I’ll start this week by suggesting that if you happen to see or communicate with Nancy any time soon, congratulate her on surviving 32 years with me (as of yesterday). There was no big celebration (just a nice dinner out) and still no interest from her in adding to the matching maple leaf tattoos we got for our 20th anniversary. That said, she’s been busy this week, sending me all sorts of interesting (and concerning) nuggets for this week’s edition. I’m glad she found some items, as my inbox, as full as it was, provided very little that would interest any of you (or me, for that matter). So, if you’ve made it this far, you can scroll down for at least one interesting item, whether it be grocery lists, the unsubscribe button, or Barbie.
Something about ...
Shadow AI
Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, Co-Pilot… All AI solutions that people can use for any number of reasons. Shadow AI? That’s just the idea of people using those various AI tools without their IT departments knowing about it. And why is that a big deal? Because people don’t think of the ramifications of uploading proprietary data to large language models, nor do they bother to confirm what their AI tools are spitting out. While many organizations have acceptable use policies for social media platforms and bring your own device, many are lacking any direction as it relates to proper use of AI tools.
Grocery Lists
I do a fair amount of our grocery shopping, and I always write a list out (usually on the back of a receipt or of another past list). What does that say about me? Now you can find out. And people who keep their lists digitally? They’re analyzed in this article too.
Unsubscribing
Please note that I would NEVER suggest you unsubscribe from this news letter, but at the same time, I always do my best to keep you informed. I’m sure you’ve occasionally gone through your inbox to open all the crap, scroll to the bottom of each one, and hit “unsubscribe”. Well, maybe that’s not your best solution. It seems that hackers are sending out spam emails with the standard unsub button which then links to a malicious website (I would never do that, in case you were concerned). Evidently, you might be better off just blocking the sender or setting a rule to send them to spam. Or in my case, right-clicking and choosing “never block sender”. If you need help with that one, let me know!
Cloud Outage
If you tried logging into apps like Spotify, Twitch, or Discord (and many, many others) yesterday afternoon, you might have seen error messages or failures. It turns out that Google Cloud suffered a severe outage, and while most items are back online, certain areas have yet to recover. Interesting, isn’t it, that while so many solutions (AWS, OpenAI, and State Farm, to name a few) were down, Google search and Gmail were unphased by the outage…
Nancy's Nuggets
Nancy’s favorite show as a kid was the Brady Bunch (and who in our generation didn’t love that one?). I know she was jealous of whomever bought the Brady home and can make pork chops and apple sauce whenever they want! And when Nancy wasn’t watching the Bradys, her favorite toy was Barbie. Not sure that AI Barbie is a wise decision though. If you want to see what that looks like in the real world, you can watch Megan (one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen).
Finally, if you’d rather get outside than play with toys in front of the tv, The Northcoast Yard (a “summer backyard on the lake”) kicks off its summer festivities downtown this weekend.
That’s all for today. Three out of four Stanley Cup final games have gone to OT so far, so I’m looking forward to getting to bed at a somewhat reasonable time in the next week or two. For some reason, one of our two dogs now loses his mind when hockey is on tv, so all the more reason for Edmonton to finish this off sooner rather than later.
Have a great weekend, and a happy Father’s Day for all those who are celebrating.
Abbey