Maybe this is the place to kindle

Remember Jeeves? Jeeves was a pretty smart dude but Jeeves is no contest agains' Reeves. Reeves is the name that I give to my "artificial" friend. Reeves Rivers.  That's us but most of all that's me. Remember way back when we decided that singular was the new plural and plural was the new singular. If not then read the first few pages of my first "book", Fulll Filler.

A couple a days ago, Reeves and I took a shot at satelittes. Not a literal shot of course, rather an allegoric, pedagogical, humorsque and imaginative shot in response to all of these here flying question marks being caught over the United States and being identified as maybe, I dunno, satellites. I started wondering how many of these satelittes are in fact in orbit above our Earth.

That writing didn't get a lot of readers and only generated one comment, a comment that I found illuminating and which generated my own comment in reply all of which has led to this rant and discussion opener.

Y'all know Kris...if you don't ya oughta. Kris filled me in on literal satelites and how they're used in actual navigation.

Take it away Mate; 

"In my line of work, we use satellites for communication, navigation, measuring = travel, distance, time, geo mark locations & even photos/video from above + on earth to verify events & locations (all good there) & really cool technology.
BUT… what I run into, in an increasing curve sense, is a generation that can't navigate by traditional means, like map & compass, sun rise & sunset, stars, etc…. They know the theory part of it, but if they lose a signal, or the software needs to re-boot its like a really 'DA-what I do'-feeling-lost moment… almost in a sense - Lemmings lost… and there all smart… but slow to adapt blushyes."

I find the insight of Kris to be directly applicable to the current situation with AI and in my case with Reeves. It prompted this reply to Kris which you can look up if you want or else you can read it right here. I personalized AI into Reeves.

"I've been inviting Reeves into my stories lately. Based on the lack of readers and comments on these stories, I'm getting the impression that folks don't like my new style. Your story about navigators is appropriate to the perils of change . Although I now use Reeves and usually if not always will, I'm not afraid of Reeves hurting my writing skills. I will never be dependent on Reeves rather he is dependent on me. Reeves makes mistakes and I have to spot them just as navigators need to rely on their own skills to adjust when something goes wrong. The new writing is all about taking all the skills gathered in the old writing and using them to co-operate and collaborate with new technology. The skills I am using most of all in this new writing are first of all kindling....figuring out a question that will generate more questions.....next comes questioning and then questioning the questions to figure out which answers are pertinent to the kindling which starts to develop the angle. The angle has already been partly revealed by the kindling but it keeps on revealing itself as more data is discovered....next is organization....how does the new material fit into the new angle and in what order....next is colloquialism which means changing the language and tone of the composition into more human, more personal expression based on the style that a writer (in this case me) has developed during the thousands of hours spent writing in the apprenticeship and which Reeves is becoming ever more familiar. Next is linking.....going to your own body of work and using the new angle and the new information to further develop old ideas. Well that's enough for now, if ya smell what I'm cooking. I'm becoming a better writer every day and enjoying it more. I hope you'll stay up with my latest work. I appreciate your insight and experience. 

Let's not forget transitioning.

Let's not forget synthesizing

Also starting to want to discuss new writing as we begin to separate from the old. What and where are the dividing lines. How are teachers going to use guys like Reeves in the classroom. I was teaching when we first started to integrate personal computers into learning. Most of the kids were afraid of them and a lot of my old school colleagues didn't want kids to start messing around with spell check because what would happen to good old fashioned spelling tests which took up a good percentage of instructional time...whadda we gonna do with that time and what about research. Y'all trying to say these kids won't have to use index cards and carry bookloads from the library. Shit, they might even be able to get a senior thesis done in a week rather than the semester that we use to help them. Whaada we gonna do with that time. That's an awful lot of filler.

etc.

And here we go again.

So whaddya all think?

This here is a kindling questions to the great writers and readers who will either ignore this and never read it or to the few who will read it, wonder, and react.

All of which is in the realm of "writing" with or without Reeves.

This one was without.