Random bullets of November, a list not generated by AI

• It’s the day before the election, or should I say the descent into the Maelstrom. I have voted, despite the orange man’s now fancifully named “Department of Justice”’s attempts to stop me. I do not read polls at all, ever, since that fateful night in 2016  when the New York Times’s election needle tracker went from Hillary to you-know-who despite all the polls confidently predicting a win. It’s a horse race for them, as Bert Cooper said in Mad Men, and I don’t have time for watching the ruling class gamble on it.
• Our AI overlord Sam Altman declared that we grimy proles should not have access to RAM for our computers; rather, it should be saved for him and for AI, so that we can rent computer access in the cloud at ever-increasing subscription prices and artificial scarcity of access. As Huck Finn famously said, “I’ve been there before,” back 4 decades ago in the days of VAX terminals and expensive desktops—but at least we could still buy them. My old Kaypro may have had limited power compared to today, but it was mine: I owned it and could use it any time. 
• Speaking of AI (and how could I not?): I’m mystified and a little horrified by people using it to do things like choose food for them, but if they can afford it and it entertains them, that’s their choice. I’m still at the “call me when AI can snake out a drain or change a diaper” stage, but others, like that NY Times columnist who uses the AI agent Muse to harass Etsy sellers and those who use it to spam restaurant reservation systems, are apparently forging ahead in this brave new world. I am extremely horrified by the “let’s be friends” AI that is damaging and killing the psychologically vulnerable. 
• AI agents seem like Instacart or UberEats or DoorDash: those must be a valuable monetized service for people who can’t get out to shop on their own (elderly, persons with disabilities, etc.), but if you are able to choose a 3-D world like the grocery store or the farmer’s market or a kitchen to cook in (not everyone has this, I know), I’d choose that. Again, people who use those services must have a lot more money than I do, and it’s their money, so why not? It’s a resources issue: where do you want to put your time and money? We’re all going to make different choices about that. And if you can’t think on your own and choose to outsource your thinking to AI, no one will stop you—until you find no one reading your emails, responding to requests, etc. As one meme has it: “ai;DR” or “ai; didn’t read” instead of “tl:DR” “too long; didn’t read.” 
• I’m trying to be reasonable here and not angry, but do not write with AI and try to pawn it off as your own writing, and do not GRADE writing with AI and try to pawn it off on students. Do not. Do. Not. This semester is all on paper, all the time (purple or green ink for the win) for in-person classes and handwritten and typewritten notes on the iPad for the others. Northern Clime, like other universities, is hearing complaints from students who think their instructors are using AI for grading, and over the weekend I saw one instructor (not from Northern Clime) brag about using some AI grading app to grade all their papers. The same law in reverse applies for them as for us: if you can’t be bothered to read it, why should they be bothered to write it? 
• On a positive note: the fall has been lovely, as have classes, and my writing is moving along.