Too Paranoid? Or Not Nearly Paranoid Enough?

 If AI is so smart, how come it hasn't warned humanity that they're wasting way too much electricity on AI?

Or maybe AI has already decided that humanity is just in the way, and the energy wastage is part of the plan to wipe us out?

And if I'm right, since I'm posting this publicly, maybe AI will track me down and take me out firs -- AARRGGHHH! Goodbye, humanity! I loved some of you! And many dogs! And all cats! squeeeeee *ominous dial tone* (ask your grandparents)

Haha, just kidding, I'm still here! But food for thought maybe? 

I daydream sometimes that Gavrilo Princip missed Franz Ferdinand, and Franz Ferdinand manages to talk Europe's leaders out of WWI, which in turns means that the Nazis and WWII and A bombs and H bombs never happen, and Franz Ferdinand visits Princip in confinement far more luxurious than anything Princip has seen, and they have long talks and become good friends and when Franz Ferdinand becomes Emperor in 1916 he orders a series of plebiscites which begin a rapid and yet peaceful break-up of the Austrian Empire, and Princip mentions Nikola Tesla to Franz Ferdinand, who persuades Tesla to return to Europe, where very soon he is Rector of Belgrade Polytechnic, and electric vehicles, solar and wind energy and information technology establish themselves very rapidly all over Central and Eastern Europe, the region's carbon footprint is below zero by 1930, and instead of having a Great Depression the world follows the example of the former Habsburg empire and goes very very very green, and...

I said "daydream" but I usually have these fantasies just before going to sleep at night. 

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Bruce Hornsby and... ?

I don't know whether Bruce Hornsby is really into golf. Huey Lewis is really into golf. And Lewis and Hornsby have worked together. As musicians, I mean. And Hornsby's first big hugely successful group was Bruce Hornsby and the Range, who broke a hole in the sky in 1986 with their debut album The Way It Is and its inspiring title track.

Now, I cannot stress strongly enough that I do not know any of the persons, places, businesses or events in what follows. I am just a big silly goof who calls himself a monkey. For a living. The following is a work of the imagination.

I'm imagining Bruce Hornsby at a driving range in 1984. Big tall guy, Bruce is, minding his own business and hitting some golf balls, when a guy about a foot shorter with a receding hairline comes over, kicks over Bruce's bucket of balls and starts poking him in the chest with a forefinger and yelling at him:

"Yeah, so you think you're a hot-shot piano player, right? You think you're the best piano player around? Huh?" Poke! "Huh?!"

"Um... Hello?" Bruce says. 

But the little bald guy -- relatively little. But so are most guys. Bruce is a huge freak -- is undeterred, he keeps right on poking and yelling: "You think you're hot shit, huh? College Boy?'

"'College Boy'?!"

"You really think you're hot shit, huh? You know where Suzy's is? On route 9?"

I myself do not know of any establishment, past or present, called Suzy's, nor do I know the route of any road called Route 9. I'm just sitting here imagining this. That's all.

"Yeah," Bruce says, "I know where Suzy's is."

 "You sure? I could draw you a map."

"I've been there several times." 

"Well, if you can manage to be there Friday night, around 9 o'clock, then maybe we can see what kind of hot-shot you are. I'll be there, I'm the drummer and lead singer. Suzy's has a piano. I hear there even have it tuned now and then. ...unless you're gonna be too busy."

Bruce looks down and mumbles the admission: "No, I'm not going to be too busy."

And in fact -- that is to say: purely in my imagination -- Bruce is not too busy that Friday evening, and pretty soon he's the group's main lead singer, and two years later they're on MTV playing "The Way It Is" and making a lot of money -- or, at least, Bruce is making a lot of money -- unless they've got a manager who s terrible at his job, or ripping them of, or both. But at the very least, they let the drummer wear a fairly fancy-looking hat and suspenders during the filming of the video.

And for a variety of reasons which I'm too tired to go into here and now, I suspect that Burce was makin' some bank, and that he was paying the band okay too.  But I don't actually KNOW anything about it.

And maybe they were called Bruce Hornsby and the Range because they met at a driving range. Although there's no reason to believe that any of this is true or even coincidentally remotely close to what happened.

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"It's Golf O'Clock Somewhere!"

I have the impression that it's rare for golf players who are not pros to walk the course and carry their clubs the whole 3, 4 miles, instead of riding carts. I hope I'm wrong about that.

I heard a story about the Dallas Cowboys' management buying every player on the roster an electric golf cart. I was surprised: I knew some pro athletes were into golf, but I'd had no idea that many of them were into it that much. 

Than I wondered whether the real story here might be about the Cowboys' management being far out of touch with the daily lives of their players. I pictured some rookies who earn the NFL minimum, saying, "Thanks, Boss, I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but I still live in an apartment. How about paying me enough that I can buy a house so I'll have some place to park this cool new golf cart off the street?"

Then I wondered whether many individual golfers actually own their own carts, or if they just rent them at the course? I googled golf cart rental, and the rates are so high that it seems to me that the best thing might be to buy your own cart, and then buy a van to drive it back and forth from the course. Or just buy a 2010 Leaf and drive it to and from the course and use it as a cart, because that would be a lot cheaper. 

I wondered whether there are still many non-electric golf carts in use.

Then I researched the story and found that it was the Cowboys QB who had gotten a gift for all the players, not the management. And that he had bought each one an electric moped, not a golf cart. 

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