A Foretaste of Retirement

About a month ago, my boss walked up to my desk and asked, "Have you got a moment?"  If there's one thing that I've learned during my forty-one year career it's that, when your boss asks you that question, the correct answer is invariably "Yes".  So that's what I said, and she led me to one of the meeting rooms, where the Human Resources manager awaited us.

Uh-oh. 

Another thing that forty-one years in the workforce has taught me is that meetings with one's boss and any H.R. representative are rarely happy ones.

After the standard greetings had been exchanged and we were all seated, my boss spoke.  "We've noticed that you're still struggling with your work, due to your condition," (by which she meant Parkinson's disease) "and we feel that perhaps it might be time for you to take a short leave so that you can focus on your health."

I understood that a "short leave" meant my going on short term disability, which can be as long as twenty-six weeks (hardly my idea of "short") because my boss had tabled the possibility of my taking such a leave if my disease continued to affect my work during my last performance review.

Although the suggestion wasn't completely unexpected, I was still somewhat nonplussed.   It was true that some of my Parkinson's symptoms were proving to be hindrances to my work.  My typing speed had noticeably diminished due to reduced finger dexterity.  My mental focus was constantly divided between work activities like writing and debugging code, testing programs and updating documentation versus trying not to drool all over myself.  Another recent distraction was chronic lower back pain which I suspect resulted from improper posture caused by Parkinson's and which seemed to be exacerbated by prolonged sitting at my desk.  It's hard to concentrate when your back hurts.

So, yes, my work was somewhat impaired, but I honestly didn't feel that it was to such a degree that a six-month leave of absence was called for.  Clearly, my boss disagreed.  

The uncomfortable question that was bouncing around my brain was whether she was truly doing this out of concern for my health and well-being, or if this wasn't just a conveniently "nice" way to get rid of me.  After all, I would be off work and yet receiving my full salary for 14 weeks, after which I could stay off work at two-thirds of my regular pay for another 12 weeks. After that, I could return to the office in hopes that my long sabbatical had rejuvenated me to the point where I could once more be productive, or I had the option of switching to long term disability leave which, in my case, could take me right into retirement.  You see, I would be 64 years old at the end of my short term disability period, with less than a year left before I reached retirement age.

It is well-known, however, that Parkinson's disease doesn't get better.  It gets worse.  It's progress can be slowed with the help of medication, exercise, therapy and even surgical procedures, but none of these things has ever been able to reverse or even stop the deterioration.  It never gets better, so it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that I'm not going to magically return to my former job proficiency after my extended leave. 

With all these things taken into consideration, I decided to play along and go on short term disability leave, as suggested.  That was a month ago.  Since then, I've been off work.  It feels like I'm getting a sneak preview of what retirement will be like.  I suddenly have a lot more time on my hands.  This has its upside.  I always said that I'm not the kind of person who can't find any other way to pass the time besides my job.  I tend to make my own hobbies and pet projects.  Beyond those, there always seems to be lots to do in and around my home.  I have the time to exercise more regularly, and yet, I have to admit that there are times when I find myself wondering what I'm doing at home.  This just doesn't feel right.  I should be at the office debugging programs rather than whiling away my time at home.

My wife enjoys my increased presence.  For one thing, I now chauffeur her to work and back on days on which she's scheduled to work (she doesn't drive).  I've also assumed a larger share of the household chores than I did while working. 

The neighbors have noticed that I'm home most of the time and one of them, Ken, has taken this as his cue to be more sociable.  One day last week I was mowing my lawn when, suddenly, there was Ken, standing beside me.  I politely shut off my lawn mower so that I could hear him and he explained that he had tried to get my attention by waving to me several times, but I never saw him, so he finally decided that he would just have to come over.  Truth be told, I had noticed him a couple of times, waving his arms like he was practicing his semaphore, but I pretended not to.  I've nothing against the chap but, as I've declared several times throughout this blog, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool introvert.  As such, I don't generally enjoy exchanging pleasantries whom I don't know very well and, being an introvert, I've made no attempt to get to know any of my neighbors very well.

Ken began by expressing his concern because he'd noticed that I was home most of the time, but didn't come out of the house much, so he wondered if I was ill.  While mentally contemplating that I seem to have become the neighborhood Boo Radley, I assured him that I was fine but that I was on extended leave from work due to my Parkinson's condition (which he did know about) and that I was focusing on indoor projects and exercises.

Ken commented that he knew the company that I worked for and they have a good reputation for taking care of their employees and he wondered whether they still make computer racks.  I told him that they still do and he wondered whether they were made in Canada or in their Chinese plant because they'd moved production of some of their product to China and everything that came out of there was garbage and he couldn't get out much either these days because his minivan's rear axle had broken and the speedometer, odometer and fuel gauge didn't work properly and it was going to cost in the neighborhood of $5,000 to get it all repaired and at first he figured he'd just write off the old minivan and buy a used car but, darn it, used cars are ridiculously expensive these days, why you can't find anything for under $26,000 and even then you don't know what you're getting and nobody except for Chrysler even makes minivans anymore so he had decided to have his old minivan repaired after all but it wasn't going to be done until the end of the month but aside from the problems he'd already mentioned the car was in pristine condition because he's been meticulous about caring for it for example he has the bottom oil sprayed every year so that it's free from rust because he's seen too many cars whose bottoms just rust out from under them especially the newer models because the auto manufacturers have taken to using ridiculously thin sheet metal ever since 2019 and that just doesn't hold up speaking of which how do I like the Hyundai that I'm driving these days and he talked for 45 minutes while I stood there smiling and nodding and wondering if I would ever be able to finish mowing my lawn.

As painful as it was having to listen to Ken's endless oratory, the realization came to me that I can now afford to waste that kind of time because I've nowhere else to be.  The jury is still out on whether this whole situation is a blessing or a curse. 

Microsoft Account Problem

  

 

 

For the longest time now, my PC has been throwing the following Windows notification at me pretty much daily:

For those readers who may not know what the above message means, Microsoft strongly advises that every Windows user should create a Microsoft account that's linked with their device (which can be a personal computer, tablet, phone, etc.)  The notification is telling me that there is something wrong with my Microsoft account and asking me to log into that account, presumably to resolve the problem.  

As I say, I've been seeing this notification almost daily for quite some time now, but I've been ignoring it because I wasn't having any problems with my PC or with Windows except for the annoying recurrence of the notification itself.  However, I finally got tired of the persistent nagging and decided to do something about it.  And so, I clicked on the message at the bottom to sign in to my Microsoft account.

Now, before I go on, I should note that the message is peculiar in itself, as it implies that I'm not already signed in to my Microsoft account, but my Microsoft account is linked to my PC, which runs Windows.  Ergo, I should be signing into my Microsoft account each time that I start Windows on my PC, so why is this notification implying that I'm not already signed in?  Curious. 

Having clicked on the notification, the following prompt appeared:

Once again, I was being told that I needed to sign into my Microsoft account so, ignoring the fact that I thought I had just tried to do exactly that, I obligingly clicked the 'Sign in' button.  That resulted in the following prompt:

 

 

Okay, so Microsoft wants to be sure that it's me.  That's fair enough, I suppose.  The 'Windows Security' heading at the top tells me that I'm accessing the Microsoft account that's linked to Windows, which runs on my PC, so the PIN that it's expecting should be the same one that I use to sign into Windows.  

 

Note the string of digits on the 'Identity' line.  That's my phone number.  It is not the identity with which I sign into Windows on my PC.  I used to have a second Microsoft account that did use my phone number as the identity.  It was linked with my Skype ID.  I deleted that account when Microsoft ended support for Skype, replacing it with Microsoft Teams, which is just like Skype, except that it sucks.  This was the first clue that something was indeed amiss.  I was being asked to sign into a Microsoft account that should no longer exist.  At least that explains why I wasn't already signed in.  Since there was no option for changing the identity for a different Microsoft account, I entered my PIN number and clicked the 'OK' button.  

 

Now, friends, there were only two things that could have happened after I clicked 'OK'.  One was that I'd be signed into my old Microsoft/Skype account and given further instructions, which wasn't very likely.  Hell, I didn't expect it!  The other possibility was that I would be told that no such account existed and never to be seen trying to sign in with that identity again, which was what I expected.  But there was a third possibility which I hadn't anticipated:

 

I was told that my phone number doesn't exist as a username (didn't I just say that?)  This time, however, there was an option to sign in with a different username, so I selected that.  

 

 

That gave me a 'Sign in' dialog, where I entered my Microsoft Windows account ID (the one that I should already be signed into) and clicked 'Next' to sign into it.

 

 

That led to a demand to enter my password, but at least asking me to do so for an account that I was already signed into was justified by the fact that I was accessing "sensitive info", so I humored it and entered my password (which had recently been referred to as my PIN number just to keep things as confused as possible) again and clicked the 'Sign in' button, to be greeted by ...
 

OH, FOR THE LOVE OF ... I was now officially going 'round in circles!  Once again I was asked to enter my PIN in order to "make sure it's me."  Notice that my identity had suddenly reverted back to my phone number, even though moments before I had clearly, expressly and unequivocally requested to sign in with a different ID!

 

This experience makes it easy to understand why casual PC users get frustrated.  I make my living as an Information Technology (I.T.) professional, yet I was at my wits' end (though nowhere near the end of my dictionary of expletives) trying to solve what should have been a relatively simple problem.  To this day, I still get daily notifications from my PC that there's a problem with my Microsoft account and, to this day, I have no idea what that problem might be, because I can't sign in to fix it and everything seems to work anyway.  I just blow it a raspberry before dismissing the notification, but doing so at least gives me some small satisfaction.

From Apollo to Artemis

I'm old enough to be of that generation that saw mankind's first lunar landing and will probably still be around to see the next one.  From Apollo to Artemis, you might say.

I'm a huge admirer of the Apollo program.  I watched it on TV "back in the day" as we old-timers like to say.  I own movies and documentaries which I watch repeatedly.  One of my favorites is HBO's 2005 television mini-series, "From the Earth to the Moon" featuring Tom Hanks.  I've mentioned the Apollo program several times in this blog.

Having read this, it may surprise you to learn that I didn't bother to watch any part of the first manned Artemis mission (Artemis II).  Not the lift-off, nor the lunar orbits, nor the return and splashdown.  Why not?  Because it's been done.

Don't get me wrong.  I applaud mankind's return to space.  I honestly feel that it's a much better expenditure of our time, energy and ingenuity than waging pointless wars (which, of course, we continue to do).  Why, then, am I so seemingly uninterested?  

I suppose it might be because Apollo did it for the first time, giving this latest sojourn something of a "been there, done that" vibe.  During the nineteen sixties, nobody knew for sure whether flying to and landing on the moon and then returning safely back to Earth could be done.  Seeing something as marvelous and as dangerous as that being accomplished for the first time creates a tension and a thrill that just can't be recaptured.

Maybe it's because I was an imaginative young boy back then, with my eyes literally full of stars and my head full of dreams of becoming an astronaut.  Let's face it, the only way I would stand any chance of flying into space at my age is by legally changing my sir-name to Shatner.

What really gives me a case of the "Mehs" regarding the Artemis II mission, though, is that it has offered us nothing new.  If we would have found a way to travel there and back in a fully reusable vehicle, for example, that might have piqued my interest.  But, no, we did essentially the exact same thing that we did when we left off a little over 53 years ago,  We built a big-ass rocket to get us into orbit, only with two solid rocket boosters this time to help get the rocket off the launch pad and an additional stage to get us to the moon, just like before.  The boosters aren't even re-usable, unlike those that the orbiter (space shuttle) used. 

Earthrise by Apollo 8 (left) vs. Artemis II (right)

The crew did get some spectacular pictures of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon ... much like the one that Bill Anders took back in 1968 (and I still think that the 1968 photo is better than the latest ones).  Oh, wait, there is one thing that we did differently from the last time.  We didn't actually land on the moon!

Okay, I get that one has to (re)learn to crawl before one can walk, and I did enjoy seeing a fellow Canadian joining the the Artemis II crew (that's one small step for beer, one giant leap for poutine, eh?)  That was pretty cool.  And I do understand that the plan is to work toward developing a more long-term presence on the moon this time around, with an eye toward hoarding its mineral resources and any water that we might find there (just like we've been doing down here on Earth all these years) and maybe to set up a staging point for launching us to Mars (which has about as much chance of being rendered habitable before we completely destroy the planet that we already live on as I have of winning the American Powerball lottery next weekend).

Even the name of the new program is questionable.  In Greek mythology Artemis was Apollo's twin sister.  This may make the name seem appropriate for the new lunar program until you consider that these "twins" are more than 53 years apart in age!  It may be inconsistencies like that which have dampened my enthusiasm for the new program.  Or maybe it's just cynicism on my part.  Who's to say?    
 

Can We Be Judged by What We Read?

Recently Bob Gale, the chair of the Niagara Regional government, suddenly resigned after becoming embroiled in a bit of controversy.  His faux-pas?  Owning a copy of Mein Kampf, the book which Adolf Hitler wrote as he languished in Landsberg Prison, having been convicted of high treason, and which laid out his political ideology and his plans for assuming power within the German political system of the time.  To make matters worse, this particular copy of the book was apparently signed by "Der Führer" himself.

A lot of people were, no doubt, shocked and appalled to learn that an apparent Nazi sympathizer had somehow managed to get appointed to the position of regional chair.  Good thing he was found out before he had the chance to do any serious damage.  Dodged a bullet there!

Or did we?  Just because a man owns a book doesn't necessarily mean that he sympathizes with its author or its contents.  Perhaps he was simply intellectually curious to read about how a megalomaniac thinks and reasons.  Or perhaps he wanted to know just how accurately Hitler's plans reflected his actual rise to power.  Perhaps he wanted to compare Hitler's ramblings with those of Donald Trump.  Or perhaps Gale is just a collector.  A signed copy of Mein Kampf would certainly be something of a rarity, and likely valuable as well.  If the book was signed by Hitler, it was likely printed in German.  Can Bob Gale even read German?

The Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association and Justice 4 Black Lives Niagara condemned Gale for owning the book, demanding that he provide both a public explanation and an apology.  For what?  As far as I've been able to determine, Bob Gale has never made any racist or anti-semetic remarks, nor has he belonged to or sympathized with any racist, fascist or anti-semetic persons or organizations. He just owns a book whose author isn't well liked.

Gale did offer a statement without either confirming or denying that he owns a copy of Mein Kampf.  He wrote, "As everyone knows, I am a passionate historian with a broad collection of historical art and artifacts.  My collection includes an 1859 letter from anti-slavery advocate John Brown, a letter from George Washington, a letter from Winston Churchill and Vatican archives.  I also have a signed copy of the first book in 1685 about Niagara Falls by Father Hennepin."  

Okay, so Bob Gale seemingly has a lot more money than I do to put toward his collection of written works, but his statement does seem to support my argument.  He went on to say that "Today, a member of the communist party circulated a dated document that listed my name as the owner of a historical book found in many libraries."  He makes a valid point.  Mein Kampf can be found in many libraries and book collections.  There's no law against owning a copy.

To me, this is a clear example of how quick people can be to judge others based on appearances without really understanding the situation or their motives.   We start down a slippery and dangerous slope when we begin to judge people based on what they read or collect.  Bob Gale's collection of historical books and documents has nothing to do with his public service as regional chair of Niagara and he should not have had to resign because of it. As the old adage says, judge not lest ye be judged.

And Yet More Fun With ChatGPT

I've blogged about my experiences with ChatGPT a few times now.  From having a conversation with it to translating Shakespeare into Nadsat slang, my interactions have been strictly verbal or "textual" (if that's a word), even when I had it write a tongue-in-cheek editorial decrying the LGBTQ movement's commandeering of the leprechauns' rainbow.  I recently decided to delve into its graphical abilities.

I was gazing at my Google avatar; a caricature of myself.  It's getting rather dated (because so am I!) and no longer represents an accurate, if somewhat exaggerated, approximation of my current appearance.  It was hand-drawn some 28 years ago, by an obscure caricature artist who was doing it as a gig at a software trade show which I attended in Florida.  The attendees who were interested in having themselves "caricatured" (if that can be used as a verb) stood in a short line, waiting their turn to pose and be immortalized.  To the best of my recollection, the artist spent an average of maybe 10 minutes on each portrait.  I had to admit, he did have a knack for capturing his subjects' personalities by the way in which he rendered their most typical facial expressions.

Here's a larger rendition of mine.  I have to admit, the somewhat goofy smile that he gave me is a pretty good indication of my happy-go-lucky outlook at the time.  The fake arrow stuck on my neck wasn't the product of any creative license on the cartoonist's part.  I was actually wearing one when I posed for the picture.

As I say, I don't really look like that anymore, so I thought that it might be fun if I could somehow get an updated caricature of myself.  Unfortunately, tracking down the guy who drew the last one might prove difficult nowadays, even if I could decipher his signature.

Then I remembered reading that ChatGPT is capable of creating graphics, and I got to wondering whether it might be able to create a caricature derived from a more recent photo of myself, so I dug up a reasonably recent (but still almost seven year old) picture of myself, started a conversation with ChatGPT, uploaded the picture and typed "Turn this into a caricature".

I've been impressed by ChatGPT enough times now that a wasn't really surprised when it did so, and in only a few minutes' time at that!  Here is ChatGPT's caricature of my more recent self.

Perhaps I haven't changed as much as I thought I have, after all.  That same old goofy smile is still there and, yes, I may have acquired a few pounds over the years since my original caricature, although it's not as extreme as it appears (remember, it is a caricature and therefore, by definition, exaggerated).  

I thought that it might be better to render my caricature as a pencil sketch, in keeping with the style of the older one, so I asked ChatGPT to re-do it as such, and it came up with the version below. 

Never one to make everything about myself, I wondered how ChatGPT would render my wife in caricature.  The answer is below.  

Unlike my caricature, hers is most properly rendered in colour.  It has to be, to bring out that frizzy mop of red hair (one of her most striking features) and I daresay that it captured that impish smile of hers beautifully!  To me, this looks strangely like something from out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Now that my creative juices were really starting to flow and my imagination discovered an exponential branching out of "The Possible", I considered that I have always wondered how I might be rendered as a Simpsons character were I ever to become famous or, perhaps, infamous enough to merit a guest appearance on The Simpsons.  I tossed the challenge at ChatGPT: "Render me as a Simpsons character!"  Lights flashed, gears whirred and I could have sworn I heard a female voice say "Working..." and, a minute or three later, the caricature to your left appeared on my screen.

Delighted, yet not quite sated, I decided to take it to just one more level.  I recalled a certain photo of a good friend of mine and me "having a moment" at a local bar after having had more than just a couple of drinks.  In fact, the particular photo to which I refer has already been shared elsewhere in this blog but, for those of you who may not remember it, or perhaps came late to the party and never ventured to read the posts which you had missed, here it is for posterity.

I uploaded this to ChatGPT and asked that it be rendered as a scene from The Simpsons, perhaps appropriately set in Moe Szyslak's tavern, with Moe himself standing between my friend and me.  Here's what ChatGPT came up with.

 In fairness to Google, I should note that their A.I. chat-bot, Gemini, is also capable of rendering graphics, and I had it render the same self portrait that I had uploaded to ChatGPT as a caricature.  Gemini's first attempt wasn't even so much a caricature as a digital portrait.

 I suggested to Gemini that the idea behind a caricature is to exaggerate the most prominent facial features and bade it try again.  It then came up with this:

 

Okay, better, and certainly a slightly different take from ChatGPT's, but I still didn't feel that it captured my essence in quite the same manner as ChatGPT.  Another niggling complaint that I have with Gemini's graphical work is it's irritating insistence on embellishing every rendering with a watermark of its logo in the bottom right corner.  I will concede, however, that its pencil sketch better matched the style of my old original than did ChatGPT's.

 

Parkinson's Update

This coming May will mark the fourth anniversary of my Parkinsonism diagnosis.  The disease probably began presenting symptoms for at least a year before I finally took the symptoms seriously enough to consult with my family doctor, so it's safe to say that I've been living with Parkinson's for about five years now. 

Parkinsonism, like Autism, includes a spectrum of disorders.  It can be split into multiple categories, including Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (the most common type), Familial Parkinson's Disease, Early-onset Parkinson's Disease (the type with which Michael J. Fox is afflicted) and even Juvenile Parkinsonism, which starts in childhood or adolescence.  

Then there are multiple types of brain disorders which resemble Parkinson's Disease but involve different regions of the brain than the basal ganglia, which is the region affected by the more common varieties of the disease.  These include Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (or PSP), Corteobasal Degeneration (CBD), Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) and the nasty Multiple System Atrophy (MSA).

Finally, there are "Secondary Parkinsonisms", which are Parkinsonisms caused by external factors such as medications, exposure to certain chemicals, head injuries or strokes rather than unexplained brain degeneration.

These Parkinsonisms can manifest in several ways.  The most common symptoms are tremors, slow movements, rigidity of muscles and trouble balancing and/or walking.

Parkinson's can also affect cognitive ability and, in my case, I fear that it has.  I find myself having difficulty recalling the names of well known people such as actors, musicians and politicians who aren't in the news every day (although I sometimes wish that I could forget about Donald Trump!)  I can usually recall the name eventually but, at first, I'll often have a clear mental image of the person that I'm thinking of, but I just can't recall his or her name.  I'm not talking about obscure people, either.  Some actors' names that I've had trouble recalling include Alec Baldwin, Russell Crowe and Sandra Bullock.

When conversing with others, I find myself mentally groping for words much more than I used to which, in turn, causes me to stammer.  When I do recall the word that I'm looking for, I sometimes have trouble  enunciating it.  My speech enunciation problems are related to the drooling that I've spoken of earlier.  Try speaking with a mouthful of saliva some time and you'll understand what I mean.

Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, as you read this, "Gee, Halmanator, your vocabulary seems pretty good to me."  I do pride myself on having above-average writing skills. The degradation in my ability to communicate isn't as apparent in my writing because you can't see the number of times that I paused while trying to think of the correct word or phrase, or trying to remember a name or a term.  Of course, enunciation isn't a factor, so I'll never shlur my wordsh or sta-sta-stammer when I write. 

I've been at my current job for going on seven years now.  My boss and I get along well and my annual performance reviews have always been very good.  She made the following comments in my performance review for the past year:

"Andy is very knowledgeable and a great resource.  I am starting to see Andy struggle with his level of comprehension when working on the finer details in projects and day-to-day issues that require a more detailed approach to resolve ... Andy puts in a great effort but sometimes needs someone to check for accuracy with the small details."

Well, at least she sugar-coated it somewhat.  She didn't comment that I'm taking longer to complete my assignments, but I know that to be the case as well.  I should note that my boss is aware of my Parkinson's diagnosis, so she understands that it's the disease that's causing my professional lapses as opposed to any apathy on my part.  

To illustrate a point that I made just before, the word "apathy" didn't come to me immediately.  I had to stop typing and think for several minutes before my brain was finally able to retrieve it.  Had I been speaking to you verbally, it would have come out something like "I should note that ... my boss is aware of my Par-Parkinshon's diagnosis, s-so she understans that it's the disease that's causing my profeshnal lapses as opposed to any ... uh .... any ... oh, what's the word I'm groping for?  ... Apathy!  As opposed to any apathy on my part,"

Getting back to memory lapses, there have been times, at work, when I've needed to revisit a program that I know I've worked with before, and yet I've had to re-learn how it works.  I've even forgotten how some of the changes that I myself made to programs work.  It seems that the moment I complete a task, my brain erases it from my memory before moving on to the next task.  Oh, I don't completely forget what I've done.  When reviewing it later, it does come back to me, so it is still buried in my deeper memory, but it seems to have been erased from that memory which is readily accessed on demand.

I'm taking steps to mitigate these problems.  I read a fair bit and, when I'm alone and no-one can hear me, I read aloud to practice my enunciation.  I'm going to try posting to this blog more often as well (yeah, I know, you've heard that one before!)  Writing on a regular basis may help me to retain my vocabulary, not to mention stimulating my creative pathways.  At work, before declaring an assignment as being completed, I will try to review the original request and everything that I've done, making sure that I haven't missed or forgotten anything.

Hopefully, with the help of a few mental disciplines, I can minimize my cognitive deterioration, if not turn it around.  My goal is to see something akin to the following on next year's performance review:

"Andy has demonstrated increased meticulousness over the past year. His work has returned to its former quality and it has not been necessary to check it for mistakes or omissions.  Well done, Andy!"

More Fun with ChatGPT

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is the hot topic nowadays (at least in the tech world), and large language models (LLMs or "chat bots") such as ChatGPT are the most accessible of the A.I. tools by the general public.  Whether you feel that A.I. is a boon to mankind or threatens to destroy it, it can't be denied that the large language models offer the greatest potential boost to the productivity and creativity of those whose work involves research, writing and reporting plus the use of a computer.

 Yes, you heard me right.  I said "creativity".  While granting that the LLMs are great at finding, summarizing and reporting data, many will argue that they can't spontaneously create works of fiction, novels, poems, songs and other such creative output.

I wouldn't be so sure.  Although I didn't come right out and say so at the time, I did offer a hint (in the list of subject tags) that a recent post on this blog, entitled Give Us Back Our Rainbow was, in fact, written almost entirely by ChatGPT, with just a tiny bit of editing done by myself.  It was written in response to the following request that I made to ChatGPT: "Write a tongue-in-cheek editorial chiding the LGBTQ community for co-opting the leprechauns' rainbow."  That was it.  The idea was mine.  The rest was ChatGPT.  

What amazed me most was that the post was actually funny.  It actually made me laugh!  Computers aren't supposed to understand the concept of humour.  Even Star Trek's Lt. Commander Data could never get the hang of it.  Yet ChatGPT made me laugh.

So, anyway, the other day I decided to toss another creative challenge at ChatGPT.  My request was as follows:  "Translate Hamlet's famous soliloquy to 'A Clockwork Orange' style slang". 

A quick word of explanation for those who may not be familiar with the novel, A Clockwork Orange.  It takes place in a dystopian future society and focuses on a gang of young hoodlums lead by a fifteen-year-old boy name Alex.  We needn't concern ourselves about the details of the story for the purpose of this blog.  You need only understand that, in the book, which is narrated in first person by Alex himself, he and his "droogs" or gang buddies, use a strange new type of slang, invented by the book's author, Anthony Burgess, called "Nadsat".  I had forgotten what the slang was called, if I ever knew that at all, hence my omission of its name in my instructions to ChatGPT.

To fulfill the request, then, ChatGPT had to:

1. Understand what I meant by "Hamlet".
2. Figure out which part of "Hamlet" that I wanted translated (without my having referenced any specific quotes from the play). 
3. Understand the reference to A Clockwork Orange. 
4. Understand the slang used in the book, including its dictionary (i.e. the list of slang terms and what they mean) and its grammatical rules.

Rather than just spitting out the translation, ChatGPT began with the following preamble, both getting itself into character and confirming how it understood my instructions:

O my droogie, I viddy you want me to do the ol’ Ludwig van Bard in the govoreet of young Alex and his malchicks. Here’s Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” remixed in full Nadsat horrorshow style: 

One comment about the above; you may wonder about the reference to "Ludwig van Bard".  In the book, young Alex is a big fan of the music of Beethoven (whom he likes to call 'Ludwig van').  Crossing Ludwig van Beethoven with William "The Immortal Bard" Shakespeare in this manner may be exercising a bit of creative license, but you have to admit it is creative.  Also, note that ChatGPT took the opportunity to point out that the slang to which I referred has a name (Nadsat).  Anyway, having thus stated its intentions, ChatGPT proceeded to render the following translation of Hamlet's soliloquy:

To be or not to be, my brothers, that’s the real gloopy veshch:
Whether ’tis more horrorshow in the gulliver to slooshy the slings and arrows of bolshy fate,
Or to viddy arms against a sea of troubles and, by razrez, end them.
To snuff it, to slooshy no more—
And by snuff to say we stop the heart-ache,
And the thousand shocks of the flesh—such is the devotchka’s natural lot—
’Tis a pretty polly outcome, O my brothers.
To snuff, to slooshy no more—perchance to dream,
Ay, there’s the shilarny, for in that snuffing sleep,
What malenky dreams may come,
When we’ve put off this mortal platties,
Must give us a shiver.
That’s the razrez that makes calamity of such long life.
For who would bear the lashings and shame of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud veck’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delays,
The insolence of office, and the kicks and boots
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare nozhy?
Who would burdens carry, grunt and sweat under weary life,
But that the dread of something after snuff—
The undiscovered mesto, from whose bournes no chelloveck returns—
Puzzles the will, and makes us rather carry those miseries we know,
Than fly to others we know not of?
Thus conscience makes cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn all razrez
And lose the name of action.

Wow!  That was good beyond all my expectations!  But ChatGPT wasn't done yet.  It proceeded to ask me a follow-up question:

Want me to tighten it further so it sounds exactly like something Alex would spit out in the Korova Milkbar (more fractured, slang-heavy, and sneery), or keep it at this halfway point—still recognizable as Shakespeare, just laced in Nadsat?

So here was ChatGPT adding a caveat that its first translation was intended to preserve the style of Hamlet's soliloquy at the expense of being a bit less true to what young Alex might actually have said.  I told it "Sure, go ahead" and it offered the following alternate translation (complete with another in-character preamble):

Right then, my droogie, here’s the soliloquy done up proper like Alex in full flow, sloshed on moloko plus, govoreeting all razrez with the old Nadsat:

---

**“To be or not to be, right right? That’s the gloopy veshch.
Whether it’s more horrorshow in the gulliver to slooshy the slings and arrows of bolshy rotten fate,
Or to grab the britva and razrez through a whole sea of troubles,
And by cutting, end ’em. Snuff it, sleep it, no more.
And by sleep say we zap the ache in the tick-tocker and all the thousand shocks a poor chelloveck’s flesh is heir to—
That’s a real cally outcome, O my brothers.

To snuff, to sleep, maybe to dream,
Ay, there’s the shilarny, right there, ’cause in that snuffing sleep,
What malenky sneety may come, when we’ve stripped off this mortal platties,
That makes a vecker pause. That’s the razrez, that’s the stinking rub.

For who’d viddy the lashes and jeers of time,
The chelloveck in power giving it the big yah, the pangs of starry love despised,
The starry law dragging its nogas,
The big vecks in office being all skorry with their boots,
When a vecker could make his quietus with just a nozhy slice?

Who’d carry the bouldy burdens, grunt and sweat in a gloopy long life,
But for the dreddy what-comes-after—
That undiscovered mesto, where no malchick nor devotchka ever comes back from—
That makes us all cowardy millicents.
We’d rather hold on to the miseries we viddy,
Than take a chance on horrorshow new ones we don’t know.

So the nagoy conscience makes chicken-hearts of us all,
And the fire and blood of will gets sicklied o’er
With the pale, pale cast of thinking,
And all our razrez plans, all full of oomny,
Get turned aside and lose the name of action. Right right.”**

What can I say except that I'm suitably impressed.