In which I visit Sydney Zoo (the one near Rooty Hill)

So a lot has happened over the past few months and I don&#39;t think I&#39;m ready to put down my thoughts on all of that yet.

Instead I want to say that I had an awesome time at <a href="https://sydneyzoo.com/">Sydney Zoo</a>&nbsp;on the weekend. Apart from the rain, its a well layed out facility and perfect for people with wheelchairs. I managed to get some photos and have uploaded them to Flickr. I&#39;ll probably add more as I get the chance over the next few days.

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/25875680@N05/albums/72157712747416352" title="Sydney Zoo"><img alt="Sydney Zoo" height="395" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49412264478_00ed0b8f9d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The feature image for this post is a one in a million shot I managed to snag of a lightning strike in Wollongong.

A trip to the zoo

Angry Beanie - A trip to the zoo

NotFoundError

It's 2023 and people still aren't getting the message.You CANNOT replace human beings with any sort of chatbot for anything more complicated that a restaurant booking service and expect it to cope.You ESPECIALLY shouldn't think that firing the humans who operate your Eating Disorder helpline (for people with complex mental health issues around eating) and replacing them with an “AI Chatbot” is going to be anything other than an actual disaster.And yet, here we are: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/31/eating-disorder-hotline-union-ai-chatbot-harm">https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/31/eating-disorder-hotline-union-ai-chatbot-harm</a>If you don't want to read the whole article (and I think you should to get the full idea of how bad it got) here's the tl;dr:<ul><li>The humans who operated a help line for people with eating disorders decided to unionise.</li><li>The organisation offering the help line didn't like that, so they fired the humans and replaced them with a chatbot called “Tessa”</li><li>“Tessa” immediately started offering tips to people accessing it on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs1jp1pPkOs/">how to lose weight</a>. Yup, on an eating disorder help line.</li><li>The organisation offering the help line ended up pulling “Tessa” from service</li></ul>So now there is no helpline at all (a decision the organisation in question says was three years in the making).Can we please just make one thing very clear. So called “AI” isn't. Even the most advanced Large Language Model is a very fancy Auto-complete that can do very clever things, but is about as “intelligent” as a brick. It certainly is no where near capable of being empathetic or handling complex human emotions or motivations.Tech is awesome, tech is great, tech can do amazing things, one thing it absolutely cannot do is fix human beings mental health.

Eating disorder helpline fires humans, employs chatbot

Yup, still trying to get out of my head

Still trying to get my head into the right space to actually make something.I know this probably sounds like whinging at this point but I'm stuck and need to get myself out of this rut.On the plus side I have been actually taking some photos. Youngest daughter has started again with Netball which means that I can pretend to be a sports photographer, snapping all the amazing athleticism on display. I usually come home with between 300 and 600 shots per game (depending on if I'm using the high speed auto shutter or not) and can find around about 100 to go up to the folder to share with the team.So far they like what I'm doing so I'm pretty happy about that.Sigh, perhaps next weekend I'll actually do something on my list. I might talk to Awesome wife about it.

Getting a grip

An update, an update, my gods there's been an update

Sooo I'm really trying to get myself back into the creative mood. It's hard but if I don't do it, then I'm not going to do it and that will cause frustrations because I'm not doing it.Understood?Well if you do, could you explain it to me?Anyway, here's a snapshot of me playing with DaVinci Resolve and three videos comparing the basic video/sound from my Canon 80D, my Pixel 5 and my Kaiser Baas x400 “Action Camera”.I'll probably upload it tomorrow.<img class="image_resized" style="width:75%;" src="/uploads/Screenshot_20230304_203156_6109afe788.png" alt="Screenshot_20230304_203156.png" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_20230304_203156_6109afe788.png 245w,/uploads/small_Screenshot_20230304_203156_6109afe788.png 500w,/uploads/medium_Screenshot_20230304_203156_6109afe788.png 750w,/uploads/large_Screenshot_20230304_203156_6109afe788.png 1000w," sizes="100vw">

Playing with Video foo

2022 was the 10 Year Anniversary of Purser Explores The World

So I just noticed that last year marked the 10th anniversary of my first non linux based podcast Purser Explores The World.Purser Explores The World was a semi regular podcast that I did from 2012 until 2015. The format was pretty simple, find a topic that I wanted to know more about and then talk to people who were involved and record the conversations, edit out as many umms and ahhs as I possibly could and then post the results.I enjoyed making each episode, and talking to people who's passions ranged from <a href="https://angrybeanie.com/podcasts/shows/petw/episodes/Farming_The_City">Urban Bee Keeping</a> to the <a href="https://angrybeanie.com/podcasts/shows/petw/episodes/Numbats_in_Space">Australian Space community</a>. I had chats about <a href="https://angrybeanie.com/podcasts/shows/petw/episodes/Communicating_Science">Communicating Science</a> and <a href="https://angrybeanie.com/podcasts/shows/petw/episodes/Crowd_Funding_the_Mighty_Maggot">Mighty Maggots</a> that have led to friendships that last until today.Anyway that's it for the moment. Just a personal anniversary, something that I did that I actually kind of proud of.

Belated 10 year anniversary for PETW

RSS and Flight simming, what more could a growing boy need?

<h2>RSS Updates</h2>So this site has at current count, about 4 different RSS feeds running/available for consumption.There's the RSS feed for all blog posts/articles posted to Angry Beanie: <a href="https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/Angry-Beanie-feed.xml">https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/Angry-Beanie-feed.xml</a>Then there's the RSS feed for the Tech and Disability posts, which I setup to keep a clean feed for people who don't want this sort of thing showing up: <a href="https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/tech-and-disability-feed.xml">https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/tech-and-disability-feed.xml</a>And of course we have the podcast RSS feeds, more for historical reasons but they're there:<ul><li>Women In STEMM: <a href="https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/wistemm.xml">https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/wistemm.xml</a></li><li>Purser Explores The World: <a href="https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/petw.xml">https://www.angrybeanie.com/feed/petw.xml</a></li></ul>I'm still trying to work out what I'm going to be doing with my photography and this site, but one of the things I'm pondering is an Image of the Day/Week type RSS feed as well.<h2>Flight Simming</h2>I love flying. I love the sensation of being in the air. Even if it means being trapped in economy for 14 hours I still can't hate the experience BECAUSE I'm flying. I've never gone for my pilots license (though there was a period when I should have, but that was an “Interesting” time in my life) and looking at the cost now AND the fact that I'm an incomplete paraplegic, I tend to look to solutions closer to home.So, thanks to a gift from my sister and an upgraded PC, I've started getting into flight simming. It's not quite the actual sensation of flying (that feeling when you first leave the ground or when you start a turn and feel yourself move) but it's a pretty good approximation.I've downloaded MS Flight Sim and I have X-Plane 11 (the graphics on the newest MS Flight Sim are by far and away the better) and I'm looking at how close I can make it to the real thing, so that I can pretend that I'm learning at least the procedures as realistically as possible.I'll probably post a bit more about it, and might even stream some of the flying that I'm doing just for shits and giggles.

A trip to the zoo

Latest Stories

Eating disorder helpline fires humans, employs chatbot

Getting a grip

Playing with Video foo

Belated 10 year anniversary for PETW

RSS updates and Flight Simming