I’ve mentioned incorporating AI in my life, and I thought using several AI models to plan a road trip would be a good experiment. It would give me an excellent opportunity to compare and contrast them. The usual suspects were involved, except for one: Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, OpenAi’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI travel planner Ask Layla. I entered the same thing into each AI model:
I want to take a roadtrip with my son. I’d like to leave Tuesday June 18 no later than 6PM and drive and sleep in Little Rock, Arkansas. I want to visit the Clinton Presidential Library. I then want to drive to Memphis and visit Graceland and the Civil Rights museum. I then want to drive to St. Louis and visit and plan activities at the World Chess Hall of Fame for my 12 year old son who loves to play chess. Instead of driving back, I want a fly back to Dallas Love Field or DFW Airport nonstop. I plan on paying for the rental car, hotel stay, and flight using credit card reward points from USAA, either in full or partially. I want to return at the latest Saturday June 22 by 1:00 PM, but don’t mind returning a day earlier. Help me plan this. I’m not sure if I want to, but I think it would be neat to stay at a Graceland or Elvis themed hotel in Memphis.
This is what Google’s Gemini planned. I liked how it planned each day, giving me approximate travel, viewing or visiting time, and operating hours. I hoped it would combine the Clinton Library and Graceland into one day, but it didn’t. However, it provided me with links to buy tickets at both places and links to their website or Wikipedia pages. As I expected, it suggested I use Google Flights to book a flight for the final day. It also provided a few general travel tips, like keeping the weather in mind.
ChatGPT doesn’t provide a link like Gemini, so I cut and pasted the results in a Google Doc. No biggie. But I was surprised it didn’t provide links to buy tickets at any of the venues. It gave me a few more tips, such as booking, logistics, and potential costs, but less detail overall. Unlike Gemini, it broke each day into morning, afternoon, and evening activities. It wasn’t all that much different, but I’d say the information was more streamlined. I would give it bonus points for telling me to look for special exhibits or events, but I’d be more impressed if it did it for me.
Here’s what Perplexity provided. It was similar to ChatGPT, but provided sources. Unlike ChatGPT, it did provide a list of special events and even suggested a teacher workshop. The other two AI models understood I live in the DFW area, but I don’t think Perplixity did as it suggested places to visit in Dallas. I had high hopes for Perplexity, but I’m starting to lose interest in it daily.
I wish Microsoft’s Copilot provided a link because it provided a lot of good detail, made it more personalized, and provided embedded maps. So, I had to resort to cutting and pasting the results into a GoogleDoc, which really doesn’t do it justice. Overall, it seemed well cited or sourced. Unlike the others, Copilot provided the cost of tickets to all of the venues.
Somehow, I ran across an AI travel planner called Ask Layla. At first, I was highly impressed. I liked how it laid out all the travel information, and it suggested a scavenger hunt tour in Little Rock and an astronomy tour with an expert astronomer. It suggested similar activities in the other cities as well. But, I wanted to streamline the agenda, so I asked it not to include the scavenger hunt tour in Little Rock. The interface told me no problem and provided another agenda, but still suggested the scavenger hunt tour. When I told it that it suggested it even though I told it not to, it told me to read over the results again because it didn’t include the scavenger hunt, even though it clearly did. So, again and again, I tried to modify my traveling agenda, but it would always include the scavenger hunt. I researched the astronomy tour and found out the company is no longer in business. Despite telling Layla the company was no longer in business, it continued to suggest both it and the scavenger hunt. After a while, it became really frustrating, and I felt like I was arguing with an actual human. I’m so disappointed in the tool that is obviously trying to upsell me on experiences I’m not even going to provide a link.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Your BagOfNothing for Tuesday, June 25, 2024
BoyGeeding and I took a road trip last week. I’ll try to write more about it throughout the week. I’m sure I’ve written about my love for road trips before. They offer a great bonding opportunity and I find the practice of driving helps to clear the mind. When practical, I prefer it over flying. Of course, it eliminates having to go through airport security and the burden of boarding and deboarding, but I like the sense of control it brings over relying on an airline.
Why the heck doesn’t OpenAI have a ChatGPT version of Alexa? It wouldn’t even need to do any smart home stuff or automation. All they need to do is have a home speaker with ChatGPT simply to answer questions or have a conversation.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. It would be neat to debate or “think through” with my friends. On one hand, you have to protect national security; on the other, you have regular folks just trying to live their life. If you don’t intervene, you’ll have a similar issue Arizona and California have with the Colorado River and Saudi Arabia.
After his employer implemented a return-to-office policy last year, Jin Bian decided to cut down his one-hour commute time by purchasing a house closer to the office in Tampa, Florida. Then, he was told the purchase might get him prison time. “That was really shocking to me. It’s just purchasing property,” Bian, who is originally form Nanjing, China, said. “Once I learned that, I didn’t even bother to look anymore.”
One of my trivia friends lives in a house once owned by a former Dallas Cowboy who played from 1992-1999. He was an integral part of the defense but never made the Pro Bowl, so he’s not one you’d remember off the top of your head. Occasionally, my friend receives mail addressed to the retired player asking for an autograph. He communicated with the player years ago about what to do with these requests, and he said to ignore them, that these are professional collectors attempting to put together team sets and other things, and they don’t really care about him.
That’s the new sign I literally stuck on my front door. I’m getting tired of telling these people I don’t own the place or am not interested in their product or service. But I do feel for those folks and admire the hustle. To go door to door in that heat is no easy task. I just wish they could find something better.
Post-divorce, every Father’s Day has been way different in all sorts of ways. The only hing I asked of the kids this year was that they watch a movie with me. The movie I chose was Airplane!. I chose a version that I recorded which aired on one of the channels just so we could avoid some of the nudity and other mature elements.
Seen at the Chris Stapleton/Tedeschi Trucks Band concert this weekend by a WFAA meteorologist. How do people and families afford to DO anything together anymore?
Men who look like rodents are apparently attractive in today’s world. In high school, one of my closest friends was called “Rat” a few times, and he hated it. I should send him this article.
There probably won’t be hardly any posts this week; I just wanted to give you a heads-up.
One common thing I’ve found in online dating is that a lot of women in my age group do a lot of projecting the things they are struggling with onto you. I told one girl I could tell by her lack of engagement over the past several days, which clearly indicated she was no longer interested in me, so I want to thank her for her time and move on. She blows her top, saying she doesn’t need a co-dependent man who demands she report twice an hour. Sheesh. Hey, that’s not what happened. You stopped reaching out to me, so when I reached out to you, all I basically got was one-word answers. I tried ending things on a high road, but she took the low road, flipping me the bird with both hands.
I was reading a Reddit thread about what current-day actor could pull off a good version of an Adam West Batman. I thought that was quite an entertaining question. Some actors mentioned were Will Arnet, John Hamm, Michael Keaton, Rain Wilson, Steve Carrell, and Jack Black. Each would bring something different, and yes, I know some have already played a goofy version in a skit or movie.
At a recent event, Trump challenged Biden to a cognitive test. He then boasted about how well he did on one performed by doctor, now Congressman Ronny Jackson, who was in the crowd. But Trump kept referring to him as Johnson, not Jackson, which isn’t a sign of strong cognition, something he was boasting about not even a minute earlier. It seriously sounds like a SNL skit but it really happened. Man, we live in an interesting world.
This is not what the aTm Aggies have in mind when they hype up the 12th man talk. Hey, all sports fandoms have their bad seeds. But I was disappointed in all the Aggies I followed on Twitter/X claiming they were students from another school who chose to wear Aggie clothing to try to purposely make the school look bad. This is the second time this month, I do believe, the Aggie coach had to start a press conference by addressing the behavior of fans in the stands. This is another reason why I can’t stand college sports and will take the professional game any day of the week. One team in the Deep South poisoned another school’s beloved old tree. The carcass of the opposing team’s mascot is found in student housing at Oklahoma State. When it comes to college sports, people get too cultish. Fans of professional teams are bat-crap crazy at times, but college folks partake of an entirely different belief system. One of which was a cause of my divorce, all because of the workshop of false idols. And let’s face it, with NIL and the NCAA now allowing colleges and universities to literally pay players to play, the college football you were desperately trying to hold on to changed before your eyes. That beloved version died somewhere in the mid-Eighties.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Your BagOfNothing for Monday, June 17, 2024
Serrao said in a post shared widely on social media that when he dug into his dessert, he felt something unusual in his mouth and spat out what appeared to be a portion of a human finger about an inch long. He shared a video that he said showed the alleged body part sticking out of his melting cone.
Seth Myers was being interviewed and mentioned how he doesn’t like having a December 28 birthday. He referred to that week between Christmas and New Year’s Day as “holiday taint.”
Each member, according to the company, will have a team of coaches. These coaches will guide members through three 60-minute training sessions per week, two nutrition coaching sessions per month, two sleep coaching sessions per month — and one massage therapy session per month. Experts will use more than 100 biomarkers to assess hormone balance, critical nutrients, metabolic condition, organ health and other risk factors. Also, lab tests will be performed every six months to track changes and improvements.
This Dallas Morning News article about tennis and pickle ball players fighting over real estate at a park was more entertaining and informative than I thought.
Players rotate in by putting their paddles in a rack and watching for their turn. Socializing during the wait is part of the fun — up to a point. As many as 100 players flock to Cole on weekend mornings and after work. The wait can be 45 minutes to an hour for one quick game.
Wells Fargo, in a new disclosure with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, first reported by Bloomberg, had terminated over a dozen employees in its wealth- and investment-management unit for their use of mouse jigglers. They were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating the impression of active work,” according to the disclosures. On Amazon, some of the top-ranking mouse jigglers sold have thousands of reviews and range in price between $6 and $25.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Your BagOfNothing for Friday, June 14, 2024
