Posts

The Problem With Zingers - Randy Ingermanson

 https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2024/08/13/the-problem-with-zingers/  I have to say this person is onto something.   Several months ago I uninstalled all social apps and stopped going there entirely. I gradually started going back using a browser. I have now reinstalled the apps.   This is not backsliding as my behaviour has changed. I only engage (95% of the time) with sections of the site (e.g. subreddits) that are not concerned with squabbling. I comment when I can help or amuse.  I don't engage in petty snark designed to ingratiate me with people who agree. I used to think "well, I am engaging with people whose beliefs I abhor so I can convince them of how wrong they are."  Now, I see the absurdity of that. Of course, they are thinking the same thing of me.  Instead, I now focus on being a good person on and offline. I would never seek to embarrass someone in "real life" they way I had online. Or demand my elderly relative produce "sources&

Less is More: The Power of Short-Form Writing (by Gemini AI)

The following blog post was written by Gemini in response to a prompt Gemini summarized as: Write a blog post about the benefits of short-form writing. Focus on: the psychological and practical advantages of concise writing. Include: historical context of short-form communication. Style: Match the informal, conversational tone of macdonaldster.ca.  Length: Aim for a shorter, more engaging piece compared to typical blog posts.  Essentially, the goal was to create a compelling argument for the value of short-form content, incorporating historical perspective and a casual writing style. As part of prompting Gemini, I discussed how I have been trying to journal on one 3x5 index card a day and how relaxing and easy it is to do that. Here is the post it generated: Our world is drowning in information. Between endless social feeds and inbox chaos, it's tough to focus. But there's a secret weapon: short-form writing. We've been saying it short and sweet for ages. Telegrams, ea

CNN Presidential Debate June 2024

That debate was bad. We can all agree.  But was it the end for Biden? Maybe.  Here's one way forward: take all the crazy crap Trump said and edit it into very targetted adds in swing (and also "not totally blue" states). Then run it 24/7, readjusted for focus group feedback until the election.  Senile beats crazy. Noone is really voting Biden at this point. It's a vote against Trump. Make it impossible for people with a shred of decency to choose Trump. Saturate ads, socials, and any other channel with this content. 

Windows Recall - privacy nightmare?

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/05/25/microsoft_build_kettle/ This just seems crazy to me and a move designed to motivate corporate IT to prefer windows over Linux for the end user desktop so they can more easily prove people were doing the things they aren't supposed to be doing at work.  The problem with this is that it's a security nightmare. In addition to the obvious problems listed in the article, it's also a social engineering tool of epic proportions.  An intruder, viewing the Recall info in real time real time, has a massive leg up on the user in the most common form of scam: the calls pretending to be from "tech support" from your ISP offering to fix your computer. Does this seem far fetched? Combine robocalls, an AI LLM geared toward voice chat and motivated to get you to install a "tech support" program, and then a hand-off to a skilled con artist to complete the scam and you have a recipe for disaster affecting our m

Creating versus consuming

 Lately, I have really been limiting my viewing of media after a certain point each night, including reading, and especially consuming content on screens. I am still doing OK with audio content but more fiction and trying to go to music more often, but I do love a good audio book.   Why? I have a sleep disorder and my tracking of sleep quality indicates that nights when I play video games or watch shows before I go to sleep are nights I sleep poorly. There are other factors I also manage but they are not relevant to this post.   So now, starting an hour before bed, I try to make rather than consume. The form this is currently taking is building out an analog Zettelkasten (ZK). Sounds so pretentious, I know. But all it is, is tree of info organized as you file into it, using index cards.  So my routine is something like this: Begin relaxing by productive puttering - lights are turned off, dried pots and pans from dinner are put away, coffee is put on for the next morning (on a timer, I

3D printing has entered the chat

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I have been using index cards a lot lately for note taking and other things so I picked up a 3D printed desk storage tray which also has a nice pen cradle. It's the first thing I own that I know was produced to this way.  This is an interesting development in my own personal journey but also in the progress of our technical capabilities. One of the aspects of technology I find most interesting is the progression of tech from theoretical to corporate to being used by average people in the home.  Computers made this progression very slowly. It took years and years. 3D printing saw this happen more rapidly. The casual use of nuclear power depicted by sci fi authors like Heinlein hasn't quite happened yet and probably never will but I do think CRISPR might be usable in the home. Maybe not in my lifetime but you never know. I'm imagining a biological 3D printer making a bespoke medical cocktail, for example.  Crazy? As crazy as me walking around with a computer in my

Update: Controlling My Inputs

Update to the original post: https://www.macdonaldster.ca/2024/03/life-controlling-my-inputs.html So far, so good. I HAVE commented on Reddit a couple of times regarding Google Sheets and that's about it. I also caved in and commented on Facebook a few times. I won't be doing that again unless it is a friend and I am sharing a laugh. The dust is settling here: I am using Readwise Reader now for my RSS and URL saving needs.  Inoreader is still great but Readwise just added better code around managing RSS feeds and so now it's good again. It can also handle ebooks, PDFs, etc. (meaning you can annotate them).  I had subscribed to a couple of RSS feeds for Reddit groups but trashed those today and added a single RSS feed for all my subscribed Lemmys. I'll see how that goes. I don't want to interact but I like knowing what's going on.  Finally, I am spending less time on apps, more time reading books. I like that.