ASK DR. BOLI.

Dear Dr. Boli: A lot of us here experts have been very concerned about artificial intelligence. These AI companies are training their robot brains on our writing, which took us a whole lot of time to put together and get past peer review, and then they tell people to come to the robot for all their answers. Well, where does that leave us? So, like I said, we’re kind of concerned, and maybe a little hot under the collar about it. But we thought we’d ask you what you thought, because you’re kind of an expert, too, although we had a big argument about what kind of expert you are. —Sincerely, Milfort Quaid, Secretary and Treasurer, Middle American Society of These Here Experts.

Dear Sir: Speaking as the author of the Encyclopedia of Misinformation, Dr. Boli has no objection to AI bots training themselves on his writing.

. No comments.

MRS. CHESWICK’S EDUCATIONAL STORIES FOR CHILDREN.

Once upon a time there was a little goat whose name was William Grosvenor Bennington Carey McAllister Avery Goat. But that was kind of a cumbersome name for a goat, so, as you probably guessed already, everyone just called him Willie. And Willie Goat liked to eat, as goats usually do. They’re famous for it. If you’ve ever known a goat, you know they like to eat. Of course, other animals like to eat, too. I knew a raccoon that could eat fettucine Alfredo like you wouldn’t believe. My Aunt Wilma used to eat fettucine Alfredo, too, but she had to have it with Tabasco sauce. If it didn’t have Tabasco sauce on it, she threw it out the window. And that was how the raccoon got it. My Aunt Wilma was odd that way. She used to give everybody a bottle of Tabasco sauce for Christmas. I still have all those bottles, because I hate Tabasco sauce. But Aunt Wilma didn’t eat nearly as much as Willie Goat did. He would eat anything. He would eat hay and bushes and tin cans and croissants and piles and piles of Swiss cheese. He liked the holes especially. So one day he had just finished eating a Studebaker Commander when his neighbor Pepito the Alpaca came up and said, “I’ll bet you half a dollar you can’t eat what I’ve got in my hand.” Pepito had hands. I guess he was kind of a strange alpaca. But anyway, Willie Goat said, “There’s nothing I can’t eat. You’re on. Show me what’s in your hand.” And Pepito opened up his hand, and there was nothing in it. “Ha ha!” said Pepito. “You can’t eat nothing! It’s a philosophical whatchamacallit!” But Willie said, “Sure I can. For the next five minutes, I won’t eat anything at all, and that’s eating nothing.” “No it’s not,” said Pepito. “Yes it is,” said Willie. And they argued and argued, and eventually it went all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused a writ of certiorari, so they never did come to a conclusion, and the last I heard they were still arguing about it. This teaches us not to eat Studebakers, because they make us cranky and argumentative. So that’s the story of Willie Goat, and I hope we all learned our lesson from it. Next week I’ll tell you the story of the cute little salamander who learned that some of the medieval legends about salamanders weren’t true at all. Till then this is your old friend Mrs. Cheswick saying, Don’t eat Studebakers. I got a state grant for this channel, so I have to teach you something useful.

. 2 comments.

HOW MANY WORDS DID YOU AGREE TO?

To book an optometrist appointment on line: 25,419 words—roughly the same length as The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Did you read all those words when you booked the appointment? Perhaps you did. Perhaps you are a retired legal scholar with a monomaniacal devotion to the craft of legal language, and a sincere delight in well-crafted terms of service. If you are not that sort of person, however, you simply checked the box saying you had read the agreement, because you could not go on with your life until you did. We shall occasionally point out these word counts, which no one can possibly read in a reasonable time, as a public service, reminding our readers that we could solve the problem with mutual benefit to both parties in the transaction.

. 3 comments.

DR. BOLI’S ALLEGORICAL BESTIARY.

No. 29. The Mosquito.

The Mosquito is one of the wonders of creation, and a resounding and unanswerable proof that Nature makes nothing without a purpose.

There are a number of deadly diseases and plagues that would be unable to survive and spread without the aid of the mosquito. Microorganisms by the trillions would perish, and whole species would become extinct.

Nor are microorganisms the only beings that profit from the existence of mosquitoes. On a summer evening, when the sun has gone down in fiery splendor, and billowy clouds are painted salmon and peach all across the sky, and the heady scents of evening blossoms hover in the cooling air, human beings might enter a state of complacent contentment and universal benevolence, were it not for the mosquitoes who irritate them and stir them up to real accomplishments, such as wars and massacres.

Mosquitoes are elegantly constructed creatures, nearly invisible in flight, and having a natural teleportative ability. You can slap at a mosquito, but the mosquito will not be there when the blow lands. The few mosquitoes that do allow themselves to be slapped have usually gorged themselves into suicidal depression.

Allegorically, the mosquito is the patron insect of car alarms, stuck kitchen drawers, construction zones, public-address systems, and other irritants that give civilization its character.

. 2 comments.