I’ve had to be a technical author on several occasions. I don’t mind it. In fact I kind of like some aspects of it. Like reading all the technical data on the subject at hand, then distilling it down into an easy-to-follow step-by-step format. I sometimes play around with the text, if I have time. Tweak this bit or that. Make a sentence or paragraph read better, to be more clear, or to say the same thing with less words. Concise.
It’s usually under-appreciated though. Your target audience just wants the bare facts. The how to information as fast as possible. They don’t care about how you do it, only that you have, and that anyone can follow it.
Sigh.
The joy of writing manuals.
Category: technology
Drop a pin
Drop me a pin.
A what?
A young’un asked me to drop them a pin. To let them know where I am. I should know how to do that, but I don’t.
Maybe you have to go to maps and get your current location and then share it? Seems arduous. Must be a faster way. I could ask how but then I’d have to admit to the circle of life coming true. Like me showing my dad how to program the VCR. Geez, VCRs, how old am I?
Old enough to not know how to drop a pin apparently.
Free WiFi
I’m at the beach staring out to sea. The sun is high, the tide is out, and I’m relaxed.
I glance around and spot a sign on a nearby pole. Free WiFi.
The local council is providing free WiFi for anyone that wants it.
How safe is public WiFi? I’m guessing not very. I Don’t connect. I’m fine with my data plan. I don’t need to save the bytes.
If I did I’d probably use a VPN. And then I couldn’t do any financial transactions over it. Too paranoid.
How secure is free WiFi?
I don’t plan on finding out. Instead I look back out to sea watching the boats on the horizon. I wonder if they have WiFi?
Zero results found
Back in the early days of the internet there was a game we played with Google, where we would try to search for something that would return no results. We would do this on purpose. As more and more data made its way onto the internet it became harder and harder to find something that returned zero results, or even just a single result.
These days it’s practically impossible. Google will always return something, even if it’s just a page of sponsored links. And now there’s AI adding content to the results of your search.
So much data. Zero results.
Downdetector
I received a call from my sister. Her internet isn’t working. Do I know what the problem is?
My mother sends me a message. Her friend can’t make or receive calls or texts on her mobile. Any ideas?
A friend shoots me a quick text. He can’t watch his favourite show as the streaming service it airs on isn’t working. Can I look into it?
Downdetector.
That’s all I use on such occasions. I Don’t even have to fire up Google as it’s bookmarked. I used it so often.
Yep I reply. The service is down.
I come off sounding like an expert. Within seconds the world makes sense again. The problem isn’t resolved, but just having the validation that it isn’t something they’ve done is enough.
Thanks. I knew you’d know they reply.
Good old downdetector.
Card declined
Card declined.
I’m at the drive-thru window trying to tap my card but it’s declined. Not authorised. Payment method not accepted.
I try another. Declined.
I’m out of cards. I’m sorry but I only have the two. I’m not one of those people with a bulging wallet of plastic, unloyal to any one high street bank. I scrambled around my vehicle hunting for spare change. I have just enough for the over-priced beverage.
“Don’t worry” she says. “It’s been happening all morning”.
Interesting. So chances are it isn’t the fault of either of my banks, but a problem with the common payment system between them and the coffee franchise, or the franchise’s own IT system.
I find it amusing that places like this particular coffee franchise prefer cash, yet cash is still king. It doesn’t need patching or rebooting. It’s accepted almost everywhere. Especially when the IT system plays up.
Daisy-chaining AI
I heard about this guy who was daisy-chaining AI. He was using one AI to refine prompts for another, then feeding the results into another AI for analysis and further refinement until he had a prompt that perfectly gave him the results he wanted.
I started digging around YouTube and found other instances of this practice. Someone was using ChatGPT to refine prompts for image and video generating AIs, then feeding the output into a prompt analysis tool for further refinement before feeding back into the image and video generators. It was a cyclic process that they kept at until they had something that looked very real.
The prompts were really long and descriptive. Naming the equipment, context, and styles in great detail. Whereas the prompts I’ve used to date contain less than thirty words, some of these prompts would fill the first chapter of most books. For a human to create these prompts would take a long time, but using AI it was taking minutes.
I hadn’t thought of using AI with AI.
AI allows you to release your inner diva
You can’t sing. You can’t play any musical instrument. Yet you know there’s a great song inside you just waiting to get out.
Cue AI. Giving you the ability to make great music even if you can’t sing or play an instrument. Just tell it what you want to create then refine refine refine until it matches what’s in your head.
AI: the new lip sync and air guitar hero x10.
Release your inner diva.
Searching for the human touch
There seems to be too much AI content. It was fun and interesting at first but the algorithms watched me consume AI content and now that’s all they seem to send my way.
On Spotify I can now identify an AI-generated music track within the first few seconds of hearing the vocals. It’s like the early days of in-car navigation systems: only a few voices were available. The few variations of male and female voices offered allows you to spot the AI singer with ease. I’m now trying to train the playlist AI to not offer AI content.
On Instagram it’s getting harder to spot the AI generated images from the real. They’ve now mastered fingers and toes and general biology. You now have to look at the shadows, facial expressions, eyes, and the overall feel of the image. Does it look too glossy? If yes, is it a filter? Also look for perfection. Perfect skin tone and musculature in every pose screams fake or manipulation. It is getting harder to tell what is real. Welcome to the Matrix.
There’s even AI videos, including short films, news articles, white papers, and podcasts all generated by AI. Ok it was cool at first but I find myself having to hunt for genuine human created content. I look for typos, grammatical errors, and human prose. I actively go out of my way to avoid AI content. Enough is enough! I want to consume something real, created with passion, interest, and human creativity.
I’m searching for the human touch.
Vehicle tracking
I grew up in an area where car crime was rife. I even had my own car stolen once. Friends with nice cars would purchase GPS trackers so that if their car was stolen they would hopefully be able to find it. Assuming the thief hadn’t removed the tracker that is.
I wasn’t sure how today’s car trackers worked. The technology has probably moved on a bit so I started doing some light reading.
Essentially they make use of GPS to track their current location, utilising storage to record their location against time. Some devices can store additional information such as engine start and stop times, speed, electronics operation such as lights, windows, radio, etc. This data can then be accessed when a car returns to base or by being transmitted via a communication method such as via a wireless network when near a specific base station or other cellular communications. The devices may be self-powered via a battery or hook into the vehicle’s electrics in order to receive power from the car battery. Some may use their own battery when the car is turned off and charge from the car battery when the car is operational.
The vehicle owner can access the data from the tracker in near real time via a web site or app. Depending on the device and features offered it can report nothing more than current location to location, speed, and car telematics.
Vehicle tracking is popular among vehicle rental companies, fleet management, and security vehicle companies such as those offering to transport money, valuables or people.
Trackers that feature GPS and recording only are referred to as passive devices. They need to be accessed physically in order to access the recorded data. Active devices can transmit data using cellular or satellite communications and do not require physical access.
Commercial trackers come in various shapes and sizes and range from cheap passive models that connect to the car battery, to those that try to disguise themselves as part of the car and utilise active technology to broadcast their position and other data in near real time or whenever they have a strong enough signal. They tend to be waterproof and dust proof, may be made of a heat-proof material, especially if residing in the engine compartment, and may have no discernable markings to identify themselves as a tracking device.
Other types of tracker may also be used such as an asset tracker. These can be in the form of adhesive stickers that can be stuck to a car’s windshield, or tiles that can be left in the glove box or other storage area of the vehicle. These are relatively cheap and are harder for a potential thief to locate.