Aim for the Absurd

How do you react when you see something truly Outstanding? Like an amazing dance performance. Or a sporting feat. Perhaps a rags to riches story or, dare I say, maybe even something fictional like a movie? Do you…

1. Marvel at the spectacle in rapturous applause and adoration.
2. Join the crowd in mass hysteria.
3. Think to yourself… “I could do that”. No matter how absurd it seems.

I am definitely the third guy. Now I’m not saying that every amazing thing I see, I aim try to emulate. There are only 24 hours in a day. (An extra 40 minutes if you’re on our neighbouring planet). But if I feel strongly enough about it, all excuses go out the window. That’s why I created the Cyman Digital Butler. I have read about and noticed people who fix their eyes on a seemingly crazy goal. Crazy because the person in question either doesn’t have the resources, time, or the right qualifications.

They refuse to let any barrier to be… a barrier
(Important highlighted clever phrase fail)

The barriers I’ve listed, you have probably heard about before. It could be your parents who have come from very humble circumstances, perhaps little access to education, having to raise you, perhaps on their own. And yet achieving so much in their own professional careers. Perhaps you think of celebrities doing things that are really not in their skillset (Insert your own examples in the comments). Or maybe the entrepreneur Chris Gardner who was portrayed by Will Smith in the movie Pursuit of Happiness.

But when I say “Aim for the Absurd” (roll credits) I mean truly ridiculous. Like, I don’t know, watching some science fiction in a movie and deciding it must be replicated. What drove me to create Cyman was watching a particular scenes from the Iron Man movies where the charismatic genius entrepreneur, Tony Stark interacts with JARVIS – a voice in his machines which runs his house, his Iron Man armour and his devices.

Now I had no experience with artificial intelligence. Heck, even the programming language that Cyman was written in – I learned that as I went along – I had no experience programming in that language before. The kind of personality that the fictional JARVIS displayed, politeness with a teaspoonful of sarcasm, was something I had not seen and still do not see in current voice assistants like Siri, OK Google, or Microsoft Cortana. In general, I love the technical prowess and genius shown in the fictional Tony Stark and arguably, our real life version – Elon Musk.

By now you have figured out that this whole post was essentially a plug for my Cyman Digital Butler (available on Google Play and the Chrome Store now rated PEGI 3 out now) … but I’m allowed as it’s my first official post.

So there.

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