Take Me To Your Meter

I read in last Sunday’s New York Times that some new robots can anticipate their own fading power, sense the end is near and stagger to the nearest electrical outlet for a recharge.

The accompanying photo shows a machine that looks like a big upright vacuum cleaner. It has arms and hands and can open doors. We see it deftly inserting its own plug into an electrical faceplate. So, something I thought uniquely human—knowing we’re going to die and having a sense that time is running out—has been installed in a mechanical servant, and unlike us, it can do something about it.

No doubt, the robot’s signal to recharge is pre-set, but once we had a biologically-set signal that told us to eat just enough to survive. Not anymore. What if an electric car feels a little run down one evening, maybe just wants a taste of feeling like a Mazarati—off it goes silently sniffing out power ports, greedily sucking up juice until the PG& E meter blasts off its post.

The Times’ story was more thoughtful than this little ramble—it suggests that if we make artificial intelligence mimic human thought and action too well, we will relinquish those traits and abilities in ourselves. But the part of the story that still startles me are those pincher-fingers sticking that plug into the socket—a machine deciding to tap into the source of its own life to get some more.

Atoms are the big idea,
but molecules explain

Lets start with ideas—fruit flies and house flies. The big idea about each is that they are a nuisance. My Venus flytrap, Vagigi, sits under a light near the kitchen sink. The idea about her is that she is useful because she catches flies and eats them.

The other day I left a half lemon facedown on the counter near Vagigi. In just minutes, fruit flies began to assemble. Checking back several hours later, I saw they had made little doorways in the lemon which had turned into a Quonset hut.

In the evening the insects lay scattered around the hut. I first thought they were dead, but soon detected movement. Some of them were pairing up and walking off together while others ambled around the building or just approached each other and bumped heads in what was surely a greeting. Twenty or so lay on their bellies atop the hut, legs and wings spread to the lamp heat. The entire thing looked like an aerial shot of a Mash unit on an easy afternoon.

In this same day, I watched a house fly land on a table, another lit on top of it, and they began to have intercourse. I had expected a quick union, but after 30 seconds they were still glued to the task. Five minutes went by, then ten; apparently Bolero was not on their headsets. Is it possible those minutes of enjoyment inside bodies this small translate into eons of sexual pleasure in fly time?

I want to know more about atoms and molecules, so next time we’ll take on the topics of trees and forests.

Weed

The Hi Lo Café in Weed, California, has an immense menu and they make their own Bear Claws. Like the town itself though, the food has wandered far from its original source and purpose, leaving a flat taste in the mouth. Many of Weed’s 19th century buildings are empty, and the few occupied include crystal shops, thrift stores and a surprising number of animal rescue groups.

The entire area of Siskiyou County, including the city of Shasta, seems especially dedicated to rescuing or capturing, rehabilitating and neutering abandoned and neglected animals. The placement rate for these saved pups is proportionately high. In fact, some dogs are transported from San Francisco to Siskiyou because their chances of adoption are much better here. A friend told me that these orphans are even more popular in Portland where potential adopters sign up to take the overflow shipped from Shasta.

So a pretty high consciousness about responsible pet stewardship flavors the area, but towns like Weed have their share of underemployed, drug-stunned and nearly homeless people who keep some of these dogs. And most of them are pit bulls, many bred hard and for money.

I was watching a man with three pit bulls walk past the picture window in the café. Whether I ignored him or looked hard at him—either way—would signify the expected contempt. But I wanted to see this man, see his dogs.

Walking wearily, he let the dogs amble along at their own pace. They all looked a little confused—the dogs only a little more disoriented. Later, at the corner, we met up. We said hi and he looked at us, wary at first. His expression relaxed as we stayed and talked—How old were his dogs? Were they related? Though middle-aged, his face seemed young and bland. What seemed truer, though, as I looked, was that his expression seemed more abraded, smoothed into acceptance. It made him look wistful.

“They’re friendly,” he told us as the big, soft muscled pits sniffed us. Two looked up and they each had a blue and brown eye.

“Thems his last two sons,” he said, pointing to the older, lumpier fellow, as they wove through their leashes with ordinary doggie eagerness, glad for a scratch and used to kindness.

“I got eighty-eight pups out of him before he quit. I kept these last two.” He looked proud and sad. As if he, too, was finally finished after all the work.

Things to Embrace—Things to Avoid

I like to think there’s a good side to every bad thing and vice versa. Here are a few of my favorites.

Good—A successful in vitro fertilization resulting in one nice blond child.

Bad—A successful in vitro resulting in five identical blond beings who just might then mate with five other such unnatural fusions and produce—You tell me!

Also, how do you get around a bank of strollers, lashed together like theater seats, which take up the entire sidewalk?

Even worse, the perps pushing these broodcarts walk with an arrogance they dare, only because they think God Himself is clapping, singing, and tap dancing to this new rhythm method.

Well…I had meant to go on for some time … but I’ve just fallen over and am lying on my side. I clap my hands…and the lights go out.

(More later)