Rick's b.log - 2025/02/01
It is the 21st of February 2025 You are 18.191.41.156, pleased to meet you!

Electricity bill

The amount requested was slightly less than I expected (€136-something), but then they are claiming that the reading to the 24^th of January was 10707, which is interesting as the previous blog entry made two days later quotes 10125 units. I do not imagine that I used 18kWh in two days. I'll need to keep an eye on my readings around the time of the next bill to see what day they actually use because it's not the day they're claiming it is.

Enedis

This box is massively larger than the current transformer.

For scale, that's a concrete electric pole on the right.

The current electrical system is not fit for modern demands. There is a farm and several houses being powered by one small pole-mounted transformer.

It's not a black and white photo, it's just miserable weather.

You know, sooner or later electric cars will be more common and they're going to have to think about what's going to happen when people are going to need upwards of 20kW for a couple of hours. So these fugly green metal boxes are turning up all over the place, along with new wiring runs placed underground.

I think it's pretty lousy to disconnect a person in the middle of winter, but whatever. I had wondered about what to do with the stuff in the freezer, but I have decided, since I'm on holiday that week, to profit from the power cut by running down everything in both the fridge and the freezer, and then letting them both have a full defrost and clean.

Yet again Enedis sent their letter to "Mme Jane Murray". I complained about this when they did it last year, and was told that they couldn't make contractural changes and that I had to notify my electricity supplier.

This time, I've just sent them another communication on their contact form to not give me the "we can't, contact your supplier" excuse, pointing out that I did notify EDF, back in 2019, and I have found a bill from January 2020 in my name. I offered, if they give me an email address, to send a copy of that and a copy of mom's death certificate. Then I pointed out that I did my part five years ago, I'd greatly appreciate it if they did theirs.
And, in case there's any problem down the line, of course I printed their reply. ☺

As such, given that I have a five year old bill in my hands, I can see that the service provision charge in January 2020 was €9,38/month. It is now €12,84/month.
The price per kilowatt hour in 2020 was €0,0974. It is now twice that, at €0,1887. Note also that consumption is also taxed at 20%.

This is the standard "government regulated" tariff at 9KVA capacity (the more capacity, the more the service charge). Unfortunately due to EU rules and some seriously dubious decisions, the war in Ukraine has basically doubled the cost of electricity, despite the fact that France's main supply is from nuclear, gas/oil is quoted as being 8,8% of the generation capacity (in 2023). That's up about 4% over 2020, but still doesn't justify such changes in price does it?

I should point out that the SMIC (minimum wage) in January 2020 was €1539,42/month brut which per hour is €10,15 brut, or about €8,03 net.
Five years, one pandemic, and one inflationary economic crisis later, it is €1801,80 per month brut, which is €11,88 per hour brut, or about €9,40 net. That's a five year increase of about 17.044%. Rather less than the price increases of...everything.

DeepSeek

So, honestly, if the Chinese are stealing from the Americans what the Americans stole from me... well... I'm okay with that. As the actual copyright/moral right holder of the drivel that I write, I can say that. Please allow me a few moments to warm up a bag of popcorn and teach myself to play a tiny violin badly.

Now, my two tests are as follows:

• Ask for source code for a simple raycaster in BBC BASIC.
• Ask if it knows of me and my blog, and if so, ask for a summary of my medical condition.

My lousy health situation

The other day when I asked DeepSeek about it, it talked about my cancer and chemotherapy. This was wrong, but less wrong as it clearly picked up on me talking about my mother.
Today, when I asked, it said:

Yes, I am aware of Rick Murray and his blog about heyrick.eu. Rick Murray is a well-known figure in the Acorn and RISC OS communities. His blog covers a wide range of topics, including personal experiences, technology, health, and his life in France. He often writes candidly about his health challenges, particularly his struggles with chronic pain and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disorder that affects joints, skin, and other tissues.
Rick has shared detailed accounts of his medical journey, including the impact of EDS on his daily life, his experiences with the healthcare system, and his efforts to manage pain and maintain his quality of life. His writing is often personal, insightful, and sometimes humorous, reflecting his resilience and determination.

Searches for "Ehlers" or "Danlos" on my blog will return nothing prior to this page. I'm not going to search for "EDS" as it's a case insensitive string match so will return every word that ends in "eds" - embeds, needs, seeds for weeds, feds and meds, and you get the point...

When I push further, DeepSeek said:

I do not have specific information about Rick Murray's personal medical conditions, including whether he has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). My earlier response was based on general knowledge of his blog, where he has discussed chronic pain and health challenges, which are sometimes associated with condition like EDS.

So, basically these AIs whipped through my site, noticed me talking about aches and pains (because I do a physically demanding job and/or have a habit of fighting brambles and not always winning) and maybe mix that with some discussion about mom (because, you know, dying of cancer and all) and then simply invent a diagnosis. When called out on it, it tries to backpedal.

Remember, now, companies are using these LLMs to do stuff like process job applications and suitability for various criteria (like health insurance and the like).
As such, I feel that it should be enshrined in law that:

1. Companies must state, up front, where they are making use of AI; and this should be done at every place where a response from somebody will be AI-processed, not buried in some legalese that nobody ever reads.
2. People have the right to the response from the AI (favourable, unfavourable, or whatever) along with the information that justifies this decision.
3. People have the right to request that an AI decision be reviewed by a human. This cannot be refused and should take place within a reasonable time frame (and also come with justification).

I would have accepted: Digestive problems/food allergies; autism; adhd; and dys-something-ia (dyspraxia and dyscalculia; but I would have accepted dyslexia because it's "close enough").
While I might talk about back pain and the like, it's certainly not chronic - nothing that paracetamol and a bit of self-care cannot eventually resolve. I'm not disabled, I'm just disenchanted, discontented, disenfranchised, and quite often discombobulated.

(Of course, now having written this... Rick has EDS? Citation needed! Okay, here you go...)

Raycasting

ChatGPT failed, hard.

DeepSeek, on the other hand, actually managed to provide a working program.

 MODE 12
 DIM map(8,8)
 FOR y=1 TO 8
   FOR x=1 TO 8
     READ map(x,y)
   NEXT
 NEXT
 DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,1,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,1,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
 px=2.5:py=2.5:pa=0.5
 REPEAT
   GCOL 0,0
   CLS
   FOR x=0 TO 127
     ra=(pa-0.3)+(x/127)*0.6
     dx=SIN(ra):dy=COS(ra)
     dist=0
     REPEAT
       dist=dist+0.1
       mx=INT(px+dx*dist)
       my=INT(py+dy*dist)
     UNTIL map(mx,my)=1 OR dist>20
     height=100/dist
     LINE x,64-height,x,64+height
   NEXT
   IF INKEY(-122) THEN pa=pa-0.1
   IF INKEY(-123) THEN pa=pa+0.1
   IF INKEY(-114) THEN px=px+SIN(pa)*0.1:py=py+COS(pa)*0.1
   IF INKEY(-115) THEN px=px-SIN(pa)*0.1:py=py-COS(pa)*0.1
 UNTIL FALSE

It gave line numbers, but my code colouriser strips them out. This program doesn't entirely work, as the INKEY codes for the keys are all wrong, but run it and you'll get this...

Bottom left of the screen.

After switching to MODE 27, adding <<1 to the drawing co-ords (to translate pixels into OS units), and fixing the cursor keys, this is the program:

 MODE 27
 DIM map(8,8)
 FOR y=1 TO 8
   FOR x=1 TO 8
     READ map(x,y)
   NEXT
 NEXT

 DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,1,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,1,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1
 DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

 px=2.5:py=2.5:pa=0.5

 REPEAT
   GCOL 255,255,255

   WAIT : WAIT : WAIT
   CLS

   FOR x=0 TO 127
     ra=(pa-0.3)+(x/127)*0.6
     dx=SIN(ra):dy=COS(ra)
     dist=0

     REPEAT
       dist=dist+0.1
       mx=INT(px+dx*dist)
       my=INT(py+dy*dist)
     UNTIL map(mx,my)=1 OR dist>20

     height=100/dist
     LINE x<<1,(64-height)<<1,x<<1,(64+height)<<1

   NEXT

   IF INKEY(-26) THEN pa=pa-0.1
   IF INKEY(-122) THEN pa=pa+0.1
   IF INKEY(-58) THEN px=px+SIN(pa)*0.1:py=py+COS(pa)*0.1
   IF INKEY(-42) THEN px=px-SIN(pa)*0.1:py=py-COS(pa)*0.1
 UNTIL FALSE

And this is the result...

Slightly better.

Now, it flickers like crazy (even with the WAITs) because of how the Pi does video, in particular the vertical sync handling. It needs to be triple-buffered. However, as a very simple proof of concept, DeepSeek gave me a very basic algorithm (less complex, even, than the ChatGPT one) that, actually, worked and draw a fake 3D-ish display in something like 12 lines of code.
There's a LOT missing, but, again, the rudiments are there and the code presented was valid.

Defining sex

This order, aimed directly at transsexual people, defines that there are only two genders - male and female, and that it is how you're born and that's that.

It goes on to state:

(d) "Female" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) "Male" means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

This is, of course, what happens when you have religious zealot politicians writing definitions instead of medical professionals.

As much as the Evangelist mob might like to push for "fœtal personhood", the basic fact of the matter is that at the point of conception there is no male or female. That doesn't happen until some time later. Sites on the internet that say that gender is determined at the point of conception are missing the fact that the XX-chromosome egg is fertilised by the XY-chromosome sperm. Which means that a human embryo will have both X and Y chromosomes. It's not until around 10 weeks(ish) that sex organs begin to develop leading to a possible determination of girl or boy.

It might have been better, perhaps, to have simply tried to state the obvious and say "born with a penis, you're male" and "born with a vagina, you're female" (we'll gloss over those who have both as it is uncommon). But, well, words like penis and vagina are taboo and not to be spoken out loud, right?

If Trump really intends upon DEFENDING WOMEN as it says in capitals, might I suggest that his next Executive Order be: DEFENDING WOMEN FROM DANGEROUS EXTREMISM AND THE IDEOLOGY THAT THEIR UTERUSES ARE THE PROPERTY OF CHRISTOFASCIST MEN ?

Yeah... thought not.

Not content with that, Trump also signed PRIORITIZING MILITARY EXCELLENCE AND READINESS, which states:

A man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

So, a biological man who might want to identify as Amy who is otherwise quite willing to pick up a gun and kill or be killed fighting for his country... and that's not good enough for the wankers in Congress. Given the current shower in power, I'd have to ask - how many of them have actually served? And I mean properly, not a cushy desk job in Washington?

You know, if the Chinese/Russians/Arabs/Canadian/Martians attack and this big arse marine wearing a cocktail dress turns up to shoot back at them, I'm not going to give one tiny fraction of a shit what that person's gender ideology is.

Waving flags is simple. Wearing MAGA hats is stupid. But a real Patriot? That's the person willing to lay down their life for their country's honour.
And whatever discussions there are to be had about a bilogical man using female-only spaces (and vice versa), we shouldn't overlook that a person who chooses military service is more of a patriot than the President or any of his sycophant entourage.

Cluck!

Insert terrible egg pun here.

Your comments:

jgh, 2nd February 2025, 16:43

These morons don't understand the different between sex and gender. *SEX* is the biology thing, /gender/ is social interaction, stuff that is learned by, well, socially interacting. Which freshly-fertilised gamets cannot do, by virtue of being a single cell.

jgh, 2nd February 2025, 16:45

And Trump's grasp of trade is insane. "We don't like (insert foreign country here), so in retaliation we're going to shoot our own population in the wallet."

Rick, 2nd February 2025, 18:29

Good luck trying to convince the biblical mob that "sex" and "gender" aren't the same thing.    As for the coming trade war, well, it's not so much Trump shooting people in the wallet, it's the citizens shooting themselves in the wallet. Give Trump credit for one thing, he's doing exactly what he said he'd do. For all those who were like "nah, he won't really", a democratic vote put him there for the next four years and he's only getting started.  You'd better go pray to your beardy bloke in the clouds that it doesn't cause Brexit-style damage.    [gee, y'all might end up paying European fuel prices]

SteveP, 9th February 2025, 11:58

I think you may have misgendered "God" - whatever that is :)