November Update
Happy November! (Almost halfway through the month {cough})
Fun Observances Include:
- Veteran's Day 🇺🇸
- Thanksgiving 🍗
- Adopt A Turkey Month 🦃
- National Candle Month 🕯️
- National Fun with Fondue Month 🫕
- National Gratitude Month 🙏
- National Pet Awareness Month 🐶🐱
- Picture Book Month 📕
- World Communication Month 📡
Rant!
Welcome to today's "Sheryl is a anti-tech luddite" rant for your morning's black pill:
Interesting how much many people love A.I. and how much businesses are increasingly dependent upon it, considering it turns out to be stupid at the one thing computers excel at: addition.
Within just one week last month, I ran into two computational issues that made me glad I have been keeping my own spreadsheets for my bank accounts and made me realize I should manually check the totals on my bills and paychecks.
1. Thanks to an unusual situation on my final bill with them, I discovered that my last electricity biller has a history of adding up the total due wrong. Only by a cent or two per bill, sometimes in their favor and sometimes in mine, but why does such a problem exist at all? And does it happen with other services, and for way more than a cent or two?
2. One of my banks could not properly process a normal automated transfer and wound up both making multiple corrections and still ultimately processing the transfer wrong. Again, why is this an issue?
Why are basic arithmetic processes that have been relegated to adding machines for decades failing as we increasingly trust these adding machines to do everything for us?
Humans make errors, too; that is one reason we are so happy to outsource our thinking to devices. However, with a human, you can argue the issue, or even bring in an outside opinion (a.k.a. "Let me speak to your manager"). There are no such options with A.I., particularly not the second option.
Remember that these tools are tools; do not let them make your important life decisions for you.
Apology!
I apologize for multiple things, including that I have not been productive on comics for so long (and ditto art), that I express so much stress and frustration, that I sometimes miss even these monthly updates, and that I failed to make available a Halloween-themed Y.C.H. last month like I intended. Being so far into this month and with various responsibilities piling up, Thanksgiving is looking unlikely, too. So, I am going to skip straight to Christmas.
I shall try to have make a Christmas Y.C.H. available by this time next week (November 19, one week before Thanksgiving) on Patreon.
Additional Details:
Category: Deer Me Comic
Information updates until the regular comic resumes.