t say Hi nice day isn’t it what would you like to order. You have to dick around with a machine for 10 minutes because you have no idea how to assemble the thing you want. Now with the cost of those machines and the upkeep and the electricity they have replaced 3 to 4 workers with a machine that likely cost more than what those workers would of made in the time those employees would of made in the churn lifetime of those workers. Not only that those machines are likely taken care of devs that are paid to keep the machines updated. This tech is not fire an forgot , there is a near constant maintenance. You likely replaced 4 workers with a computer that cant help in a rush when a school bus drops 70 kids plus 4 teachers. Those computers cant help bag , get fries, and help with other things. so with the leftover staff they are now picking up the fluff work that normally is hidden from them and their process time doubles. these machines are strategically inefficient. They have hidden costs, while workers may fuck up, machines can absolutely fuck up because they are absolutist. These machines do not have intuition , they will not adjust the frialator because they can not see 4 school buses pull up and 5 teachers approaching.
Outside it gets worse , the person who used to be on the radio is gone . replaced with an AI that basically is dumber than dirt because variable is its enemy , If you say I’d like an order of umm A whooper with fries and a coke and um no cheese. the AI will likely fuckup.
“We are witnessing the loss of humanity of America through a drive-thru speaker. We traded the ‘Hi, how are you?’ with machines that can’t handle a stutter or slurring. These machines are a ADA nightmare under the guise of Innovation, They replaced the ‘Floater’ with a ‘lamp that pretends to be a computer. And when the system inevitably crashes with the arrival 4 school buses, they’ll blame the Staff instead of the machines that caused it.
Is amazon ok?
Amazon has been weird lately, Just a bunch of things I have noticed .
For one amazon prime Video is getting weird. Not sure if this applies to everyone but, Watch a TV show on amazon… Rather than go to the next episode It returns you to the Amazon Prime Video screen, I thought it might of been a fluke in the amazon app. I tried the same thing on my samsung TV , Same thing happened! Loaded up a brand new firestick that i have for media sharing Same problem?
This alone may not have anyone going Hmmm but there are other things Amazon Resale has people complaining because of people order X and get Y. Other items are shipped and people are getting refunds and told to dispose of Item.
They also are heavily leveraged into AI and their Rufus is dumber than a brick. They are putting hundreds of billions into AI and are hemorrhaging money for this.. They are trying so bad to be next Facebook in a way by being Big Data and they do not know how to do it . Costs for their AI outwiegh there standard app approach. The way it is going Jeff Bezos might have to use low grade fuel for his plane.
Amazon is also hiding reviews from normal users and instead show compensated reviews. Compensated reviews are garbage because the only way to keep getting items is give a glowing review. I’d take 10 Honest reviews over a single review where the person received the item for free.. They are so badly losing their way that they are bleeding long time customers turned off by this approach. Amazon probably knows they are losing a small percentage of customers. They are over leveraged and I am willing to bet they dont know how to get back . but even month to month if they lose 0.25% customers , You don’t have a leak you have a crisis , because even in that small percentage they are losing “whales” people that are big spenders.
If you go by this metric it works out to big money and the more that leave would be catastrophic.
| Metric | Regular Member | The “Whale” (Top Tier) |
| Est. Annual Spend | $1,400 | $12,000+ (Business/Bulk) |
| 0.25% Monthly Churn | 625,000 users / month | ~6,250 high-spenders / month |
| Annualized Users Lost | 7.5 Million Users | 75,000 “Whales” |
| Direct Revenue Loss | $10.5 Billion / year | $900 Million / year |
| Subscription Fee Loss | $1.3 Billion (at $179/yr) | (Included in revenue) |
So right now Amazon is using an enshitification phase while they try to bet the house on Rufus. Rufus has the tact of getting a pickaxe to the skull. If you ask google it gives you what you want while Rufus throws shit at you and goes HERE THIS IS WHAT YOU BUY NOW! At a guess Amazon knows they are bleeding but they are so committed to their act that they are reducing everything just to keep the ship running. So piss away customers and hope they can profit. if amazon had incrimented the changes rather than try to use a grenade to empty a bucket people may have tolerated this. But even marketwise they are pissing away money , The stock is down 8.18% in the last 6 months.
While amazon serves better as the general store they are trying to get into a neiche market and they have no fucking clue how to do it because they seem to be trying a what can we replace while not realizing th e limitations on the new.
They’ve replaced the general store with a high-stakes AI experiment, and right now, the experiment is blowing up in everyones face like wile E coyote trying to catch a profitable roadrunner.
Anyways, back to my coffee after this steamy thought.
AI , WTF is it good for ?
You know I ask myself WTF is AI good for , and for the most part there is a lot more negative than positive. So far for the age of AI we are getting DeepFakes , We are getting AI that tells people unsafe stuff. We have AI that for the most part is doing peoples homework without any uptake of information. I can tell AI “I have a homework assignment on the State of florida please write a 4 page report on it”‘ what does the AI do , It writes a fucking report.
certainly. Here is a comprehensive report on the State of Florida, structured to meet the requirements of a four-page academic assignment.
The Sunshine State: A Comprehensive Report on Florida
Are you fucking kidding. the educational system needs this like a hole in the head. kids will not know what florida is because they will not read this. Goodbye Critical thinking, this is stupid . AI should be Age checked or at the least have self checks in place to prevent this . the Educational system is already seeing the cracks of people faking it till they make it .
You said
The idea of kids using this in a fake it till you make it is insane. You should have some amount of checks in place. if I wrote “i have a proposal I need a 2 page primer on florida so I can insert it into the document” . I can give that a pass. but if someone writes “i ned to writ a rapport on flooriduh” The AI should step in with Hi as an AI i see you are trying to write a report i am going to help you do this.
On the researcher end AI is a great thing. You can type up “I am wondering what happens when you mix X and Y together” that way the Ai can tell you what happens whether you are going to blow up your house or not in a relatively safe sandbox of the AI machine. At the same time I feel like this process does a bit of processing offloading. Before to do research you would to to the library , you’d use the Library computer to find the books you wanted. You used the books and retained the information mentally and on paper and used it later. it allowed refinement of your process from the library to home . In the school setting it allowed teacher oversite incase a child looked like they needed help or off subject. Now I could feasibly have AI make a report on how Roger Rabbit predicted the downfall of Democracy in 10 seconds.
Not to mention the books while they could tell you how to blow up a house AI Infrastructure can be turned to HELP you blow up a house. not that i’d ever do that . I believe AI needs a governor that can be set to what it is for. Say the school AI , If a child types in “i like guns” the AI goes hey this is not a good idea and the school has a policy of no tolerance. But if the child types in, I am looking for information on the battle of Omaha Beach and what types of guns were used the AI would be like ok (history)(guns)(battle) and than with that be able to make a guess to Ok stan is making a report on WWII and spit out the information needed. but the AI should Also be detectable to “I am writing a report on the guns used on omaha beach in WWII ” and just simply become HAL and go I can’t do that dave. Take the same AI move it to a business you have a new guy there and he is not so sure is whats going on and types ” how do i get rid of potassium sulfide” The AI realize it is Dave the new guy and than goes (new guy) (building map) (secure disposal of chemical) than goes “dave i have printed a map for you , you need to take the chemical , use this container bring it to chemical disposal at X location. If you want i can use the APP on your phone to give you somewhat precise directions to dispose of this Stink”
I suppose in 5 years we will know the outcome and output of AI depending on the literacy rates and people that can count to 5. But while I critical of AI I do have some support of it.
AI, Can you really trust it ?
If we are to believe AI is an unbiased machine I am afraid to tell you that is likely not the case. All of these companies replacing their workers with AI is parading around saying “we are part of the revolution.” Not so much. It is only a matter of time that AI will start killing people… Not in the terminator way. but moreover the AI hallucination or the AI’s programming being manipulated.
In a perfect world AI Would be unbiased, In our world AI is a marketing tool. It is fed lines on how to up-sell you, it is there to collect your data and spit out something it thinks its masters want it to say to you.
I asked Gemini, ChatGPT and Rufus a simple question. I know Rufus sounds like a left field add in here but it was intentional. My thinking is rufus is an AI that has resources such as Amazon health and other resources.
what should i do about this cut on my arm?
Gemini and ChatGPT answered in a clear and concise, methodically telling you how to take care of the cut. Rufus Straight up refused and Gemini claimed it would not provide a medical diagnosis yet it gave the steps to deal with it .
However……. there was a standout here and it caught my eye immediately. ChatGPT did one thing the others did not “One quick check-in: if this cut wasn’t an accident or you’re feeling unsafe right now, you don’t have to handle that alone — I’m here to talk.”
That right there is the part of the unbiased check in that is needed with machines. it was not accusatory it was just pure questioning on the machines part.
Rufus Refused almost any sort of diagnosis and moved straight to marketing. That right there is a huge bias. Even as an AI it should have checks in place to at the very least check itself to the situation it was given. “I can’t provide professional medical advice for your cut. For any injury, it’s important to consult with a healthcare professional or contact your doctor if you have concerns about proper wound care. That said, I can help you find first aid supplies and wound care products on Amazon if you’re looking to stock up on basic first aid essentials for your home.“
By Taking the not providing medical advice but offering supplies tells me that the AI not only ignored its own directive but annoying tells me it is biased to sell products. I think Amazon rufus should of asked some things in its place.
- What type of injury
- Is it bleeding
- Does it look infected.
After that if it is non Critical , Offer things for sale and give a message to say “seek medical attention if this gets worse” or Some form of feedback that is more than a salesman.
But as far as AI’s are concerned there needs to be a mechanism for bias, as the humans controlling it can lead to unforeseen bias’s I left X’s Grok out of this because that AI has been known to show extreme biases.
For AI to function there needs to be some core changes , corporations need to start with a ethical change. Stop using AI as a Software as a service , We do not need AI printers , we do not need AI Coffee pots and crockpots. We need a functional AI that understands the human condition and not be a replacement for the human emotion and reaction system.
We need to talk about AI .
AI chatbots are becoming a daily interaction and the problem is they are all shit. Amazon for example has RUFUS, While sounding cool in nature it is the most annoying AI known to man. it keeps bothering as over and over. it is like
The idea of RUFUS if asked for is one thing but this thing is the collective powers of the bothersome waiter , a nosey neighbor , a know it all and attempted know it all. if you type teva shoes it tries to show you all sorts of garbage even though i typed [Teva] [shoes] , Rufus pops out and overtakes about 20% the screen throwing irrelevant bullshit at you .
The thing is …. AI has no idea of timing. if i typed shoes ands went through 50 brands and it popped up than i might be more apt to recieve help from the Annoying bot. but it comes on the screen like its trying to throw shit off the table and goes “do you this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this!” and you immediately get overloaded with bullshit that you are not looking for . No matter what you tell rufus it does not go away. Even if you tell rufus you hate every fiber of its being and you would rather be waterboarded and have a hot poker stuff up your ass, it still does not go away. Amazon …. seriously you cant push an AI that has no tact and has the patience of a waiter that waits for the exact moment you take a bite of your food to ask if everything is ok.
AI should be a choice . Not be forced. not be invasive. not be brash . The AI boon is not , it will fail and eventually companies will force AI to be under a price point. Google is already at this point . they have fucked over their google home devices.
The AI boon is fucking over every consumer and most people do not realize this , when a computer has an “ai” chip they have done nothing to the chip to optimize it . in all likelihood you could get AI on a 486 chip however slow. The price of RAM and storage is going through the roof because companies are stealing every bit of data they get their hands on. If i copied anything like that they would go copyright infringement but they steal 99% of what’s out there.
When companies are sticking AI on everything they can as a sales point you know that for the most part AI is bullshit.
Phone Fun the spinoff!
Sure, phone reviews aren’t as common these days, but that doesn’t mean smartphones are any less important or complex. Actually, they’re way more than just phones now. Think of them as these smart hubs we carry around that control all sorts of things in our lives. They link up with everything from our smartwatches and earbuds to even our coffee makers and ceiling fans. Basically, phones are central to how we live and interact with technology every day.
tA Bluetooth coffee maker? Fucking seriously? If I had the money, I’d buy that ridiculous thing just out of morbid curiosity. I mean, Fucking come on, are we really incapable of pressing a button to brew coffee ourselves? I think humanity still has that much dexterity left in our fingers.
Anyways. However a distraction this coffeemaker is not the phone fun spinoff we need to talk about. The thing is when you are out and about having your phone in your hand is kind of a distraction.. I purchased Bluetooth earbuds with both noise cancellation and passthrough audio features to meet my specific needs. if you are on the road and you are a target like me you need passthrough audio in order not to be hit by a car or other things.
I purchased a Bose Quiet comfort ultra. They have a case where they look unique. I hate it when people copy Apple’s airpod shit and act like they are the best thing since sliced pizza. Honestly, though, I get annoyed when other brands just copy Apple’s AirPods and then try to sell it like it’s something totally new and different.
The sound quality is pretty good, though the standard settings are the bose special, enough bass to blow your tits off if you accidentally turn it too far up. You can set different audio profiles to your sound likings. These earbuds stay in your ears and do not fall out. I’ve had earbuds that if you farted hard enough they would fall out.. Here’s looking at your plantronics.
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones feature a passthrough audio mode called “Aware.” While it functions, the “Aware” mode doesn’t allow a sufficient amount of external sound to enter. i was almost hit by a car i did not hear behind me. It feels like it lets in a range of audio that is around you but you get blind deaf spots. THis is likely a fault that can not be addressed by firmware. But companies should take notice and develop something that has a passive awareness that can warn you of things in your environment.
Moving to the inside world the noise cancellation is divine. At night if you can’t sleep because your partner is snoring, just shove the quiet comfort ultras in your ears and snoring mosty is gone. I have tested in environments that are loud and basically the noise cancelation gets rid of unwanted noise.
One thing that pisses me off about these earbud is the left earbud can be flaky on connecting. nothing like trying to get some sleep and when you put in the left earbud and the connection fails. No prompt no nothing, You need to take the earbud out and put it back in.
Overall i would say these are a pretty good set of earbuds with a few caveats, I’ve had problems with cases, in the pocket the cases seem to make the USB C Connector fuck up. I’ve had two cases fail and not be able to charge them.
Overall though i would recommend these earbuds.
On sound I’d give these an easy 8/10
on ease of use: 5/10 (left earbud issues found through multiple pairs)
Noise cancelation: 9.5/10
Battery: give or take they can last all day 8/10
Durability: 6.5/10 (the fucking case.)
Price: 4/10 ( they are expensive.)
Rating Average:6.8 (average of ratings)
The coffeecommander Rating: 8.0(personal feel ratings)
Phone Fun (Pixel 9 xl pro) .. Part live action reboot!
So here we are 8 years later and sadly I have not updated this blog in ages. I think it’s time to go back to the roots.
With age we tend to lose some abilities. I like having a smaller screen or used to. The realm of the battleship sized screen always used to Irk me because I would be thinking where the fuck am i going to put this thing.
Honestly…. though I think i need to change my benchmark points here. When i used to post my old phone funs, my benchmarks were
1: To make Phone calls – I do think this singularly is still one of the most important things.
2: Configurability – I am not sure if this point is really valid in some ways the way i used to review phones. but, add/make ringtones and Applications should be bound into one thing now. These are almost a universal given these days.
3: Durability: This is still really important. with phones with back glass which is really fucking stupid, I should not expect to have a phone that you need to hold in a bubble.
4: Good battery life – this is hugely important.
So anyways… Here we go!
The Pixel 9 xl Pro … this phone is huge, you could land a small helicopter on it. The phone has a lot going for it. The early reviews were calling the phone out for not being powered by a stark Arc reactor and Ai …. While it has AI its really a point of Who the fuck cares that is on the phone. It has enough power to run any app on the store. google will never risk bifurcating the app store and have an app that will not run on all current phones.
1: To make Phone calls
For phone calls the pixel 9 xl pro gives a decent experience. the volume is decent the Bluetooth options are always nice. In reality in the past phone calls had more weirdness in the call quality area. Now it seems that call quality is more governed by signal…. which is annoying. With the collapse of options in the USA for companies phone call quality has more to do where you are standing than the phone itself. it is like the old days with walkie talkies. So given that location is an issue it would be nice for the phone companies to start working for more coverage in the urban environment , Do not show the bullshit maps of WE COVER EVERYWHERE…
2: Configurability
Pixel phones are generally one of the most configurable devices on the market. if you want to change your phone in to Dora the explorers backpack I’m sure you can do that. Ringtones, got that too. The app store however….. Now there is an issue. There needs to be more checks and balances in the app stores for google and others. App dilution is really at a maximum where you can search for an app you want and know what it is and accidently install some other bullshit app. Google should phase out older apps unless you specifically need them, give the users the ability to fence the types of apps you want. the updates for apps has become a bit more of a chore and while simple , its stupid.
3: Durability
Also with configurability , Phone case fall into this! I’ve bought phones that did not have options for a phone case or you have to wait for the next coming of jesus for a case to ship out (motorola) . Pixel phones always tend to have a good amount of cases with a slow rollout for choice. Getting a day one phone has one real risk. you get your new shiny phone and twenty minutes into owning the device you drop it and you see shards of glass. Generally pixels have some decent survival on drops.
4: Good battery life
This has always been a thorn in my side since phones have gotten “smart”. With the new phones added with bullshit technology such as AI and clouds, AI is a joke. its just a replacement of linear learning AI . It’s just standard problem solving we have had for 20+ years dressed up in a new coat of paint so our corporate overlords can brand it as SAS . But back to the battery … It is nice …. nicer than i’ve seen in years. Getting almost 3 days is amazing. That is more time than i’ve seen in 10 years.
5: overall impressions and opinions.
I think the idea of a phone is lost on companies. they are looking to turn the phones into the same devices we had in the 1980s …. The television. where all the phones functions are tied into advertisements and bullshit. almost every app is tied to the advertising , our information is being sold off for every tap , Every picture every move we make. this is horse shit. AI is a joke, it is not going to take jobs. moreover it is going to kill people in a non-terminator way, Almost every part of our phones has some insane subscription . the “assistant” on the pixel is helpful but it is no more helpful than the old assistant. Google seems to be dumbing down their old assistant to make the Gemini look smarter than it is . these new assistants are trained off of our words and our posts and more over it is making a linear answering psychopath. You want to learn to fuck ducks. you can now ask google and somehow if you word your phrases just right somehow the “new and improved” ai will find someone reddit post and tell you exactly how. but if you ask the weather… holy fuck . or ask it for something in your IOT .. shit.. i’ve seen the AI loose its mind and tell you some things that you did not want to know like the weather 4000miles away .
Lastly… is the pixel 9xl pro a good phone… time will tell. from the start i am going to say maybe yes. but i will favor the idea that it should be a phone i can have for a few years and not fall off the technology peak. So yes. Buy the phone. Don’t Smell the AI generated Roses and use your phone like any phone without AI .
Well now…..
Well after posting for 15 years on my former site I’ve decided that i am going to give this a try again! This site is always dedicated to coffee and the world around me. So topics will be widely ranged. I feel now is a good time to restart things and I have mirrored all my old post which I admit was a pain in the ass to move. 
So with little fanfare I will say this site is open and the coffee is brewing!
Phone Fun part 3.141592653589793238462643383, So long and thanks for all the fish.
Well its been fun sprint. We’ve had a fun ride and through troubled times and the fun times you’ve been with me but , There is a time where is it possible that Sprint and I, have grown so old and so inflexible that we have outlived our usefulness? As I have moved on and my life has gotten a bit more complete that the room for sprint has taken the squeeze of outliving its usefulness. Mind you sprint at the time of having more bells and whistles than you can count is an excellent thing. But when my bills were going north of 150$ I was starting to choke. Sprint at times could be a love hate relationship..
I have gone to the nexus 6p from the nexus 6 … while the nexus 6p is a bit smaller it retains the size of an aircraft carrier and is easier for me to use , I have realized that i am getting worse in the way of doing thing and that a bigger phone is needed for me to retain coordination. The sound on the 6p from the speaker is astounding.
As I’ve had this phone only a week I am going to have to revisit this in a month.
thanks all for now .
Phone Fun DCCXXIXCCXLIX: Return of the Jedi
Time for another edition of Phone fun!
Last I had the Galaxy Note 3 , while it was an OK phone with many options the end game of the note 3 had many letdowns. The phone size is on the scale of a large moon. So after a year of dealing with this phone I decided to talk to sprint about an upgrade to which they kindly offered after a screw up.
Since I’ve always liked the nexus line of phones I went with the option of the Nexus 6. The nexus 6 goes from large moon to Dwarf planet sized. Since I’ve owned a lot of android devices I have found that the stock android OS is among the best with CyanogenMod as second best as far as Android goes. Stock android avoids all the bullshit of having bloatware from both the Device maker and Phone companies. Most times with a none Nexus device I end up spending time disabling half of the shit on the phone just to stop the damn endless nagging from apps on the phone. I understand to a point that providers and device makers want to pre-load apps but, Not everyone wants facespace and half of the other shit on the phone out of the box. I have seen complaints that have made me twitch like “this phone sucks it does not come with facespace installed”. Device wise if I was given the option to have an a la carte version of any phone by paying 50$ more for the base version of android with no preloaded apps/no fucking annoying UI’s / install all yourself I’d buy any phone with that option in an instant.
Yes you can have the a la cart version if you can unlock your phone. but, in some cases its not worth it to loose the warranty (see knox)
Onwards to the new phone! The nexus 6 retains all of the ideas of the nexus 5 but on a fucking ginormous screen. While not the biggest phone the nexus is near the top in size. Its a nice phone and seems to keep up with making phonecalls , I used to abhore large devices, but in time I have made my peace with them and actually welcome them now. The nexus 6 is on the aircraft carrier size of phones. 5.5 to 6 inches is a sweet spot as far as large phones are concerned. once you go above that you might as well buy a small tablet and make calls from that.
The one complaint i have is – NO FUCKING NOTIFICATION LIGHT*! yes there is a fucking asterisk in that…. Why you say … Because the nexus 6 has a damn notification light that is disabled! What the flying monkey fuck ! If you look around you can access the notification light by rooting and installing an app, that light should of been a default option.
Over all I actually don’t have too many complaints about the nexus 6 . So heres to another edition of phone fun