Okay, one more bit of sort-of Excel-related posting, but this one seques nicely into a lot of other weird things I like to talk about. Let me share this absolutely amazing video from the great and unfailingly humble Microsoft MVP, Giles Male, which dropped on Excel's 40th birthday this week.
This is the kind of thing that makes Excel the ultimate in cool. And it is, notably, a 'real' piece of music, with real actual people. The Microsoft Excel World Championship has also entertained us with AI-produced music, which is a subject that fascinates me. Let's face it, AI has got really good at a lot of things. The Excel championship has had to officially ban the use of AI this year, because it's now capable of solving the puzzles very impressively, and speculation is rife about how the Copilot function is going to change the future of spreadsheet professionals and render people like me obsolete. I think I've chosen a great time to get passionate about Excel after my quarter of a century using it!
The things AI can do now are pretty cool, I have to admit. It can write and sing you a song from a prompt, as discussed above. It can bring an old picture of my granddad to life, albeit turning him into someone completely different. It can allow Simon Stagg to bring his latest genius invention into being...
(The obvious thing to do with Simon Stagg in a modern Metamorpho comic is to turn him into Elon Musk. The recently-ended Metamorpho comic - which, I remind you, you should be going out and buying the paperback collection of right now - doesn't do that except perhaps for this one page; he remains a true silver age comics genius who invents and builds things all by himself!)
And I admit I did get curious to see just how imaginative ChatGPT can be if you tell it to create fiction. I found that asking it to read specific things and produce something similar just gives you a carbon copy of the first couple of paragraphs it reads, with a few words changed. "Similar" isn't the right prompt, perhaps.
AI has also crept into Project Gutenberg's library of classic books - take a look of the summaries of a couple of Wilkie Collins classics I've talked about in this blog before now:
"No Name" by Wilkie Collins is a novel written during the mid-19th century. The story centers around the Vanstone family, particularly focusing on the dynamic between the two daughters, Norah and Magdalen. It explores themes of identity, societal norms, and the struggle between good and evil as the characters navigate personal conflicts and family secrets. At the start of "No Name," readers are introduced to the Vanstone family, living in their country residence in Somersetshire. The opening scene depicts the serene morning routine of the household, highlighting the easy-going nature of Mr. Vanstone and the contrasting dynamics of Miss Garth, the governess, who holds a more authoritative stance. The stage is set for the arrival of Magdalen, the youngest daughter, whose vibrant personality stands in stark contrast to her reserved sister Norah. Through a mix of humor and domestic life, Collins hints at underlying tensions within the family, particularly foreshadowing the significant changes that are about to unfold following a mysterious letter from New Orleans which casts a shadow over the family's seemingly tranquil existence. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Yeah, this computer has only read the first chapter. The dynamic between Norah and Magdalen is not at all the main focus of the book. Imagine submitting this to your English literature teacher at school - you'd just get told to go and read the whole thing. It's even better with The Dead Secret...
"The Dead Secret: A Novel" by Wilkie Collins is a fiction work written in the mid-19th century. The story revolves around Captain Treverton and his wife, Mrs. Treverton, as well as Sarah Leeson, a troubled lady's maid with a mysterious past. The opening chapters present a tense atmosphere filled with secrets, focusing on the dying moments of Mrs. Treverton, who sends for Sarah for a final request that could change everything for those who remain. The beginning of "The Dead Secret" sets a dramatic tone, introducing the unsettling situation as the dying Mrs. Treverton's attendants anxiously await her passing. As Mrs. Treverton shares her last wishes with Sarah, it becomes clear that a significant secret lies between them, one that carries the weight of sorrow and regret. The description of Mrs. Treverton's health and appearance, alongside Sarah's nervous and pitying demeanor, builds a palpable tension. This tension deepens as Mrs. Treverton insists on revealing her secret to her husband and demands that Sarah witness her final disclosures, leading to a critical turn of events that will have enduring ramifications for everyone involved. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
It's only read the prologue. The characters who actually carry the story don't get a mention. Captain Treverton, if you haven't read the novel yet even though I told you to, dies early on in the book and is almost entirely off-stage even before then. I suppose you could say they don't want to spoil the story, but I'm thinking the main reason is the computer being too lazy to go beyond the first few pages.
Anyway, all this talk of AI creativity led me, naturally enough, to wondering if it can write cartoons. This was before the latest update to ChatGPT, by the way - it might have got more creative or less creative since then. Trying to keep my prompts as vague as possible, I asked for a storyline for ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks, focusing on Simon and his love-hate relationship with Alvin. That was the entire prompt. And what immediately came out, I must say, rather impressed me.
Sure! Here's a storyline for an episode of "ALVINNN!!!
and the Chipmunks" that highlights Simon's love-hate relationship with
Alvin, while keeping the tone fun, emotional, and in line with the show's
comedic and heartfelt style.
Episode Title: "The Science of Chaos"
Synopsis:
When Simon wins a prestigious spot in the National Junior
Inventors Showcase, he’s ecstatic—until Alvin decides to “help” him prepare,
leading to disaster after disaster. As tension between the two brothers rises,
their rivalry reaches a boiling point. But when things go wrong at the science
fair, Simon must decide whether to push Alvin away for good... or admit that
his brother’s chaos might be exactly what he needs.
Storyline:
ACT 1:
·Simon is selected as a finalist for the National
Junior Inventors Showcase with his new project: a machine that can detect and
defuse arguments before they escalate—based on tone of voice and brainwave
patterns.
·He’s excited and determined to represent the
school and his family well.
·Alvin, hearing about the showcase, insists on
“helping,” claiming he’s great with people and showmanship.
·Simon is reluctant but eventually agrees, not
wanting to hurt Alvin’s feelings.
·Alvin immediately turns Simon’s quiet science
prep into chaos—adding flashy lights, sound effects, and even renaming the
invention “The Peace Blaster 3000.”
·Simon’s frustration grows as Alvin makes
everything more theatrical and less scientific.
ACT 2:
·The brothers argue constantly. Simon vents to
Jeanette, saying Alvin is “the opposite of everything he stands for.”
·Meanwhile, Alvin complains to Theodore that
Simon doesn’t appreciate creativity or fun.
·On the day of the showcase, Alvin insists on
giving the demo speech.
·Predictably, Alvin pushes the machine too far—it
short-circuits and malfunctions in front of the judges.
·Humiliated, Simon storms off and declares he’s
done working with Alvin forever.
ACT 3:
·Later that night, Simon tries to fix the machine
alone, but struggles.
·Alvin sneaks in to help—but instead of messing
around, he offers genuine advice about how to make the invention more relatable
to people.
·They talk—really talk—and Simon admits that
while Alvin drives him crazy, his energy and heart often bring out the best in
people (even if it’s in the most annoying way possible).
·Together, they rebuild the machine—combining
Simon’s science and Alvin’s charisma.
·They return to the fair just in time for a
second chance presentation.
·The judges are impressed by the teamwork and the
new version of the invention.
·Simon earns an Honorable Mention—not the win,
but something even better: the feeling that maybe his chaotic brother isn’t so
bad after all.
Closing Scene:
Back home, Alvin brags that he “saved the day,” while
Simon rolls his eyes but smiles.
As Alvin leaves the room, Simon mutters, “I hate that I love that guy.”
Cue the classic Chipmunks-style laugh track and music
fade-out.
Let me know if you'd like a follow-up episode, or a
version that includes the Chipettes too!
I have to say, I like this. It's not a direct copy of any episode of the series, or any other series I know of. It might be stealing someone's online fan-fiction, but if so at least it's a good one. But it feels like a real Chipmunks plot, and captures the general feel of the thing perfectly. Except, perhaps, for "the classic Chipmunks-style laugh track" at the end, which is a strange line and must be borrowed from some other show that traditionally has a laugh track. If you're not a fan (which you should be, after all I've said about it!), Chipmunks episodes often but not always end with a shout of ALVINNN!!!, but Simon's closing line here would make a perfect ending for this episode. Followed by the usual music but no laugh track.
Everything else, though, is perfectly Chipmunky, and the central plot device of a machine to detect and defuse arguments before they start is intriguing - it's a) exactly the kind of thing Simon would do, b) exactly the kind of thing he would do better at if he worked together with Alvin, and c) really not an idea I'd expect to see from a human, giving this episode an entirely appropriate authorial touch of AI. I really think it could be the inspiration for a real episode, and it would be a good one. Give it to a good scriptwriter, add a catchy song, and you've got a hit.
I tried a few other cartoons before getting bored, but this first one was the best. Bonus comedy points for ChatGPT never quite getting the basic setup of Rugrats right, and insisting on giving the babies conversations with the adults. But I think with just a couple more upgrades, fully AI cartoon entertainment is a possibility. Until it's run out of ideas to steal from actual humans, but by then we'll all be extinct anyway.
I've done nothing but post about Excel championships here this month, and I'm very sorry if it's bored you. But you shouldn't be reading my blog if you're bored by competitive spreadsheeting, so it's more your fault than mine. I'll go back to writing strange things about comics and cartoons as soon as I can, and I'll go into alarming length about how much I love Simon the chipmunk.
But today was the draw for the finals of the Microsoft Excel World Championship, and I have to say, this is kind of an ideal batch of potential opponents for me!
Paulo Guerra didn't quite get a high enough score in the qualification round at the weekend, but got a wildcard entry. My potential opponents in round 2, Ashleigh Roberts and Hunter Wylie, both qualified through the qualification round, but with lower scores than my just-for-fun total. All three of them competed in the Road to Las Vegas competitions this year, and Hunter got a higher score than me in the first one, but I was better than all three of them in all eight of the others.
So that takes care of the fear of being paired against someone who's unstoppably better than me. We still have the fear of getting a task that my opponent knows how to do better than I do, but the chances of that seem rather smaller. All three of my rivals, I can see from the score breakdown in the qualification round, did all the questions that I know how to do with Excel, and didn't attempt the ones I did by old-fashioned manual calculation because using Excel for them seemed too complicated.
This seems to suggest that if (or when) I lose these matches, it will be because of my own stupidity - which is somehow better than losing to someone who's just so manifestly better than me that I was always going to lose anyway. So really, thanks to this draw, overconfidence is going to be my worst enemy.
And if I get through to the last 64, there's a fair chance I'd be up against Lorenzo Foti, who is one of the seeds who I might almost possibly have a chance of beating on a very good day. Though he usually beats me without too much difficulty. All in all, though, a favourable draw!
I'll try to think of something else to write about until the championship starts on October 11th.
I don't think they do A-Level General Studies any more. It was an extra A-Level that everyone took, but which didn't count for anything - getting into university and getting a job or whatever, the only things that counted were the 'real' A-Levels you'd done. I have no idea why GS existed (and for all I know, still does exist), but I got a A, so I must be great.
I haven't thought about it for more than thirty years, but it just came back to me today as I was thinking of a title for this blog post, that one of the things in the GS exam I took in or around May 1994 was the requirement to write an essay on your choice of a selection of vague prompts. One of them was "The fascination of..." and the first thing that came into my head was "competition". I didn't write it, because they were more looking for a way to show off that you know about and are interested in some esoteric subject, but it just goes to show I already knew at that tender age I love competing in strange things.
And that was many years before I got into memory competitions, and found out that there was something I could not just have fun competing in, but have fun being the world's best at! But I still like taking part in these things just as much as I like winning them, and that's what still attracts me to the Microsoft Excel World Championship... it's just that I'm starting to increasingly get the feeling I could devote a lot more effort to getting really good at this thing!
Incidentally, the German Memory Championship took place in Paderborn last weekend (or "the German Memory Championship took, in Paderborn, place" - I always parse that sentence in the German word order, because I always read reports of it afterwards and they always start like that), and I would have been all over that ten or fifteen years ago, but being impoverished at the moment and not able to travel places, I'm getting very out of touch with the in-person memory world. Keeping up with the mostly online Excel championships is a nice substitute, and I did win an online memory match yesterday morning (the one I really needed to win if I want to stay in division 2 of the Memory League) before kicking off with the big final qualification round for the Microsoft Excel World Championship at five o'clock!
I was already qualified, so just doing this one for the fun of it, but I did rather well! 15th place, or joint-14th really, because I managed to get the exact same score and time, to the second, as Nick Boberg. He was doing the different case from the early-morning session (or whatever time that makes it in New Zealand), so it's not really comparable at all, but it's still cool, because he generally does much better than me at these things.
And so even though most of the top competitors were just doing this for fun, and even though there's really no difference between fifteenth and fiftieth in this kind of thing except a few lucky guesses... I'm happy with this. It was the kind of case where you could get a good score by whizzing through the easy sections, giving up on the one that would take a monstrously complicated Excel calculation, and doing as much of it as possible by working it out manually, one question at a time. And I usually thrive on those - I'm quick-thinking if not particularly knowledgeable about Excel, and sometimes that can carry you through.
But it really reminds me of my early days in memory competitions, when I got good scores in the old 'poem' discipline, and people said to me "If you could get good at the other stuff, you could be really great at this!" And I laughed and said I wouldn't know how to get good at the other stuff. And then I figured out how to get good at the other stuff, and I became the world champion.
Could I do the same with Excel? Is there scope for developing my skills at Excel formulas to put me more on a par with the top people, and let my general all-round problem-solving experience give me a little extra edge? It's the kind of thing I'm starting to seriously think about.
Meanwhile, it's the draw for the finals on Tuesday, at 3pm UK time! Probably live on the YouTube channel! So don't miss it!
My chances of doing well in this competition rely probably quite a lot more on luck than skill. Some cases of the type I was just talking about would help me - anything that can be solved easily with Excel formulas of the kind I'm shockingly ignorant of is going to handicap me pretty severely. And more importantly, who will I get drawn against?
Some of those 256 spots are a lot kinder to middle-ranked competitors than others. The top 32 in the Road to Las Vegas are seeded (I was 63rd), and you want to avoid them for as many rounds as possible. Get drawn against, say, Diarmuid Early, who amazed everyone on the live stream yesterday by finishing the entire case (including the bit I decided straight away was too complicated to calculate) in half the time available, and you're out at the first step. Get drawn against someone of roughly equal skill to myself for as many rounds as possible, and I'll be much happier, even if I still make a mess of it. Because it really is the taking part that counts the most!
So wish me luck, and bear in mind that I'm still considering whether it's possible for me to really work on this, and become really good at it!
