Useless 311 and Declining City Services

San Antonio has a new virtual 311 operator you must interact with (at least until it gives up).

I had such an interaction today.  It was pointless.  Finally I was connected to a real agent, who at least explained the situation and filed a new request.

My garbage was not picked up on Monday.  So I filed an online 311 request on Monday night.

Unbeknownst to me (in spite of my giving my contact info, the online service did not send me any emails) the request was closed on Tuesday morning.  Today (Thursday) it still wasn't picked up, so I went online to check it out.

I went back online and typed my service address.  That did nothing.  So I typed in the full service request number.  That was rejected with "not enough digits".  So I retyped, leaving off the full 8 character prefix to the service "number."  That worked, even though it was shorter than the rejected version and otherwise the same.

That's when I found out my service request was closed.  So I called 311.

So then the AI asks me for help, and I say something like this:

My trash was not picked up on Monday.  So I filed a 311 request on Monday night, and on Tuesday it was simply closed.  The trash is still not picked up.  What happened?  I need to get the trash picked up.

It could not understand that so I tried again, making it a bit shorter.

Still not understood.  So then it connected me to a live agent.

The live operator told me that the camera showed the trash had been picked up, so they closed the request.

What may have happened is that it didn't fall out.  The live operator said others had reported that.

Turns out, I had that exact same problem for 3 weeks with the blue recycling can.

3 weeks ago, nothing in the blue can was removed, so I loosened it a bit.

2 weeks ago, most but not all in the blue can was removed.  I added some more

Last week and this week, the bottom 1/3 of the can was not emptied.  That's better than nothing.

I've noticed recently that they squeeze the very heavy and thick city owned plastic cans so hard with the automated lifter that it nearly creases the can, trapping stuff in the bottom.  

Perhaps this started happening when they added an option for smaller cans.  So whatever the actual can size, it squeezes it down to the smaller size when lifting.

Apple giving me fits over logging into iCloud

Thanks to Apple Paranoia, for the last two years I have been unable to simply connect my phone to my computer to transfer photos (or anything else) to my computer.  It now considers the 10.13.6 MacOS on my computer to be "untrustworthy."  I refuse to upgrade because if I do I will lose dozens of critical 32 bit applications I rely on.  My plan is to buy a whole new computer next year and migrate my work to it as I have time.

The workaround, until I can afford a new computer, has been to use iCloud.  I never wanted to have to use iCloud.  I've seen people struggling with it for a decade and I never wanted to be part of that.  I just want to keep my own files in my own computer ecosystem.

Tonight I was caught for 30 minutes in a verification trap.  Though I've now used iCloud dozens of times, and logged in from the exact same Chrome browser every time, every now and then it demands I "authenticate" by my phone.

Well this time I typed in the number exactly correct 6 times before it let me in.  It's somewhat tricky as sometimes a message appears on the phone with no data ("someone is trying to log in...") and other times it comes right out with the number I am supposed to type in.  But I am absolutely sure that I typed in the numbers shown correctly every time.

I think what I did the last time, which worked, was to type in the number on my computer screen, and then (just then) press the OK button on my phone.  Then, maybe, it works.  If I press the OK button on my phone first, it then refuses to accept the number on the computer and asks me to enter the number again (which has vanished, because I pressed OK).

Searching online, it appears that hundreds of people have had this exact same problem.  Apple online has no answers, they ask you to contact support.

Sometimes, it seemed to let me in but only to demand that I use "find my devices" for some reason, and not letting me do anything else.

Turbo Wash

I'm happy with my new top rated LG washing machine.  But the cycles and modifiers seemed much more logical on my 2010 Whirlpool washer.

The important difference seems to be 'Turbo Wash.'  In the Normal and Heavy Duty cycles it cannot be deselected.  So another way of looking at it is that 'Turbo Wash' is integral to those cycles.

But I can't much use Turbo Wash because of one thing.  It often leaves flat pieces of cloth pinned to the back plate of the wash tub.  I don't imagine this as being either good for the material or good for cleaning.  It's only natural that it would do this because it blasts jets of water from the front towards the back.

This has happened to me both for undershirts (for which 'Normal' would be the expected cycle) and for sheets (for which 'Bedding' may not be appropriate because it is designed for "large bulky items that have difficulty absorbing water" which clearly doesn't apply to sheets).

What I'd like would be 'Normal' but without the Turbo, but it seems that LG is almost insisting that you use their new timesaving and deep cleaning feature.   As it is now, it seems I can only safely wash small items, like socks or washcloths, using Turbo.   For the washcloths I could also use 'Towels.'  Curiously the Towels cycle does not allow Turbo to be selected.

The cycles that seems to generally work best for things that don't work well with Turbo seem to be Permanent Press and Towels.  The others like Heavy Duty and Sanitary have specialized applications (you don't want to use them on most clothes).

And then there is also Delicate.  But Delicate doesn't allow you to have anything but a slower spin which means most clothes will retain a lot of water.  So while it works well for actual delicate clothing, it's not a stand-in for 'Normal.'  It's not good for undershirts or sheets in good condition.  I'm not yet sure which of Delicates or Permanent Press is the optimal cycle for the cotton pullover shirts I wear every day.

So even though my undershirts are not "Permanent Press" I must use the "Permanent Press" cycle for them because the other options aren't good.  This is much like the Kenmore washing machine I used in 1960.  I recall we used "Permanent Press" for everything.  Which was fine because my mother believed actual Permanent Press was the best thing ever, even though a lot of Permanent Press back in those days wasn't very permanently pressed.

AI is evil

I am completely opposed to the expansive use of 'neural network' technologies.

AI is 'solving' a problem without actually solving it.  The meaning of the system is incomprehensible.  For that reason, in some unfortunate circumstance it will make the opposite of the correct decision.  According to Murphy's Law, this will be at the worst possible time, causing the world to blow up or whatever (sadly an outcome that could also be achieved with human 'intelligence' too).

There might be some areas where it useful.  But I'd rather not guess, because even such things as character recognition, as part of a much bigger process the rest of which was perfectly good, would trigger that Murphy's Law clause about 'The Worst Possible Time.'

So I've continued to disparage things ever since I first learned of them in 1983, only more and more as my early beliefs have proven true, with the failures in 'self-driving cars,' for example.

Neural networks are nothing like real biological neural systems, which have complex underlying physical/mechanical structures, influenced by genes and environment in addition to continuous 'training'.

I believe in solving problems the old fashioned way, by understanding them and developing known deterministic algorithms for them.

My longtime speciality (and now) is the combination of procedural algorithms with pseudo random numbers (which are themselves mostly products of procedural algorithms, combined with a time related chance element (such as the precise time of day)--the so called 'seed.'

I quickly saw some mappings.

Start with a problem that has a finite deterministic solution.  Perhaps not all problems are like that (but most could be approximated with that...in the end case exactly what a neural network does, but using weights instead of logical elements) but it's easy to think about.  How about the quadratic formula

(-b +/- sqrt (b^2 - 2*a*c) / (2 * a)

This yields 2 answers, or none, but we'll simplify that as 'the highest solution if there is one.'

Now assume we have training that neural network to solve this problem.  At any point until the solution is perfectly locked in (if there is one!) the behavior of the neural network could be thought of as two components:

<the correct answer> + <nn-approximation-noise>

This noise has a very peculiar property...it's non-gaussian because of the possibility of extreme outlying results that may occur with very low probability.

Worst possible time.