Of all the headlines that nearly made me spit out my morning coffee — and I think you’ll agree there have been plenty lately — the biggest jolt this week was learning that pigeons are being used to help train artificial intelligence. No, the birds are not helping us create homing robots (which would be weird). They are training AI how to spot cancer in humans (which may be even weirder).
It turns out that pigeons and AI are both masters at trial-and-error learning, especially when it involves pattern recognition. Take this graphic:
I know, right? Who could stare at those circles for more than a few seconds without flinching dizzily away? Apparently that would be pigeons and AI. Confronted with thousands of these circles, they quickly begin sorting them into categories. (Don’t ask me how; my paltry human brain is simply not up to the task).
Medical researchers trained pigeons to study CT scans and identify a particular suspicious lung nodule with remarkable accuracy. Then — all on their own — the birds started pointing out other forms of cancer undetectable to the human eye. Scientists captured data about the pigeons’ physiological responses to the images and are feeding it into AI data bases to help the machines learn how to copy the trick.
Yes, we are living in a sci-fi movie, and it gets stranger every day.
Here’s yet another thing I didn’t see coming: the legal rights of trees.
No, leafy residents don’t get to vote, hold office, or form corporations (yet), but Terrasse-Vaudreuil (pop. 2000) became the first town in Canada to adopt the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Trees. Launched in France in 2018, the manifesto asserts that trees have “the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity, and to regeneration.” As allies in the fight against climate change, trees are entitled to “fraternity and solidarity” from all other life forms.
Please don’t tell my trees about this! I don’t want a green uprising on my hands.
I am fond of our trees and have always looked on them as good neighbors; I like to think there’s an atmosphere of mutual respect and mostly we ignore one another. But this week Rich scheduled some long-overdue pruning. And while trees don’t feel pain, being cut makes them send out urgent chemical stress messengers, using roots and airborne particles to warn the others that shocking events are in progress.
I suspect our Japanese maple and podocarpus may still be bitter about the loss of the ancient apple tree we had to put out of its misery last fall, after a summer of watching it wither away in the corner of our garden. I am hoping they won’t start whacking me on the head over this latest assault.
One of the pruned branches did attack the Buddha sitting at the base, ripping his face from his body. I am trying not to view this as a message, a metaphor, or an omen.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this summer has been a rough one for our property and possessions. Recent highlights include a burst water main that ruptured our pipes and the innards of a toilet; the mysterious deaths of our garden lights, the house thermostat, and the modem; and ludicrous car repairs ($600 to replace a $25 part).
Naturally, each issue begets more issues. For instance, the new modem somehow required replacing the printer. The first one we bought refused to do two-sided printing. The replacement for that replacement copied on both sides but couldn’t keep its grip on the paper. Edges were bent, corners were torn, pages crumbled and jammed. The yellow exclamation point on the dashboard became the default setting.
How annoying was this?
“If these guys can’t fix it,” I said to Rich as he lugged it back into the megastore where we’d bought it, “my Plan B is to get out our baseball bat and beat this thing to death right here in the parking lot.”
I mentioned the baseball bat to the Geek Squad guy, who seemed to think I was kidding. Still, he made an effort and managed to patch up the machine long enough for us to go home and print two whole pages before it jammed again.
“Rich, bring me the baseball bat!”
Instead, astonishingly, Rich fiddled with the paper feed and got it working again. For now.
We’ve spent months struggling with the phenomena art critic John Ruskin famously called “the cursed animosity of inanimate objects.” Have I learned my lesson? Nope. Two weeks ago, in a moment of complete insanity, I ordered a new laundry room cabinet that “required assembly.” I figured that as seasoned veterans of many Ikea flat-pack projects, Rich and I (OK, mainly Rich) would be equal to the task.
The box arrived on our doorstep Thursday. It was far too heavy for us to carry inside — I spared a moment of sympathy for our postman, who was no doubt home nursing a hernia — so we unpacked it in the front yard. All 260 individual pieces and parts.
“I’m surprised they didn’t just send us some sheets of particle board and a hack saw,” I said. “Should we send it back?”
Rich gave me an affronted look and buried his nose in the instruction booklet, which diagrammed the process in 27 steps over 42 pages.
So there is that to look forward to.
Why were we buying a new laundry room cabinet? Because we are retrofitting our house for what the Spanish call “the third age.” Storage that made sense when we moved in 20 years ago — in those happy days when climbing rickety attic ladders felt perfectly safe and crawling into low spaces caused nary a twinge — now need to be reconsidered.
In the beginning, all I wanted to accomplish was reducing trips up the wobbly attic stairs by keeping our suitcases within easy reach. The downstairs armoire would work nicely; all I’d need to do was remove all the extra plates, serving platters, teapots, and candles. Easy peasy. I could donate half the stuff to charity and move the remainder to kitchen shelves, which I could clear out by shifting party glassware to another cabinet…
You can guess the rest. Projects like that always get out of hand, and this one took over our lives for days. We soldiered on, and in the end, we had six boxes packed for the charity shop, two old cabinets relocated and repurposed, the kitchen cupboards completely rearranged, and an astonishing zero breakage. Even the pigeons could not have done it better.
Now all that’s left is the laundry room cabinet assembly. I have reminded Rich that we got the piece for practically nothing, as it was deeply discounted (I can’t imagine why). By my calculations, it would take us approximately 100 hours to assemble it. I’d find this deeply worrying if I didn’t know in my heart that somewhere around Step 5, Rich is going to turn to me and say, “Karen, bring me the baseball bat.”
Travel Plans
Rich and I will soon head out to visit friends and family back East, so I won’t be posting next week. After that, if all the stars align, I’ll be back to my regular weekly schedule. Here’s hoping you’re enjoy the summer and are doing your best to stay safe and sane in this loony, some-assembly-required world.
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