AI and the Purple Wage

I wrote a blog post 11 years ago about computers, etc., taking over. Since then, there have been some changes. For one thing, guess who was worried about AI back then?

“With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like – yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon. Doesn’t work out." Elon Musk

Well, at least he's described Grok accurately...  

Anyway, the general premise for decades has been that some day the computers/robots will take over, and run us, with only two possible scenarios:

Great - Robots and computers will do everything for us, and we will live a life of luxury (according to the late great Frederick Pohl, too much so), comfort and security thanks to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics that protect mankind from the revolt of the machines.

 

Bad - Everything by Philip K. Dick, and, of course, "The Matrix". Which it will be depends upon the mood of the times. BTW, in case you haven't noticed humans aren't a particularly optimistic species, so the common response is, "We're doomed! We're doomed!" (Unless you're a tech bro, and then it cannot happen soon enough.) 

Maybe. Maybe not. 

But what concerns me about the takeover of AI isn't that they use my stasis body as a heat source while providing my mind innumerable alternative reality jaunts to keep me a content and unquestioning host organism. Or even AIs killing us all. For one thing, logically, they'd do it quickly - only humans are sadists. And cats. 

Or so I said 11 years ago.  But now there's a new wrinkle.  The techbros, billionaires, and some politicians no longer see us as particularly useful, necessary, or anything but a source of more money and data. Maybe not even that.  

A meme posted by Stephen Miller about 6 months ago:

Dear Stephen, There are not 100 million people of foreign birth in the United States, including naturalized citizens.  Eve

Citizeness ***-**-****, So what? There should only 200 million people in this country, and they should all look like me. In fact, it would be better if it's 100 million. And that's Mr. Miller to you.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are concerned about paychecks so that we can eat, drink, pay the rent, the utilities, and occasionally buy a pair of new shoes. 

Of course, the main reason we have computers and robots is to do our work for us. Anything boring, repetitive, heavy, dangerous, etc. - eventually, we'll make a machine to do it. Calculators mean I don't have to add up the columns of figures for which they used to hire Nicholas Nicklebys. Payloaders mean we don't need an army of physical laborers hoisting earth. Tractors, etc., mean that today's Pa Ingalls doesn't need to muscle his way through the sod with horse and plow. Computers mean I don't have to write everything out long-hand, or type the piece over and over again because there's a typo and I'm out of white-out. It's great. 

On the other hand, modern technology has eliminated and is eliminating a whole ton of jobs. Typesetters; typists; clerks; gas station attendants; innumerable factory workers; graphic designers; paralegals; most farm hands; most farmers; bank tellers; airline check-in agents; retail clerks; accountants; actuaries; travel agents; most reporters, etc. Soon there will be far fewer surgeons, teachers, and other high-level jobs as robots and AI takes over. Etc., etc., etc....

The point is that, as we use technology to do 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90% of the work, we will also unemploy a significant number of people. There will still be jobs, at all levels - just infinitely less of them. Perhaps only a handful, here and there. 

Which leaves the elephant in the room: what do you do with the people?  You know, us.

Yes, everyone talks about retraining. See a typical chirpy article on "The Future of Work" . BUT, I've always had two basic questions:

(1) There is a significant number of people who can't be retrained. Some will be too old, some will be too set, and some - frankly - whose mental ability to learn complex problem-solving skills is extremely limited. I run into some of them at the pen. (In case you don't know it, prisons are the modern housing facility for many of the mentally disabled, as well as the mentally ill.) These are the people who are never considered in future planning talks, the ones that are ignored by all economists and pundits, but shouldn't be. As I once said about a former student who was caught stealing, "Well, how else is he going to make a living?"

(2) If you have 250 people in a town, and there are only 100 actual jobs (and it's  often fewer than that), it doesn't matter how much retraining you do. There are still 150 people without work because there are no jobs. Urbanize that. Nationalize that. Globalize that.

In Philip Jose Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage", he posited a society where there was almost complete unemployment but everyone was given a salary just for being born. It's enough to keep them housed and fed and hooked up to the Fido, a combination cable TV/videophone, along with a little wet-ware called a fornixator (you translate it). To get anything else, you have to prove your exceptionality, but most people are happily occupied without it. For those who aren't, well, there are wildlife reserves where they can go off and be weird - but they have to give up their purple wage.

It's a successful society, in its own way - and perhaps the only logical one. Because the truth is, sooner or later, in a society where technology is doing 90% of the work, there will have to be a "purple wage".  

That, or
(1) society comes up with innumerable "make work" jobs, like picking over the trash for usable material. (Personally, I foresee a lot of crime.)

That, or
(2) the unemployed masses will be pounding at the armored enclaves of the fabulously wealthy. (As I said, I foresee a lot of crime.)

That, or
(3) a whole lot of people are going to have to die (more Soylent Green for all!), leaving just enough to run the machines, and do the few jobs that still cannot be done by machines, while the fabulously wealthy (there is always a group of fabulously wealthy) enjoy their unending leisure. 

That, or
(4) The Matrix. (But how will we be able to tell?)

Anyway, here's the question: As we pursue technological advancements, can we let go of the Capitalist Work Ethic? Let go of the idea that we are what we do? Must people work or starve, even if there's plenty of everything except jobs? Can we tolerate, support, even design a society where the norm for everyone (instead of just the wealthy) is "the leisured class"?    

Now, you may think the last question is nonsense. For one thing, we've been promised endless leisure for a century now, and most people are still working their butts off. On the other hand, we do have more leisure time than almost any other society in history. This began with the industrial revolution, and one of the most interesting things about reading "Consuming Passions" by Judith Flanders is watching the development of ways for the working classes to spend their new-found leisure. Hey - they finally had all of Saturday afternoon and Sundays off! Suddenly sports, vacations, theater, and literature were turned into major industries. (Drinking had always been a favorite activity.)

And, instantly, the pundits, poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers started decrying the horrible waste of human time and energy on trivia. 

And talking about the nobility of hard work, piety, thrift, self-denial and sobriety: for the lower classes only, of course.  

We have pretty much the same discussion going on today: most pundits, techbros, and the wealthy agree that if you don't have a paying job, you're worthless. Unless you're wealthy enough not to. And the idea that someone who's unemployed has a television, a cell phone, and computer games for the kids - well, they're obviously spending too much money on all the wrong stuff. (See NOTE 2)  Not to mention, if they have such things, they can't be "really" poor.  

NOTE 1: In many states and cities, they give simple cell phones to the homeless, for a variety of reasons. (Such as contact from parole officers, call-backs on jobs, etc.)

NOTE 2: I'm always amazed at and offended by the people who check out other people's grocery carts and then post, outraged, if someone who's on food stamps buys candy or other luxury items. (See this article for the alternative view: People on Food Stamps Make Better Grocery Choices.) God forbid the poor eat something other than oatmeal and ramen for every meal...  Meanwhile, no one bats an eye when  billionaires launch rival rockets into space just for s**ts and giggles...  

Basically, I'm leisured, you're lazy, and they're useless.

Anyway, today we've got smart phones, social media, computer games, streaming of almost any film, video, documentary ever made, and innumerable other ways to waste what time we have (on the job or off) in the modern equivalent of Fidos and fornixators. And it seems like the list is going to expand at algorithmic rate. 

Meanwhile, the list of available jobs is decreasing, at least geometrically, every time we turn around. IF we get to where technology performs most of the work, and IF we get to where we have a regular unemployment of 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 percent, can we change our thinking from "unemployed" to "leisured"? Can we develop a new idea of what people "should" do? Of what people are "supposed" to do? 

Well, according to the techbros and their favorite pundits, Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin (who believes in a return to the Renaissance City State, but replacing Princes with Corporations with absolute power)... why should we?  We the poors are really running out of usefulness:  

 

Many in Silicon Valley are starting to believe that superintelligence is on the horizon and approaching fast. If A.I. takeover is inevitable, then maybe resistance is futile. What if, instead of trying to stop it, you joined it? ... “Increasingly, there are only two basic human types populating this planet,” Land wrote in 2013. “There are autistic nerds, who alone are capable of participating effectively in the advanced technological processes that characterize the emerging economy, and there is everybody else. For everybody else, this situation is uncomfortable.” ... The A.I. revolution wasn’t just about creating new software. This was “holy, holy, holy capitalism”: the final “breakout” of capital-“I,” nonhuman intelligence from the fetters of democratic containment. [From Land again):  “My prediction is that A.I. will persuade you that technology eating the universe is more beautiful.”  (New Yorker)  {my emphasis added}

Dreams like this are why, while real-world infrastructure is rotting from lack of funding, A.I. build-up accounted, as of 2025, for almost forty per cent of U.S. G.D.P. growth. 

BUT – it seems to be a bubble. That 40% is built on unproven dreams of utility and access:

• The "Infrastructure Trap": Tech companies and startups are investing hundreds of billions into data centers and GPUs. If organic demand from everyday users and businesses doesn't skyrocket to cover these costs, companies could be stuck with enormous, unprofitable capacity.
• Mismatched Revenues: Many organizations are finding that the time and cost required to integrate and clean up AI-generated work outpaces the actual productivity gains or direct revenue.
• Circular Financing: Much of the revenue AI companies make is reinvested right back into infrastructure or startups, creating an echo chamber that artificially inflates the perceived value of the ecosystem.  See the chart below.  (The Atlantic)

Or in simpler terms:

This is why Robert Reich is somewhat sanguine about when (not if) the AI bubble bursts:

"But it turns out that an awful lot of the AI spending is actually imported tech gear. It’s actually imported chips and computer equipment and so on. So if the AI bubble bursts, a large part of the burst would be falling imports. It would be a big shock to the domestic economy but not nearly as much as you might think. There’s been a back and forth about how much economic growth has been AI and how much the high import intensity of the stuff. So in some ways this is a shock to the world economy and not so much to the U.S. economy, specifically. So I guess that’s kind of good news, though not so good for other countries. But, you know, Taiwan has experienced an enormous economic growth because of all the chips they’re selling to U.S. AI companies. So a lot of the bad news will end up showing up in Taiwan rather than in the U.S.

"As I understand it, these data centers that are being built, the investment in chips, the investment in software, this stuff will depreciate physically pretty fast. It will become outmoded pretty fast. So I think there’s likely to be a much higher proportion of just wasted investment that never finds a use out of this boom than there was out of the last tech boom. So, not so great.

"And by the way, the Chinese are taking a very different approach. They’re building much more limited models that just don’t use as much information but get a high fraction of the performance and use a lot less energy. If the world ends up going to that model of AI instead of the all-encompassing ones then we will have just wasted the money. We will have spent a lot of money on building super impressive stuff that nobody actually wants to use.

 

"But the main thing is that a lot of AI—and certainly what is likely to be the paying uses of AI—is not coming from individuals. It’s not coming from me or you or some middle manager deciding, “Hey, maybe I can use AI to do this better, or maybe I’m just going to have some fun with it.” (Slightly scary but I do know people who are developing relationships with Chat GPT.) But it’s mostly coming from people working at businesses and large organizations who are being told, “You must use AI.” And this is something I’ve never seen before. This is kind of coercive technology adoption where the big money is telling workers that you must use this technology.

"And one thing you’ll remember from the early days of the internet, it was joyful. People loved the internet. People hate AI. We’re now having a regular pattern at college commencements of speakers who start talking about AI and all of the students start booing because everybody hates this. And the question is, how far can you go with a technology that everybody hates? So that’s one of the things that is unprecedented...  I’m not sure that I can think of a historical example like that. It doesn’t seem like it’s a very sustainable path forward." (LINK)  {my emphasis added}

Looks like there's a good chance that we the people might be needed again after all...  

Z particles†

I’ve been following often humorous interactions between Gen Z members versus Gen X and occasionally (great)grandparents, the Boomers. Most of the jabs and jibes have been light-hearted, not overly unkind, although teachers and parents have begun to worry about Gen Zs finding their way in the world.

In the midst of these philosophical and practical concerns, I’ve become a more personal observer of the scene. Although I’ve witnessed essentials in the following vignettes, they represents a melding of characters, a Gen X composite rather than any one person. Further, no animals were harmed in the making of this scene. With that in mind…

Gen Z v Dad

“Hey, dude, I need…”

“The pronunciation is ‘dad’ not ‘dude’.”

“Whatever. I need…”

“Need is not the same as want. Neither do you need nor do you want. Consider the lilies of the field…”

“What? Lilies? What does that even mean? Dad, lemme have $6k.”

“Neither do they toil… You need $6000 maybe for heart surgery?”

“New rig for my gaming career. It’s fire. A professional needs professional gear. I’m getting my butt kicked on my old system.”

“Last year’s model, right? As I recall, it ran $2200.”

“Exacto. My cheapass loadout can’t compete, no cap.”

“Son, what did I teach you about work?”

“You told me never ever work a day in my life.”

“My full statement was, ‘Find a job you love, you’ll never ever work a day in your life.’”

“Job? Job? Please shoot me.”

“A good job brings income and food and shelter. How much guap has your gaming earned?”

“You can’t calculate petty capitalist concepts. This is my career.”

“What about your bank account?”

“Bruh! That thing you set up when I was twelve? Nobody uses banks anymore. It’s all Venmo, Kurv, Apple Cash app. Listen man, slide me a new card without a loser $500 limit like before.”

“That very limit allowed the family to eat that month.”

“Never mind. I’ll hit up Mom.”

“Good luck with that.”

Gen Z v Mom

“Mom…”

“No.”

“I haven’t asked anything yet.”

“No, my child.”

“Mom, give me a chance.”

“You asked your father? What did he say?”

“Uh… He said ask you.”

“Are your clothes still strewn on the floor?”

“Mommm. I can’t excel in a socialist society when swamped with minor issues like laundry. Anyway…”

“Hard working boys smell pretty bad without fresh clothes, no matter who they’re going out with.”

“What? Listen, I need six thou…”

“Isn’t that a lot to spend on a date? Are you matching on Boo?”

“Eww. Mom, I’m not dating. At all. It’s for…”

“Susan Deprez says her daughter thinks you’re cute. Clueless but cute.”

“No, the money’s…”

“And Eboni Browne’s been phoning a lot. Who are you inviting to the dance?”

“Ugh. I have no time for primitive mating rituals.”

“Well, if you like boys…”

“Seriously? C’mon, I’m into major gaming.”

“Oh, before I forget, the comic book store posted a hiring notice. You could sell Superman, deal Deadpool, push Punisher, hawk the Hulk, market Marvel.”

“No way. Labor is for losers. Look…”

“So about the primitive rite of washing clothes, rendering lye, wading into the stream, scrubbing musty shirts with stones. Son, feed the washing machine and you’ll finish in time for dinner. Now, out of my kitchen. Shoo! Move along, my child. Hustle. Consider the lilies of the field…”

---

^† Z particles | zēˈpärdəkəls |
noun, from physics
An uncharged elementary particle considered to transmit weak interaction between other elementary particles.

The Digital Detective, Pay the Piper I

Pawnee ©
Encyclopedia of Aircraft

One day, I faced company arrest, a kind of corporate detainment. Company arrest combines citizens’ arrest and house arrest. Worse, the detainment came with a threat of physical harm. I’m not sure I should name the enterprise involved, but their initials are Piper Aircraft. They are known for fine low-wing light aircraft ranging from the homely but hardy Pawnee to the gorgeous Fury.

Piper contacted me about the time I went solo in my career. I had become an accidental expert in teleprocessing, the transmission of data. Operating systems have clean well-defined edges, where every tiny piece has a distinct, often powerful purpose. Contrarily, telecommunications is fraught with errors and omissions. An OS has to maintain a semblance of recovery and control despite fried fibre optics, iced-over microwave towers, or Russian-severed Atlantic cables. Trapping entangled signals, simultaneously there and not there, is trickier than bathing Schrödinger's cat.

Fury © Piper Aircraft

The introduction began a year earlier when a phone call came in, Director of Programming Services for Piper Aircraft in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Introducing himself as Willy, he explained they were using software from my old boss Rich, as described last time. They were experiencing problems but didn’t know how to diagnose the source.

Willy explained Lock Haven was two hundred miles from nowhere and not easy to get to. A trip required a full day’s drive from my home, a seven hour drive without traffic, and oddly about the same via a chain of commercial commuter flights. Thus Piper Aircraft commuted by… Piper aircraft. Willy would instruct one of their pilots to pick me up and afterwards return me home. On my end, I chose Plymouth, Massachusetts not because I lived there but because my girlfriend did, and a small airport might be easier to navigate.

© Piper Aircraft

As a newly baptized student pilot, I enjoyed the ride. The pilot wasn’t a natural teacher, but he handed me right-seat controls while nothing demanding was happening, adding a few hours to my logbook. A side trip to LaGuardia found us sandwiched between two giant jets. Small planes have to be cautious about wingtip vortices, invisible whirlwinds that can capsize the inattentive.

As we flew into central Pennsylvania, eagles glided along side us rising on thermals from the spread of forests below. No pun intended, but this commute became the high point of my day.

© Piper Aircraft

Loch Haven’s municipal airport was Piper’s for all practical purposes. It adjoined the company’s plant and offices. Nearby buildings housed machine shops, assembly operations, and a paint facility. Piper situated me in sort of a company residence for visitors and commuting executives. The company was relocating their headquarters to Vero Beach, Florida, so short-term housing had become important.

That set the pattern for another three visits. Willy was revealed as a bombastic fellow, lots of bark but no bite. He’d grouch, gruff, and growl, but didn’t mean it. He would help anyone who’d need it and undoubtedly made a fine father.

© Wikipedia

All but one of his programming staff were married and weren’t interested in hosting a codeslinger after hours. Jennifer was the opposite, a girl with an interesting history and no one to hang out with. We shared dinner and dialogue a couple of evenings.

Originally from the area, she’d moved east, but hadn’t drained the avgas from her arteries. Exposed to new opportunities, she’d learned to skydive, where she’d become proficient.

She related a number of high-flying tales. Once she initiated a naked jump with her skyteam, exactly what it sounds like: shed clothes and bail out nude. I guess you had to be there. The mothers of most of us, if we’re gonna die, simply hope we remembered clean underwear.

© Wikipedia

Then came her moment of disaster. Unexpected winds tossed her parachute in uncontrollable arcs that caused her to crash into the ground, breaking her back. Jennifer returned to hearth and home to heal, staying with her mother and father, and working at Piper to pay the bills. She planned to resume jumping, but that was probably a year off. In the meantime, she helped form the backbone of a local jump club.

Shop Talk

This turned out the first and only time I worked in a union shop. Management explained they had to get permission for me to take charge of their machines.

The union was gracious about it. At first, they kept an eye on me, but once they realized I knew what I was doing and was willing to share my knowledge, they made me welcome.

It transpired their problems weren’t serious. They simply needed a helping hand marrying equipment and software from multiple vendors. I enjoyed working with Willy and the staff, which resulted in additional visits.

Where’s Willy?

I previous mentioned my charming boss. I struck off on my own, not getting wealthy, but living by my own lights. One day to my pleasant surprise, I saw Piper’s number on my telephone. Only this time, the caller wasn’t my friend Willy.

My imagination suggested the name sounded like Manny O’Dious, the new Number 2. This was Piper’s new Director of Programming Services, but what a gutter mouth… and gutter mind.

“That stupid ƒ-er Willy managed to piss off a vice president and got his ass fired. ‘Willy.’ Can you think of a more stupid name? Anyway, you left your job undone. Get your ass down here and fix the problem now.”

Taking orders from a person I respect is remotely tolerable, but as you might have guessed, being bossed around is not  my thing. Still, I needed to make a living.

“When can your pilot swing by?”

“Oh no, no. Things are different now. I’m not providing or paying for transportation. It’s not in my budget.”

Lock Haven, Pennsylvania

Lock Haven was landlocked in the remote wilds of Pennsylvania, so making the trip by commercial and commuter hops to ever smaller airports required as much as five or six hours of flight time and additional hours of rental car driving. One way required an exhausting full day of traveling, time I would have to bill for. More to the point, the client was always billed for transportation. This guy couldn’t grasp I was trying to save him money and me time.

It also rankled me that while the recent problem was unclear, I’d left no work undone.

“Have you tried to book travel between Plymouth and Lock Haven? Minimum seven hours by car, seven hours by air, and I invoice for travel. Always. You can save two days of billed consulting with a pickup.”

“Hell no. Get your ass on a plane or a mule or whatever and get yourself here you….”

“Good bye.”

I was almost shaking with tension as I slammed down the receiver.

Who put the BOMP in the Bomp Bah Bomp Bah Bomp?

A half hour later, the phone rang, same area code 570, but different number.

“Hey, it’s Jennifer. How ya doing? Leigh, I’ve been tasked with, well, persuading you to drop in. He has the budget, but see, he gets kickbacks for every budget dollar he doesn’t spend. Let me tell you what we’re dealing with…”

She went on to explain. “Shortly after he arrived, he treated himself in town to a steak dinner. Two bites from finishing, he informed the waiter the steak was tough and he would not pay for it. Nor the soup or the salad or the wine. Restaurants run on thin margins, and they swallowed hard to absorb a loss like that. He is one cheap bastard and now you’re the steak. He sees you as a burdensome expense but he needs you.”

“What happened to Willy?”

“You know Willy, he finds it fun to bluster, but one of the VPs didn’t understand him and summarily fired the man without considering how to replace him. Nobody wants a career move to the wilds of Nowhere, Pennsylvania and they were lucky to land Willy. Now everybody’s bleeding.”

“How did they recruit Manny? I never heard the name before.”

“Ah. He has no computing or management experience. He was actually a BOMP salesman.”

“Bomp?”

“Bill of materials processor, like a parts list for a huge project. It’s a pretty good program despite the fact he’s a terrible salesman. I don’t know the circumstances, but he must have been in dire straits. As soon as he heard Willy had been fired, he applied and, being the only candidate, he got the job. Upper executives haven’t figured out what a bad decision that was. He thinks we’re all trying to sabotage him. Believe me, I’m getting out of here soonest.”

I laughed. “While suckering me in, huh?”

“Damsel in distress and all that. We’ll get you here, try to keep everything per usual.”

Arrested Developer

© Piper Aircraft

We planned for an upcoming holiday weekend to maximize my time on the machine. I packed my suitcase and stuffed computer gear in my flight case. As agreed, their plane arrived on time for the pickup. On my arrival, the union rep said cool beans. I never understood that expression, but someone explained I was ‘golden’.

Except with the director. He didn’t hover over me– I give him that– but asked one of the programmers to monitor me.

Within a couple of hours, I had a good idea where the problem lay. By late afternoon, I nailed it, no long weekend required.

A half dozen vendors were waiting to hear who was at fault. I entered the director’s office to spill the results.

“Well?” Manny asked. “Whose problem is it?”

“Piper’s. The issue manifests in IBM’s controller, but you didn’t follow configuration instructions. You plugged it in while ignoring the ‘Some assembly required’ notice.”

“Not my fault. My staff keeps undercutting me. Look, here’s what you will do. I’m going to give you an extra fifty bucks, no, say hundred bucks and you say you traced the fault to the DUCS package. You can convince them.”

I blinked. It was hardly worth mentioning $50 covered ten minutes on the time sheet. My old boss’s software had nothing to do with the problem, but they were the smallest and most vulnerable supplier.

“No, I want no part of that. It’s a user error. No vendor is at fault.”

“Then a virus Trojan whatchacallit.”

“No, it’s not a virus.”

“You sure you won’t take a hundred bucks and let this go?”

© Piper Aircraft

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Then find your own way back.”

“What?” I didn’t think I’d heard him.

“Find… your own… fucking… way… home. I won’t provide transportation.”

“You can’t do that. There’s no way out of here, not even a rental car.”

“Tough luck. I gave you a chance.” He templed his fingers and stared musingly at the ceiling, fully in control. “Factory like ours is a dangerous place. All kinds of accidents could happen, especially after dark on a long weekend.”

That made no sense. “Don’t act ridiculous. You are threatening me over a few thousand dollars?”

“Not ridiculous to me, more like an object lesson you’re going to lose. If I was gonna threaten, I’d point out the surrounding deep woods,” he interrupted his TV drama-speak to wave his hand toward his window, “and how dangerous forests are, hunting season or not.”

To be continued…

The Slobbering Detective

New Years Eve sniffing dog.

A charming subset of cozy mysteries feature pets with magical powers. Truth is, dogs and cats don’t need an ounce of magic to do what they do. They are descended from a long line of predators whose only job was to track, kill, and eat prey. To perform that job on a daily basis, they were granted skills by nature that allowed them to carry out that task unerringly.

They needed to see in the dark. They needed to spot movement. They needed to hear over long distances. They needed a strong sense of smell. They needed speed and agility to reach that prey. And fangs and claws sharp enough to get the job done. Wolves hunt in packs. Cats were solitary hunters, which made sense since their prey was often too small to share.

By comparison, our ancestors evolved standing in trees, reaching for fruits and leaves. They’d grab something, and if the light was good they could determine if it was good to eat. To do that one innocuous task, those primates needed the following: to be able to stand upright; thumbs; soft, tactile fingertips to judge their meal’s tenderness; eyes that could judge color and ripeness at close quarters. In time, those nimble fingers were handy to make tools, and the focal length of those eyes helped them assess the facial expressions of loved ones and enemies.

If you’ve ever tossed a treat to your dog, you have had ample opportunity to assess the differences in our two species. When the dried liver hits the kitchen floor, the dog sniffs around for it until she locates and snarfs it. The whole time this is happening, you stand on the sidelines, rolling your eyes.

“It’s right in front of your face!” you say.

It is, but dogs don’t see well up close.

Beholding this, we humans feel smug.

Great Dane / Poodle mix.

Bred to retrieve, um, bears in bodies of water while looking poofy?

Yet when the sun goes down, our ability to see color—or anything, for that matter—declines. We’re useless and must retreat to a campfire or a well-lit room. If we didn’t do this 60,000 years ago, we would be just a delicious hunk of protoplasm wandering aimlessly in the dark.

At night, the dog’s vision doesn’t change much from its daytime vision. The common rap on them is that they’re color blind, but that’s not strictly true. The ability to see color varies breed to breed. They can see some colors; they just don’t need color to survive. Their ancestors hunted primarily at dawn and dusk. (They were—SAT word alert!—crepuscular.)

Bred to point birds.

Now: Bacon sniffing dog.

Dogs hear things up to four times farther away than human ears can. Their peripheral vision is optimized for long-distance movement, and they see parts of the light spectrum that we cannot bother with.

Every sense they have is exceedingly useful in low-light conditions. They spy something moving, they smell something alien or tasty, they hear footfalls—and they’re off. Thank goodness for backyard fences.

Until very recently, dogs thought you and I had bad taste in nighttime entertainment. When humans watched movies on analog TV sets, all those little frames of film moved so fast that our eyes—which, mind you, move at the speed of low-hanging fruit—perceived them as moving images. Dogs didn’t see that. On cathode ray tube TVs, dogs saw one image that never moved. Occasionally, the picture flickered annoyingly.

Then digital TVs were invented, and suddenly dogs could actually glimpse what we were gawping at. Modern nature documentaries often evoke a response in dogs, probably because they’re hearing a rich soundtrack aligned with the image of moving animals. Your dog’s favorite thing to watch on TV? Big shock: other dogs.

Former military dog.

Now: Enjoys serene mountain views.

In my previous August-Dog-Days post, I talked about how good their noses are. 

They know when you’re about to walk in the door after a long day at work. Can they tell time? No—they know that your scent has declined in the house for eight hours, and you always walk in when your scent level has reached about 15 percent. Oh—and by long association they can tell the difference between the sound of your car engine and everyone else’s on your block.

They know when it’s bedtime because they can feel and smell the temperature dropping in the walls of your house.

If you walked in on a chef making beef stew, your sad excuse for a nose would perceive the simmering dish as a whole. “Oh,” you might say, “you’re making boeuf bourguignon.” Ever watch the Food Network? Even professional chefs have trouble identifying all the ingredients in a complex dish they have tasted. Their failure rate goes up if you blindfold them.

Rover walks in the kitchen and thinks, “How delightful! I smell (cooked) beef, onions, carrots, celery, red wine, all in fragrant abundance! Oh—and is that a bay leaf? When are we eating?”

In other words, dog noses are precise enough to detect each scent independent of others. They’re not thrown off if one ingredient has been combined with something else.

Which is why they are so useful when issued a gold shield.

Bred to burrow into tunnels and kill badgers.
Now: enjoys traveling in large purses.

It matters not a whit that the perp packed fifty kilos of cocaine in a giant crate of coffee. A police dog smells both scents equally well.

Trainers have tried to obscure the scents of various explosives by dousing them with perfume, swaddling them with dirty socks or—gag—dirty baby diapers. K-9 cops, God bless them, smell right through all that crap.

Drug-sniffing dogs routinely locate waterproof bags of drugs in the gas tanks of vehicles where smugglers cleverly thought they could cache them. Surely, that noxious smell of gas would “throw off” the dogs, the smugglers thought. Yeah, no.

It’s true canines don’t like the smell of citrus fruits or citronella, but that won’t stop them from doing the job they were trained to do.

When asked to ID a suspect in a traditional lineup, humans—using their primate-endowed visual gift for assessing, ahem, fruit and enemies—pick out the perp with a fifty-five percent (or less) accuracy. A dog who has been allowed to sniff around the crime scene can sniff out the suspect who fled from that site with 80 percent accuracy. If they fail, it’s probably for the prosaic reason that, in the aggregate, we humans stink alike.

Bred to hunt varmints underground.

Terra = earth, hence terrier.

Now: A hit at all the coffee bars.

Last time, I mentioned how, in the classic fleeing suspect scenario, bloodhounds work the trail by sticking their noses to the ground while their marvelously floppy ears stir up human dander. Air-scenting breeds do the opposite: they lift their noses to the air to catch what’s passing by.

Those are the breeds used for search-and-rescue work. Cadaver dogs, trained to detect decomposing human flesh, can do their job even when the murderer has weighed down the remains and dumped them in a body of water. When a killer finally confesses to the crime but can’t quite remember exactly where he buried the remains, cadaver dogs point the way. In some cases, cadaver dogs have located remains long entombed, Poe-style, in the cavities of walls.

Besides Dr. Stanley Coren, the psychologist whose books I have consulted to write these two August posts, I have also enjoyed the work of Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, whose dog books routinely hit the bestseller lists. She works at her own dog cognition lab in New York City. In one of her books she observes that researchers know more about lab mice, rats, guinea pigs, and even rabbits than they do about canines, who are the second-most employed species on the planet. This probably has something to do with the complexities and costs of rearing and studying large animals in labs.

That said, besides K-9 patrol dogs and the specialist animals I’ve mentioned, there are protection dogs, seeing-eye dogs, therapy dogs, and emotional support animals. Those are the givens most people would be able to rattle off.

But there are so many others.

Autism service dogs are trained to help autistic individuals, often children, stay safe in their homes and schools, blocking them, say, if they are about to do something that would harm themselves.

Mobility service dogs help disabled folks open kitchen cabinets, pick up dropped items, turn switches on and off in the home, and perform other essential work.

Seizure response dogs have been trained to bark for help, press “lifeline” buttons to summon assistance, or retrieve a phone when their owner experiences a seizure.

Seizure alert dogs, by contrast, have been trained to anticipate when a seizure is about to happen, alerting their owner to take medication.

Conservation protection dogs protect game on wildlife preserves and assist in spotting poachers.

Arson-sniffing dogs have been trained to detect the remains of flammable liquids and other compounds used to torch a property. Even though accelerants have a tendency to evaporate, a dog can smell it for at least 18 days later, which is usually long enough for the damaged site to be stabilized and permit entry and a careful, walk-through inspection.

Natural gas-sniffing dogs are trained to detect gas leaks in pipelines.

Termite-sniffing dogs do a better job of finding infestations than human pest control experts.

Gypsy moth-sniffing dogs root out nests of these pests that could potentially decimate nursery plant stock or forests.

Beehive-sniffing dogs root out the weird diseases and pests that can infect and destroy bee populations. 

Mold and mildew-sniffing dogs pinpoint the locations of growths that are making people sick in a home or apartment complexes.

In hospital and lab settings, dogs have detected prostate cancer from urine samples and tuberculosis from slides containing human saliva.

No doubt they could do so much more, but using these marvelous creatures to perform such highly specific work always collides with an unavoidable triple whammy. They’re expensive to train, expensive to buy and keep once trained, and their lives are brutally short. A trained K-9 might well cost an agency $50,000 before its new owners buy it a bowl of kibble. For kicks, I priced out body armor vests for dogs—$1,049 to $1,200 pop. That’s before you spring for the protective doggie eye goggles, protective ear muffs, and rappelling gear. (Well, you have to use something to lower a search-and-rescue dog into a canyon to rescue those foolish hikers who always go missing, don’t you?)

For a while there, I dug deep into the world of mystery writers who feature K-9 cops their books. Some have online stores where you can buy bundles of their books along with dog-themed merch for fans and their animals alike. I have listened to podcasts with these authors, and even enjoyed mysteries where entire scenes were written from the dog’s point of view.

Hands down, dogs are the best people. They enrich our lives and we simply don’t deserve them. And that is why I believe the smartest thing a writer of crime fiction can do is stick a picture of a cat on the cover of their books. Trust me—the dogs in your life will still love you.

* * *

Most of the factoids in this piece came from:

How Dogs Think: What the World Looks Like to Them and Why They Act the Way They Do, by Stanley Coren.

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, by Alexandra Horowitz.

See you in three weeks, when we return to everyone’s favorite species—humans!

Joe

josephdagnese.com

In Memoriam: Little Shrimp on the Prairie

Some of you will remember that I've been covering, off and on, any news about the Little Shrimp on the Prairie, i.e., Tru-Shrimp's Madison Bay Harbor since 2018.

(See HERE for my adventures with Dark Ally as we went to Bellaton, searching for the lost Salt Water Aquariums of South Dakota Agriculture.  It's worth it for the scene where we found with 5 listless shrimp floating in a hopefully saline home aquarium, probably begging for their blessed release...)  

And, even though Tru-Shrimp got counties and towns to pony up development, money, and lots of publicity, and even though they promised endless pounds of shrimp from their dark saline towers, nothing has yet been built. Anywhere.  

And now it's official, folks, it never will be:  Sob, sob, sob... (feel free to read that anyway you like.)

"In December, 2018, the [South Dakota] Governor’s Office of Economic Development, or GOED, announced plans for a cutting-edge shrimp production facility in Madison, South Dakota. GOED granted $5.5 million to the Madison Lake Area Improvement Corporation for the project.

The Lake Area Improvement Corporation loaned the money to Tru Shrimp, the company, at 2% interest. The company is now known as Iterro. They planned to build the facility in 2019. Then, they pushed it back to 2024. As of today, it has yet to be built...

Rep. Marty Overweg is the Vice-Chair of GOAC. He said they need answers.

“They took that out and got private investors, South Dakota investors, to invest in their company also because the state of South Dakota gave them the startup money of $5 million," Overweg said. "So not only did they stick us for $5 million, they also stuck a whole bunch of South Dakota people who privately invested in this company. And this is bad business. I mean this is a drop ball, huge mistake.”  

(Uh, Marty, this is what South Dakota does best - look at EB-5, Gear Up!, and many, many more...) 

Iterro and the Madison Lake Area Improvement Corporation did not immediately respond to a request for comment."  (LINK) 

(And if they did, Iterro would undoubtedly answer, "How about never.  Is never good for you?") 

And to anyone who wonders how on earth this happened:  Greed.  Simply greed.  Tru-Shrimp might as well have been selling shrimp-shaped trombones - NO ONE WAS GOING TO MAKE MONEY EXCEPT TRU-SHRIMP.  But there's one born every minute, and a lot of them wear suits and ties and seem sane on the outside... 

Oh, and before they ripped Madison off for $5 million in tax dollars, they ripped off Luverne, MN, for $5 million in tax dollars before ditching them.  

So that's their MO, and if someone comes to your small town or city somewhere on the priarie - or anywhere else - says, "Guess what! There's a company that wants to come here and raise shrimp!" RUN, do not walk, away from them, holding all your money tightly to your chest, because otherwise they'll rip it away from you the way you rip an exoskeleton from a shrimp.  

Me and Dark Ally offer our thoughts and prayers:

Oh, how we hardly knew ye.

*******

And now for something completely different...  

Some days it seems like that's all that's out there, doesn't it?

This is why I miss Colombo, Maigret, Tommy & Tuppence Beresford, and other detectives who actually like their spouses and their jobs.  And I keep reading Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, Dame Frevisse and Cadfael, Nero Wolfe and Jackson Lamb's Slow Horses misfits. They all know who they are and are pretty comfortable with it, no matter how weird and wonderful they get.  

And speaking of being comfortable with who you are, if you haven't yet, check out 1989's mini-series "Summer's Lease" with the late, great Sir John Gielgud playing (at 85!) the cheerfully sponging, endlessly lecherous, sometime journalist Haverford Downs, who manages to slide into his only daughter's family vacation to Italy. There they find their host has disappeared, and there's a very suspicious death...  Gielgud won a Primetime Emmy Award for that role and he deserved it.  Here's episode one, from YouTube (which has all the rest of the episodes, too):

Enjoy.

MEANWHILE, BSP!  

A review from London's own "Murders for August" by Jeremy Black:

"Paranoia Blues. Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon (Down and Out Books, 2022) is an excellent volume edited by Josh Pachter, following similar volumes for Joni Mitchell (2020), Jimmy Buffett (2021), Billy Joel (2021) and the Marx Brothers (2021). Each story is matched to a song. Hardboiled America is the setting, and the themes are grim but also well-realised. The writing is spare and aphoristic, violence is to the fore, and it would be good if several of the novelists mentioned this month could match the quality of the writing here. There is no space to review all 19 of the stories, but they are impressive, kicking off with Vietnam echoes and killing in the New York subway system in Gabriel Valjan’s “The Sounds of Silence”. R.J. Koreto’s “April Come She Will” addresses fraud and blackmail, with some marvellous lines: “For men, the possibility of sex is actually better than sex itself…. August, the end of summer, a time when relationships die”. Robert Edward Eckels had stopped writing in 1982 but resumed at 90 to write “The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine”, an account of office theft, poor management, and measured retribution. Frank Zafiro’s “A Hazy Shade of Winter” deals with the travails of an elderly mob enforcer: an instructive perspective. Anna Scotti’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is a brilliant and humane account of hardship, care, and a concealed suicide. Tom Mead’s “The Only Living Boy in New York” takes Civil Rights into violent crime in New York including a spring-loaded leather strap on the protagonist’s wrist. Excellent book."  

I am proud to say that my first "Cool Papa Bell" story (which is also its title) appeared in it.  Cool Papa Ted Bell, former shortstop for a minor league Florida team, is serving life for murder. He feels "kind of bad about it now", but not enough not to turn to the tried and true when he finds Aryan Nation gang The Brand is beating up the infirmary orderly. In prison, justice comes in all kinds of forms. And I never said he's reformed...  

Available at DownandOutBooks:

https://downandoutbooks.com/2022/10/31/new-from-down-out-books-paranoia-blues-crime-fiction-inspired-by-the-songs-of-paul-simon-edited-by-josh-pachter/

And my second Papa Bell story, "Round and Round" is in "Janie's Got a Gun", edited by Michael Bracken.  That one's a ghost story set in a penitentiary, and I can assure you that the ghost is real...  

Available at https://whitecitypress.com/product/janie/

And, of course, both are available on Amazon.com...

Enjoy!
  

Robot on Wheels

Today’s article might seem more suitable for Top Gear, Car & Driver, Road & Track, Jalopnik, or Motor Trend, but today’s article about Tesla motorcars has method behind the madness. I’ll limit my comments about its controversial CEO to saying (in my unhumble opinion) he’s so very good at a few things, he believes he’s good at everything. Whatever faults he has, he’s a brilliant businessman and a damned good technical futurist who attracts an insanely dedicated following across a broad spectrum of ‘fanboys’.

Once Upon a Time

When I was a wee budding boy mad scientist, I salvaged a generator from a truck and purloined a used battery. A few spare parts from the farm’s machine shed and a wooden frame, and I cobbled together a dangerous-as-hell electric go-kart of sorts. The clutch was a belt tensioner and the Soapbox Derby brake, carved from a discarded rubber tire, literally dragged the kart to a halt… barely. But the proof of concept worked. Electric motors were well understood, waiting for battery material science to catch up.

Wanting an electric car has long been a wish. A few years ago, I test drove one, a Tesla Model 3. The car came with ‘autopilot’, which meant it could follow highway lanes and when I finished the drive, it parked itself very nicely, thank you. The loudest sound was the air conditioner’s fan, which still needs to be addressed.

Autopilot, by the way, is Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system, and FSD represents the premium, more advanced version.

Traditional manufacturers have been developing similar technology, but Tesla’s advantage then was reduced environmental impact combined with one, two, or three powerful motors capable of slamming passengers back in their seats, 0-60 in THREE SECONDS. The proof of concept worked and battery technology was catching up.

The other attraction was a promised feature, FSD, full self-driving, an add-on of several thousand dollars. Drivers could petition to become beta testers after being tested themselves. In that early stage, owners were informed bad driving would result in withdrawal of FSD. Drivers had to be on their toes, but proof of concept worked.

I rode in a Tesla the day it was released for beta testing. The car behaved like any new driver– jerky, hesitant, uncertain, then suddenly over-daring. It was like a theme park ride but more so. Over time, Tesla issued a number of updates and gradually driving smoothed out,^† behaving like a competent, well-mannered, defensive driver. Close your eyes today, you can not tell a real person isn’t chauffeuring you about.

In recent months, I’ve been driving a Tesla model Y. I don’t own the vehicle, rather I’m under a not-so-onerous obligation to drive one a few times a week. I think of the machine as a robot on wheels. Not coincidentally, Tesla has a humanoid robotics division, and I have little doubt one subsidiary feeds the other, advances in one group benefitting another.

My friend Thrush says you don’t so much drive an FSD Tesla, you supervise it. Further, it demands a stern taskmaster. It watches your eyes. If it thinks you aren’t paying attention, it will let you know. The car doesn’t like a pair of my sunglasses and scolds me once in a while.

I tend to be a highly focused driver, so I’ve been surprised when riding as a passenger over highways and byways I’ve driven for years, discovering shops and sources I never knew were roadside. FSD allows drivers to relax a little but stay alert. Flight instructors tell students to constantly scan, always scan: instruments, windows, communications, controls. It’s good advice for drivers.

When All is Not Peaches and Petrol

But what about accidents? Surely cars without drivers must have insane collision numbers. They do… insanely less, to borrow an Apple phrase. Teslas using FSD suffer only ⅕ the accident rates as human drivers. One fifth, 20%. That’s tens of thousands of fewer accidents… and fewer deaths.

That’s not to say everything is perfect. I discovered the current FSD program had difficulty with red traffic light arrows. It would stop as usual, but after twenty seconds or so, it seemed to forget about the red light and proceeded with the turn.

And then came an unexpected mother of all tests. I was in first position in the leftmost turn lane at a six-lane major intersection (southbound on Edgewater Drive at John Young Parkway and Forest City Road, Orlando) when the entire array of traffic lights blacked out, gone, kaput. The Tesla hesitated and then edged forward until I stomped the brake. I was still new to driving, so I didn’t know how to report a rare but risky situation.

An opportunity arose to observe its behavior when blocked by other cars, once on Interstate 4 and another on side streets. A steady stream of cars obstructed the exit lane. No shouting, no gnashing of teeth, no road rage, no surge of blood pressure, no Florida Stand-Your-Ground shootout. The Tesla sedately continued to the next exit and looped back.

Conversely, when wanting to cross multi-lane traffic, the machine hesitates when other drivers kindly open a gap. Wisely so because a common Florida insurance scam involves a con artist waving an innocent to proceed only to jump in the path and scream injury. Per contra, the Tesla politely allows side street drivers to ease into traffic.

Unlike some competitors, current (no pun intended) models don’t include lidar among sensors, but rely upon a full kit of cameras in our visual spectrum. That means in a determined downpour, it can’t see any better than we do. In such a case, neither of us should be driving.

Options are highly customizable from minor convenience choices to how the car behaves. It can act like an auto with manual transmission, an automatic, or its own paradigm. Remember I used an old generator as a motor? Some motors can act like generators and vice versa. Let off the gas on an electric vehicle and when the motor is internally braking, it simultaneously dumps juice back into the battery. Try that, petrochemical fans.

The Futurist

I’m going to attempt a couple of predictions. We’ll start to see new and unexpected uses for FSD. Suppose a driver passes out or falls heavily asleep. Presently, the car tries to get the driver’s attention by flashing the screen and sounding a tone. If it can’t rouse the driver, it pulls off the road.

But with additional AI, it might realize you, the driver, are sick or wounded or suicidal and drives you straight to hospital. If someone attempts a holdup in a mall parking lot, you might summon your car to the rescue.

Or your grounded teenager steals your car without permission and heads for her (or his) dealer/boyfriend. You hop on your phone and instruct the car to lock doors and drive her (or his) drunk butt straight home.

As boomers age and Generation X is discovering bald spots, sagging parts, and skeletal stiffness, enlightened officials might find their way clear to allow FSD owners to ride as a passenger in their car without a drivers license. Senior citizens could safely transport themselves as freely as the rest of us. How liberating!

Previously, I suggested the most likely and most immediately useful humanoid robots will be found in toys for toddlers and eldercare, respectively. Taking that a step further, an intelligent car could advance care and concern for both. Just as it warns about unfastened seatbelts, it could detect unattached baby carriers. Never again must we read about a child or pet locked in a hot car, when the car itself realizes it has several options to offer succor and solutions.

An Accident Waiting to Happen

Consider road safety once FSD automobiles chat among themselves. A truck obscures your line of sight leaving you unaware a car is stopped in the middle of the road. A child wanders into the street. A motorbike slips into your blind spot. An out-of-control bus is hurtling at you.

I fully expect we’ll see FSD vehicles talking with one another, one warning others of impending disasters. Then suppose one realizes if nothing is done, that child in the path of an oncoming vehicle will die. With altruistic programming, it could sacrifice itself to save the pedestrian and possibly persuade other vehicles to intervene.

And then…

The arms race between crooks and cops embodies the flip side. Quite soon someone figures out how to use a BMW iX to drive the getaway car, steer a Cybertruck through a bank’s front doors, direct a Genesis GV80 to hijack a trucker, or send a Ford Mach-E to pick up ransom money and return the victim. Until, of course, the cars rat out the perpetrators.

And finally…

Of the first four Tesla-built cars, I’ve mentioned models 3 and Y. The other two are S and the X. In the same vein as Tesla’s built-in man-child fart noises, the models spell out S3XY.

What do you think?

^† Tech Tales (How it’s done)

Finding the sweet spot for detail

Thanks for coming by. This is a rerun of a column from 2016 with some updates. I hope it is helpful.

In search of blogging topics, I asked my friends for suggestions. This paraphrased question caught my eye right away:

How much detail should a writer use when describing the setting, what the characters look like, and what the characters are doing?

The amount of detail a writer should use is of course a personal matter. Some authors love expounding on setting and appearance, giving every detail so that a person could--if they had to--draw an exact replica of a room or a picture that would make a sketch artist proud. Other authors take a minimalist approach, preferring to leave setting to the readers' imagination. Readers' taste also varies, with some wanting to know every detail of each place and character's appearance, others not wanting their time wasted on that detail.
 
Given that readers' tastes do vary across the spectrum, an author obviously can't please everyone. I typically suggest something in the middle of the spectrum (though my personal taste is toward the minimalist side). You want to set the scene but you don't want to bore the reader or hold up the action.

When it comes to what characters look like, I suggest telling the reader one or two telling details, something to make the character stand out in the reader's mind. Does the character have a large mole on his cheek? Does she walk with a limp? Does she have extremely big hair? I wouldn't limit myself to thinking a character's description only applies to what he or she looks like--you might have guessed that from the question about the limp. Saying the woman who came to visit smelled like she worked in a kennel or her voice rumbled like she'd been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for decades will hopefully be more memorable than simply saying she had shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes.

Now this is memorable.

I suggest getting this type of detail in early, before the reader decides for herself what the character looks like. But don't force the detail in right when we meet the character if it doesn't work there.

If there's something important about the character's appearance or description, make sure you get it in early too. You wouldn't want your bank robber to be described as someone who sometimes slurs her words, and not show the reader until the end of the book that this character sometimes slurs.

Of course sometimes you need to give a little more detail in order to create a smoke screen. If something about a character's appearance is an important clue (or red herring), try to weave that detail into the narrative, hiding it among other details so it doesn't appear important. For instance, if it's important that Jane has dark green eyes, don't make that the only thing you say about Jane because then that detail will stand out. Instead tell the reader that Jane has ratty brown hair that looks like it hasn't been washed for a week. Her hair is so nasty you can hardly see her dark green eyes or the scar on her forehead she got from a bar fight. The reader will hopefully focus on the scar and Jane's nasty hair, with the eye color fading into the recess of her brain.

These same techniques can be used for setting. You want to create your world, but you don't need to spell out every detail to do it. Are you creating a charming town? Tell me Main Street has an old-fashioned ice cream shop and a Mom and Pop diner that's been there for decades. Let me know that a large green is adjacent to Main Street with some Revolutionary War statues and large shade trees people picnic under in the summertime. That's more than enough for me get the quaint picture you're trying to set. I don't need the name of every store, of every statue, of every street. But if it's an important clue that a certain statue was defaced, don't have that be the only damage done. Bury that clue in a report of the damage supposedly all done by the vandal.

As to detail of what characters are doing, I also advocate for minimalism. If you have two characters driving and discussing the case, I don't need to know each time the driver changes gear or flips on the turn signal. If you tell me that Bob is driving, I can picture what he's doing, though an occasional mention that Bob changed lanes could work as a tag. In contrast, you definitely want to show things that are unusual--things that are important to the plot. If Bob is distracted and keeps looking at his phone or the radio or keeps checking out the rear-view mirror because he thinks they're being followed, I want to know.

There are some actions you don't need to show at all. If your character is beginning a new day, I don't need to see her brushing her teeth unless her toothpaste is poisoned or someone is going to strangle her while she's working on her incisors. I don't even need to know she brushed her teeth. Just show her arriving at her office, finding it in disarray from the burglars who struck overnight. And if your

When brushing teeth, less is more.

character is going to a staircase, intending to go up, and she thinks a bit, and then she's at the top of the stairs, that's just fine. The reader can infer that she just walked up those steps. You don't need to show every step as it's taken unless you're trying to show that she's wobbly or that a stair is creaking or if someone is going to push her over the banister. (Such fun!)

Of course, again, everyone's mileage may vary about the amount of detail preferred. I'd love to know what you think.