I need a personal assistant. By that, I don’t mean that I want to hire someone to follow me around all day and then pick up my laundry in the evening. Instead, I want something along the lines of a Siri, Alexa, or Google’s Assistant—whatever its name is—but I want something smarter than them; after all, I know how to turn on the house lights—I’ve got the clapper. I want one that can answer my questions in real-time.
Before I retired as a techie, one of my responsibilities was to be knowledgeable about current software development—stuff that would make running a power plant more efficient, safer, and more reliable. Each year, I got to go to seminars and learn what’s new and what’s coming. Back then, IBM’s artificial intelligence program, called Watson, was inspiring. You may remember it as being the computer that beat the champs on Jeopardy. IBM developed Watson as an Expert System for medical, financial, and industrial business. One day, I picked up the phone and called IBM. It cost a million dollars for a version that could answer ten questions. If you wanted more, the cost went up.
But that was—in computer time—forever ago. Things are moving faster now. Google has pretty much indexed everything in the universe. Self-driving cars are almost a reality (even if you’d never want one, watch what Elon Musk does with his used rocket boosters). We drive around the country with maps displayed on the dash. Technology keeps coming at us at an ever-accelerating pace.
So, here’s my dream assistant. I want someone on these trips that satiate my curiosity in real-time. I have all kinds of questions running through my head, but I forget them by the time I get home. Things like: “What is the current elevation—what kind of plant is that—how were those mountains formed—how far was Archie tipped before it flopped over?” Stuff that I spend hours looking up later—if I remember. For my assistant to be perfect, her voice should be soft with a slight French accent that greets me, “Bonjour Jeem.”
This week’s featured image that I call Joshua Shoots is an example. The photo shows Joshua Tree Saplings growing on a ridge above Lake Mead’s South Cove. To their right is a cactus with which I’m not familiar. It has the shape of a small prickly pear, but with more needles. I don’t know the name of the distant mountain above the trees, but I know that Mt. Charleston is faintly visible in the upper right, and it is on the far side of Las Vegas from the ridge. By the way, the height of the bathtub ring around Lake Mead is 135 feet. It took three sources to figure that out.
You can see a larger version of Joshua Shoots on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Join us next week as we drive home and stop for more photos along the way.
Until next time — jw