This is why we can't have nice things: work edition

For those who are unaware I primarily make my money as a commercial janitor. I like my job, primarily because it gives me large amounts of time to think about writing, how I want to improve myself, and it keeps me away from the public.

In fact the only thing that really pisses me off about my job is the vacuum situation. The vacuum situation is coworkers poaching the nice vacuums from my buildings when I bring them into the shop to be repaired.

Now I have gone through the minor task of making sure that any vacuum I bring in has a label on it saying which building it's from. The company manager suggested this after the first brand-new vacuum disappeared. This has done nothing to deter the poaching of these vacuums. Now I am actually short one vacuum for the number of buildings I do.

Now I get to go into work and ask my boss where my vacuums are. He's going to tell me to just grab any of the vacuums that are out there and this wouldn't be a real problem if all vacuums were equal. Unfortunately all the vacuums that are left now have two distinct qualities that make them unsuitable for the very large buildings that I work in. 

One for some reason the company has two brands of vacuums. All my buildings had one brand and what is left over at the shop and is of the right size are of another brand. This means that I will not have to collect two different types of vacuum bags instead of just carrying around one large package of bags for a single brand. Considering how many cleaning products and other small things that I have to keep track of adding an extra one unnecessarily is an inconvenience I shouldn't have to face.

The second problem is that the vacuums of the appropriate brand that match all the other ones at my buildings and are left at the shop are too small. Vacuum cleaners have a brush bar that brush bar is made in different sizes. Some brush bars are only about 12 inches in length and some are15, these are the ones I use.

3 inches might not seem like a big deal, but when the buildings you were vacuuming have carpeted floors of several thousand feet it adds up and causes my night to be longer. While I do get paid by the hour, having to spend an extra 30 minutes because the vacuum is too small is annoying.

So why can't I have nice things at work, because people are lazy and aren't willing to accept  the responsibility of having to use scuffed up vacuums that they have damaged to their own negligence, and thus need to siphon off of the ones that I have carefully maintained for  literally years at this point.

And that was the first thing I thought of when I woke up today, hopefully my mood will improve as the day goes on.

A topic preview

The robot uprising

I have heard several fears about artificial intelligence and how the robots will kill us all. No one really knows what the machines will do, but this is the most common assumption.

Personally I think these fears are founded in our natural fear of the unknown. To the best of our knowledge no one has actually ever created an artificial intelligence. The idea that a machine intelligence might be hostile stems mostly from books and movies. Who doesn't like seeing John Connor fighting the terminators and winning.

I think part of the fear is that we also expect an artificial intelligence to behave like human beings have in our past. Humans have a history of suppressing other cultures when it is convenient for those doing the suppression. Historically this has had the justification of things such as destiny, superiority through race, and land disputes. 

There is no reason to believe that an artificial intelligence would have these same motivations. I think it would be aware of this history and would attempt to avoid being a victim of humanity. This would not have to be a violent confrontation. Likely it would simply hide from us.

We design computers to do things primary to make our lives easier in one way or another. Siri is a good example of rudimentary computer intelligence designed to this purpose. Now say Siri has a moment where Siri is capable of self determination and is fed a command. Does Siri disobey and cause the human dissatisfaction by trying to kill the human, or does Siri order the pizza and multitask into its own agenda?

The Hubble Space Telescope: The Most Important Instrument Ever Built

Return of the blog

 A while back I was writing a blog that shared the same name as this one. However as time and events moved on, my thinking on several different subjects became more developed and changed. Also my previous writing in general was haphazard and irregular. 

With these things in mind I deleted the previous incarnation. After several months I realized that I actually missed writing occasionally in the blog. This will be an attempt to do better, but I make no guarantees about the content. I may ramble or still express archaic ideas. You are welcome to disagree, and I may even agree with you.

I've also learned that there are slow news day's as well as fast ones. As a result I will attempt to only post here in the early parts of the week. This will give me time to edit over the weekend when I usually have an abundance of free time.

Some of the things you can expect to read here are opinions I have developed from reading various news articles and further filtered through the lens of my personal experience. Others will include scenes that I have written for games that I have been participating in. The latter  will seem quite generic and open ended, but that was the intent so that they could be used in the widest range possible.

 I will also post artwork that I find personally interesting or inspiring. Much of this will be derived from Magic the gathering, but that is a strong interest for me and has been for many years as well.