Falling Back on One's Own Feel

I wrote an essay this week, with the New York Times in mind. What did AI think of it? I asked ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Yomu ... They all thought highly of my work, but they all contradicted one another. OBSERVATION: AI may be helpful, but ultimately, one needs to fall back on one's own feel for what is a suitable essay for the New York Times -- or any other publication for that matter.

TENS Unit

TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. TENS units may be very effective in controlling pain. Here is an extremely simple TENS unit, that I designed -- in fact it went into production, as a product of Yebo Electronics. The unit allows some adjustment of the pulse frequency through VR1, for experimentation. This TENS unit should give about one month's all-night service using an AA battery pack. If you wish to be sure that it is working, clip a miniature neon indicator across T1’s 220V primary or output coil -- a neon indicator requires in excess of 70-90V to illuminate, therefore this is “proof of the pudding” that the unit is functional. The two output leads may be soldered to large metal washers, to serve as elec­trodes. These are then thinly coated with moisturising cream and taped to each side of the pain­ful area. Or use professional conductive gel pads. OBSERVATION: The critical components -- transistor TR1 and transformer T1 -- are both available from Amazon. The transistor is available here* (five pieces), and the transformer is available here*. Component details will be found on the Internet.

*This is an Amazon affiliate link. I earn a commission, at no cost to the buyer. 

Robot Wars

The story of my blog over the last few months might well be called "Robot Wars". Robots ran rampant across my blog from the beginning of August to the end of October, pushing up my page-views into the millions and completely obscuring my real blog stats. Then Google came up with counter-warfare and scrubbed this wave of automated traffic. My page-views settled down again at the end of October.

Circular

It was more than a year ago now that attorneys requested that certain elders and deacons retract "defamatory claims" against me, made at the end of my city ministry. This matter came up late in the day, because the Legal Practice Council only revealed it in 2025. The elders and deacons concerned sent out a circular, which I did not see at the time, which "insinuates that our client [myself] had been charged with a criminal act". The police themselves (the Cape Town Cluster) issued a statement that this was not true, in any way. The attorneys gave said elders and deacons 30 days to "rectify this claim". OBSERVATION: And their response? None. It is still important to me today that those who received the circular should know the truth. A retraction was important, wrote the attorneys, "given the significance" of such claims "against a Reverend".

Before Electricity

I took this photo back in the day BE -- Before Electricity. Wife E's parents would welcome us on the farm with a candle and a roll of toilet paper. It was in the day BB, too -- Before Bathrooms. OBSERVATION: Those days only came to an end seven years ago -- in fact, still hold on the farm. E's parents left the farm at that time.

Advice to My Younger Self

A student asked me what I would advise my younger self. I jotted down three things:

• People are more evil than you think.
• Time flies faster than you think. And
• Truth always wins, somehow.

AI and Consciousness

Back in 1992, in my philosophical notebooks, I was already thinking on artificial intelligence and consciousness. I noted the following on 14 July 1992:

"Can a machine declare itself conscious? Yes and no. Would it consciously declare itself conscious? If it could monitor its own thought-processes through self-reflection or self-awareness, would it do so consciously? Could it? A machine would surely even reflect on itself unconsciously."

OBSERVATION: Most of my philosophical notebooks were seized in a search and seizure operation, and I never saw them again. Thankfully, I had made a backup. 

Just One Click?

I am baffled by the number of times fundraising pages have not worked. I tried this morning to contribute to a fund. I was rejected. I tried a second time. I was rejected. I didn't try a third time. It was Jeff Bezos who patented the checkout feature in 1997: "Just One Click". I myself have bought something from Amazon by accidentally clicking on "Just One Click" (it was a lot more difficult to unclick than it was to click). Anyway, I did not try a third time to contribute to said fund. OBSERVATION: If people create a fundraising page, it should not require of users the perseverance of Sisyphus to hack their way through and get the money paid.

Quit and Die?

I met for counselling with a young woman. She told me that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked, "Should I quit the system and die?" -- "the system" being the government hospital system. Well, what should I say? For an hour-and-a-half I argued the matter through with her, and there were many tears. I took this approach: I didn't say no, don't go and die, but I worked through all that it would imply, if she did. I asked her, too, what God's big idea might be for her life. OBSERVATION: She decided not to quit. Unfortunately, the system failed her (in short, it failed to monitor her), and she died.

Taylor Swift

This one's just for fun. TIME magazine featured Taylor Swift on the front cover, with her cat. I asked AI to replace the friendly cat with an aggressive dog. OBSERVATION: AI can do this in an instant. It is interesting how this seems to change Taylor Swift herself.