8/4/26 Report - Time Flies in Different Ways. A Great Article on the Oak Island Search. 1000-Year-Old Ring Find. AI Again.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Why did the man throw his clock out the window?  He wanted to see time fly.

That is a corny old joke that a bunch of young children laughed over under the trees in front of grandma's house a little over seventy years ago.  It was one of those youthful summer days in the fifties when a small group of country kids ran in sporadic random bursts under the sheltering shade of the oak, ash and birch, pausing only briefly for jokes, laughter and other forms of play. 

They did see time fly - first this way and now that.

Gazing upon a newly uncovered old coin in your hand, can also be a form of time travel, but like a shattered crystal ball running out of power, straining produces only the faintest image.  This image, lacking surviving personal experience, requires more pieces to help Re construct the image, as incomplete as it is - still an attempt at time travel, but in another direction.

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Here are some excerpts from an exceptionally good article on a subject I've talked about in the past - Oak Island.

... While no treasure has been found, peripheral discoveries—apparent clues, possible traps, and geological curiosities—have compelled searchers onward, even as historians dispute the more sensational claims surrounding the treasure...

In the 1860s, a professor of languages from Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University examined the stone and determined the code was a substitution cipher saying: “Forty Feet Below Two Million Pounds Are Buried.” But another attempted translation in the 1970s interpreted the code as a Coptic Christian warning not to forget your duty to the Lord...

Specialists at Harvard University confirmed the parchment’s authenticity, though it’s unclear whether that meant it was “authentically” a folio full of secrets or a scrap from earlier inhabitants of the island...

the Lagina brothers own the majority of the tour company that operates on the island, plus a TV show promoting that island...

in 1720 the Crown chartered private companies together with the British military to do business on Oak Island—including pine tar works, brass making, and wire drawing—to help clear debt. It was the largest industrial development in Canada at the time...

Fader says under the right circumstances, a sinkhole can be 130 to 165 feet across. He is adamant this phenomenon is the true origin of the Oak Island Money Pit...

Below is the link to that article.  I recommend reading the entire article if you are interested in Oak Island.  It is the best article I've read on the subject.

The History of the Oak Island Money Pit | Oak Island Treasure

I've complained several times about the program, including the continual neglect of both actual history and natural phenomenon.  This article addresses both.

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Image from Popular Mechanics Article (link below)

• A retired volunteer unearthed a rare 1,000-year-old Pictish ring during excavations in Scotland.
• The ring is one of the few Pictish rings ever discovered and offers insights into the Pictish kingdom’s history.
• The find sheds light on the Picts, a powerful group who defended Scotland from invaders and mysteriously vanished by the end of the first millennium.

Herei is the link to that article.

Archaeologist Finds 1,000-Year-Old Ring With Huge Implications

In addition to the ring image above, the article begins with another image showing two rings that look nothing like the one above.  I guess that was a stock image or something.  I wish publishers would be more responsible and accurate.  

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AI has become unavoidable but very useful tool, including many applications for metal detecting and treasure hunting, I've previously documented many of those in this blog.  

I'll continue to investigate AI and its applications.  Below are some personal observations.

My wife was recently trying to estimate the value of several items and used AI.  The results were mixed.  

AI helped.  It correctly identified some items and provided good estimates, but it some cases it was way off.  It completely misidentified the work.  But worse yet, it seemed very confident even when it was wrong.  It often required additional information, but the original answer it provided was given so matter of factly that it fooled my wife and I at first.  After additional research and correcting AI, it eventually came up with better answers.  I have no problem with that.  At times it just seemed to be throwing answers at the wall to see if they would stick.  At times, there was no hint of uncertainty or need for additional information.  It would have been easy to simply accept the incorrect answer, but you can't just assume that it is going to be correct every time.  When you are not certain or when you need to be sure to have the correct answer, double check with other resources.

I've also noticed more articles on metal detecting produced by AI. Those articles might sound good to a relative beginner, but they usually contain significant inaccuracies.  To a more serious detectorists, those articles offer nothing of value.  You'll see the name of an author, but it is evident that the author knows very little about the subject.

There are a number of clues that are typical of AI generated articles.  Someday I should try to list and describe the common clues, but I probably won't get around to it, and it might change by that time anyhow.

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Surf Chart from SurfGuru.com.

As you can see, a slightly higher surf is expected towards the end of the week, but nothing very significant.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net