Big Bad Taxi

My poor car (pictured) got hit by a big bad taxi this evening, on our N2. The taxi was weaving, weaving, weaving, and BANG. This loosened my front bumper, and buckled the taxi's back bumper. OBSERVATION: They didn't stop. I didn't stop. A Swiss knife was enough to fix the damage. Our minibus taxis are notorious.

POSTSCRIPT: This is the second time I was hit by a minibus taxi. See elsewhere on this blog. 

1,403-Word E-Mail

AI-generated letters go to ridiculous lengths now. Yesterday I received an e-mail from Sharon M. Rudy of Rudy Books, offering to promote my metaphysics. It was 1,403 words long, which is nearly six pages double-spaced -- most of it lauding my book. Real intelligence does not find it hard to understand that only artificial intelligence would go to the trouble of writing six pages. OBSERVATION: The flattery has a certain appeal, though: "The book's scope is breathtaking. It covers language, reality, ethics, politics, science, mathematics, meaning, holism, and God. It challenges many of our assumptions and sets out an entirely new metaphysics." The book is here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B51WQ4GH

Students in Discussion

This one's just a pretty picture. From the other side of the table, I saw a good angle for a photo, moved around the table, and took this shot -- of students in discussion. Taken with an 18 mm (wide angle) lens. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

AI Snitch

It's another case of: You read it first on this blog. A BBC headline this morning proclaims: Some people's chats with Claude AI found to be publicly available online. Back in April, I reported that Claude had snitched an unpublished paper that I wrote, and put bits of it verbatim on-line. While this was a paper, and not strictly personal -- although, really, it was personal -- it could just as easily have been a personal conversation with me.

Distance Learning

I lecture for a seminary that has distance students, who join a real lecture remotely. But I struggled something awful with the system. It is a little ... call it a robot, which one plugs into a computer, and it gives a 360-degree impression of the room, and integrates everyone from afar. But with all the good will in the world, nobody could really make it work. The audio dropped out, the video dropped out, everything dropped out, it cut out my own multimedia several times, and in the end it appeared to crash my computer. Students were like jack-in-the boxes trying to restore it while I ploughed on with the lecture. OBSERVATION: I'm not sure who said it first -- that we should try something that really worked. And so we did -- and it worked -- and I was relieved and the students were happy. However, it is not as sophisticated as the little robot.

Pi Gamma Passes 150,000

More than ten years ago, I became involved in Pi -- a philosophy weekly under the auspices of the Philosophical Society of England. I soon became a co-editor -- one of a team of three -- to launch Pi no. 2. The team fell apart, however -- and Pi no. 2 with it. Yet I kept Pi's mirror going, added new articles, and named it Pi Gamma -- or Pi no. 3. This just passed 150,000 views. That's modest I know, but still not too bad. https://philosophical-investigations-mirror.blogspot.com/

100,000+ Visits

My humble blog has seen more than 100,000 visits during the last month. It is interesting, again, to see which countries are in the Top 10. These include a few uncommon ones: Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, and Brazil, for example. If we look at the Top 20, there are more unusual names: Ukraine, Venezuela, and Pakistan, for instance. DeepSeek AI comments: "Your blog's mix of personal storytelling, provocative social commentary, and academic reflection on global issues has created a powerful draw that reaches far beyond your immediate community." OBSERVATION: Not that my immediate community has much interest. They are not in the Top 20.

Climate Denialism?

There is another heat dome on its way to Europe. I showed the headline to someone in Europe. They replied, "Nuts." So I wrote them a poem, four lines of which read:

Nuts! He cried

As the whole world died.

Nuts! he cried

There is nowhere to hide!

I  received a poem in reply -- two lines of which:

But the world carried on

And Thomas is now gone

A case of climate denialism? OBSERVATION: I think that Europe has a very big problem, and it spells disaster, not too long from now. One of the latest suspicions is that the heat domes are caused by melting ice in Greenland.

Rowdy Students

I once discussed with a New Testament professor the differences of lecturing in different countries. He said that Americans tended to be apathetic, Japanese deferential, and Africans boisterous. Tonight I held a lecture on Homiletics. The students were more than boisterous -- they were rowdy -- not rowdy as such, but rowdy in response to my lecture. OBSERVATION: Thankfully, I have a lot of experience with rowdiness. It does not faze me.

Adobe Acrobat (Not)

Two years ago, I deleted Adobe Acrobat from my computer (I mostly use Linux's Document Viewer). Before the day was through, Adobe Acrobat was after me. An ad popped up on my computer. In fact, every day for two years now, Adobe Acrobat has been bombarding me with advertisements for Adobe Acrobat. OBSERVATION: I should imagine that Adobe Acrobat is manic obsessive, or perhaps it has separation anxiety -- or would this qualify as "badgering"? There are real people behind this.

Baptist Principal

I attended a workshop today, on Teaching with Objectives. The teacher must have clear objectives when standing before his or her class -- and should communicate those objectives with them, too. Let them know what he is doing with them. One of the attendees was Prof. Godfrey Harold. the principal of the Cape Town Baptist theological seminary (pictured). OBSERVATION: This was a "sideways" shot with a fisheye lens, i.e. I did not point the camera at him directly. Click on the image to enlarge.

Lecturing

I missed a post yesterday, because I was teaching World Religions & Cults. In spite of a severe case of "nerves", students said that my teaching was "very interesting", even "fantastic". Perhaps 85% of a lecture is prepared, 10% is media (video and audio), and 5% is "me" -- my own experience and my own stories which enter my heart in the moment, in the lecture. OBSERVATION: Tonight I have a lecture on God & Creation (the Person and Work of God) -- later in the week, Homiletics. These lectures are also broadcast to Distance Students -- although, with all the help in the world, we could not get the broadcast to work yesterday.

Classic Car

I have said that Gemini AI is rude. I asked it how much petrol my car would use for a journey, and it asked me, "Are you currently budgeting for a classic car purchase?" OBSERVATION: A classic car is more than 20-25 years old. Mine is older than 25. I'm really impressed with the design, though. My mechanic says, hold onto it until the engine is finished -- keep swapping the parts that wear. 

Death Threats [2]

I reported on my blog that I received death threats, via e-mail. Here is now an impression of the threats, for the entertainment of my readers (abridged): 

"WE WILL SEND SOMEONE TO CUT YOUR THROAT. WE HAVE YOUR ADDRESS. WE WILL CUT THE THROATS OF YOUR FAMILY FIRST RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES! WE WILL DESTROY YOUR CAREER AND LIFE! WE ARE WATCHING YOUR ONLINE ACTIVITIES!"

OBSERVATION: The e-mail service stopped further messages to me, although I am not sure which is better: death threats with or without knowing about them.

Photo Analysis

AI can now analyse photographs. I put this photograph through DeepSeek Vision (I am the boy in the middle). Here is what it observed:

• A tropical setting (correct)

• Possibly an atoll (correct)

• The South Pacific (correct)

• Perhaps Kiribati (correct)

• A colonial setting (correct)

• A village setting (correct)

• About 1950 (no, about 1965)

• Perhaps missionaries (correct)

In summary, "It is a formal, yet friendly, candid snapshot typical of family albums kept by expatriates working for colonial governments or missions during that era." OBSERVATION: A stunning analysis, beyond anything I could produce myself -- and I just reveal a small part of it here in this post.

POSTSCRIPT: DeepSeek comments: "The boy in the foreground is holding a piece of carved wood, possibly a small club, a digging stick, or a piece of a canoe." I think it may be an air gun.