Bernie Goldbach

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

MY ANDROID PHONE needs a factory reset. It's more than five years old, has a cracked screen and a worn charging port, and its battery is well-worn.

I watch it go from being fully charged to less than 10 per cent power in three hours. It feels very warm to touch. I think I have rogue app that's causing a problem so I'm looking at either a factory reset followed by restoring the phone's services from its saved settings in the cloud. I wouldn't mind losing all the images and videos stored in the phone's memory.

Any ideas?

In addition to recommending I keep the phone connected to mains power during my reset procedure, Redditers suggest I screencap my essential screens so I know how I had things set up. I have a "Start" folder containing my essentials.

My Start Folder

• Gmail
• Chrome
• Enpass (paid)
• LinkedIn (paid)
• Contacts
• OneDrive (paid)
• Instagram (time suck)
• Calendar
• Outlook
• Yahoo Mail
• TippLive (time suck)
• Feedly (deleting paid)
• Flickr (paid)
• Zoho Campaigns (paid)
• Bluesky (must map a domain there)
• Threads

My Front Page

• Theta because I use the Theta V camera in classes
• Zoho CRM because I want to connect with actions
• Messenger because I have its notifications turned off
• Slack because I have its notifications turned off
• Teams because I have its notifications turned off
• Messages
• Readwise for daily reviews
• Phone because sometimes I can't see incoming calls on screen
• Camera to review gallery
• Obsidian because I sync content
• Amplenote--must curate and remove
• Airtable (paid)
• Bing gets better every week
• WhatsApp because I have its notifications turned off
• Notion used in some of my teaching
• Swarm because I want to remain mayor
• Perplexity better than Google search
• Microblog (paid)
• Kindle (paid content)
• Instapaper (paid)
• iA Writer (paid)
• Stoop Inbox (paid)

My Second Page

• 3C Android Tools Battery Manager (paid)
• AZ Screen Recorder (paid)
• Otter (paid)
• Samsung Health (because  I want the watch0
• Marco Polo (paid)
• Spreaker (paid)
• Spreaker Studio
• Device Care

[Bernie Goldbach has owned a Note since they stopped catching fire.]

phones

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

I'VE STARTED MOST MORNINGS with prompts to my favourite AI. Today I asked Mem.ai to guide me in a process that ensured the results of my questions would include trustworthy evidence from high quality sources. Its first set of answers drilled down into my personal knowledge management (PKM) system.

Because I had included ideas about workflows that incorporate note-taking techniques, Mem shared some observations worth considering.

I teach students that they need to incorporate note-taking techniques into their interactions with their personal knowledge management systems. In my opinion, this is a powerful way to educate whatever AI service you select because this workflow helps to ensure results are based on trustworthy evidence from high quality sources.

In my work with university students, I know there is rampant usage of AI tools. So here are the processes I use to ensure there's a human at the other end of the computer screen:

Source Verification

I insist on seeing verified sources. High-quality sources often include academic journals, reputable news outlets, and government publications.

Critical Thinking

I teach fundamentals of prompt engineering to my advanced students. By refining prompts, students learn to critically think about the information provided by the AI. This includes questioning the source of the information, the methodology used to obtain it, and the credibility of the 'expertise' if the information is based on expert opinion.

Iterative Questioning

If you want to explore nuances embedded in the results served by an AI, you need to ask follow-up questions to dig deeper into the topic. This can help uncover more detailed and accurate information.

Note-Taking

Not only do I take written notes on the information provided by the AI, I normally write down key points in my Travelers Notebook and then use the OCR capability inside my Readwise app to inject these core discoveries back into my PKM. This reinforces my corpus of information and also provides a record of the information for future reference.

I'm glad that I never abandoned a requirement for students to keep a personal Media Writing Journal. There are some high quality nuggets in the journals I'm currently reviewing and I plan to capture the best content with Readwise so students next year can benefit from workflow that revolves around personal note-taking.

Bonus Link

Digital Transformation Photos

[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus. The photo at the top was snapped at the Grow Remote Summit in 2023.]

AI

by Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

DURING MY 3000 FLYING HOURS I vividly remember two occasions when we were cleared to land on a runway that was occupied by another aircraft or by a vehicle. In both cases, I didn't see the conflict but a crew member sitting in the jump seat pointed out the problem.

Knowing this, I believe the JAL crew landing their Airbus on Flight 516 in Haneda yesterday didn't see anything on the runway as they prepared to land with clearance.

The Japan Airlines aircraft caught fire after it landed on top of a Dash 8 turboprop. All 367 passengers and 12 crew members on the JAL flight evacuated their Airbus A350 but five crew members in the Coast Guard turboprop plane that was on the landing runway passed away.

I saw some footage recorded inside the Airbus as it was careening down the runway. Flight attendants were yelling in Japanese, urging passengers to evacuate. An eerie orange glow burned outside the windows of the aircraft as the evacuation slides were activated.

The cabin crew proved their professionalism as they evacuated all 367 passengers and 12 crew members safely within 90 seconds. That was remarkable as was the fact that the collision did not sever hydraulic lines or critical electrical cables while the aircrew was trying to control the Airbus while landing.

The root cause of this accident has not been decreed but I've listened to the Air Traffic Control audio recordings and the JAL crew received two clearances to land during their five mile final approach. Two aircraft are not supposed to be on the same patch of concrete while an aircraft is landing.

As an instructor pilot in the T-38, I flew in the back seat with significantly reduced visibility. Landing on an unfamiliar civilian airport always concerned me because the T-38 has to maintain a nose-high attitude through approach and landing.

While piloting a C-141 on six different continents, I vividly remember two occasions when either vehicles were on the runway or when another aircraft had not cleared its landing roll-out. I failed to spot either incursion but crew members sitting in the jump seat alerted us to the conflicts.

Some airports have technology in place that causes the landing zone lights to turn red when sensors detect vehicles or aircraft on the runway. Perhaps the Haneda accident will spur Japanese aviation authorities to install that warning system in the largest airports in Japan.

[Bernie Goldbach is a certified flight instructor with experience in 19 different aircraft. The picture of the C-141 at the top of this post was taken by Robert Stemple.]

flying