2024 December❮❮prevnext❯❯

4 star:
* DENIAL IS A RIVER (Doechii)
Interesting background tale
* Too Sweet (Hozier)
* Paint It, Black (Bishop Briggs)

3 star:
* Love Story Soundtrack - 06 - Search For Jenny (Fracis Lai)
* Supertight (feat. Aldous Snow) (Jackie Q)
* Good Advice (Allan Sherman)
* Say No Go (De La Soul)
* I Can't Give You Anything But Love (Fats Waller)
* It Don't Mean a Thing (Take Two) (Duke Ellington and His Orchestra)
* Escapism. (RAYE & 070 Shake)
* Son of a Preacher Man (with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) (Aretha Franklin)
* Like a Prayer (Choir Version From "Deadpool & Wolverine") (I'll Take You There Choir)
* Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin)

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not to sound ungrateful, but the past few days what is bugging me about this final month until solstice is less the lack of light and more the solar glare.
interesting article on the likely future marketing landscape for LLMs. Cal Peterson argues it's more like airlines - severe supplier seller's market (NVIDIA), low barrier of entry for new competitors, weak brand loyalty - than it is like Coke, which is just a flavor/branding play.


I wonder if there's a way for an LLM to stand out and attract specific Coke-brand loyalties via virtual personality, and/or a clear difference in what level of problem it can solve? I'm a little loyal to ChatGPT, in part because I started paying for it early, and also early I realize I prefer LLMs to be in their little sandboxes vs deeply coupled and nested in my editor. (In one case, trying to override its code suggestions for a simple import in VS Code, overwhelming where the old auto-complete was trying to do the job, left a very bad taste in my mouth.))


I guess with LLMs too... it's always tough to be sure there's no unseemly corporate agenda for any given one. Especially since most often the processing is remote anyway, you can never have that sense of "I know this AI is just working for me."

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Trying to be gentle with myself because I'm muddling through a cold, but - hallmark of the less productive day: the phone has a full charge (barely left the charger), the laptop is nearly dead (goofing off online - reclining rather than at the desk.) Somehow, "gee I'd like to play Diddy Kong Racing" became this minor flex...

I kind of have mixed feelings about it. (Besides the fact I haven't worked out where/how to stash controllers and games.) Like I know I'm never going to playing this stuff as much as I did back in the day (my golden age was late 90s/early 00s, friends over monthly for some good N64 + DC + GCN couch gaming) So this might be the last hoorah. But I guess it's the widest single setup I've ever had. Maybe I could sneak a Wii in there (I guess that would remove the need for a GameCube but of all of these the GameCube is my favorite as a physical item.))

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I'm thinking about reviving my "Wall o' Peeps" (as seen here a purposefully chaotic photo wall.)

Musing on the criteria I want to use for photo curation, the balance of "this is a visually interesting photo" vs "this person means a lot to me" (and sometimes estrangement or having drifted apart complicates the choice) There is also my kind of weird urge to focus on old flings as a kind of cheap but reassuring nostalgia.

Also - do I want to go back to the mixed frames (which I thought forgave any unevenness in hanging) or should I go for "all square crops, same frame" or split the difference...

But also, I want to get better at making new photos. Firefox's default page brought me this article on being a better photo subject - it's almost stunning how pedestrian most older Westerners become when posing for a photo! Like the simplest variations - tilting a head, closing eyes, putting a hand on a hip, whatever - can just give an emotional energy beyond "hey look, I was here at this time", or other facile cliches like the fingers-in-V peace sign or heart-with-hands.

(It reminded me of how I've become obsessed with the first ten seconds of the intro to the anime Dan Da Dan - I love how the characters all strike a playful portrait pose, and am trying to figure out how to replicate a parallel effect elsewhere.)

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Just read an old Retrogamer magazine with an interview with Betty Ryan - she was the first woman coder at GCC, which was the company that was Atari's secret weapon in the early 80s.

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Damn, Giants really working vs the Pats for that draft pick

That YOU that you are so proud of is a story woven together by your interpreter module to account for as much of your behavior as it can incorporate, and it denies or rationalizes the rest.

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There is no mind absolute or free will, but the mind is determined for willing this or that by a cause which is determined in its turn by another cause, and this one again by another, and so on to infinity.

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In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.

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Emergence is when micro-level complex systems that are far from equilibrium (thus allowing for the amplification of random events) self-organize (creative, self-generated, adaptability-seeking behavior) into new structures, with new properties that previously did not exist, to form a new level of organization on the macro level.

Emergence has come up again and again as a possible answer for me in my UU Science and Spirituality group.

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What has become obvious to most physicists [...] is that at different levels of structure, there are different types of organization with completely different types of interactions governed by different laws, and one emerges from the other but does not emerge predictably. This is even true for something as basic as water turning to ice, as physicist Robert Laughlin has pointed out: Ice has so far been found to have eleven distinct crystalline phases, but none of them were predicted by first principles!

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For instance, Jessica Flack has found evidence for the existence of monkey cops! These policing individuals are important to the cohesiveness of the social group as a whole. They not only terminate conflicts or reduce their intensity, but their presence also prevents conflicts from occurring and spreading, and it facilitates active sociopositive interactions among group members. When the policing macaques are temporarily removed, conflict increases. Just as with human societies, when the policeman is present, there are fewer barroom brawls, and speeders slow down on the freeways. Her results suggest that having a policeman around "influences large-scale social organization and facilitates levels of social cohesion and integration that might otherwise be impossible.

AMCAB? Or maybe they're more like teachers...

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The book mentions Leonardo, one of those MIT Robot projects, but this one flew under my radar-- kind of an uncanny valley Furbie!

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I once asked Leon Festinger, one of the smartest men in the world, whether or not he ever felt inept. He replied, "Of course! That is what keeps you ept."

A repost from 20 years ago, "Leia & Vader: The Untold Story", a video from Lore Sjöberg's lamented Brunching Shuttlecocks, featuring Leia and Darth action figures and Alanis Morissette's song "Hands Clean" I had trouble finding it (and am always worried that site will go away) so am reposting it now... what I said back then

It's weird how evocative that fade cut can be, even with stupid little action figures (I had forgotten how muscle-y the new action figures are, they make my old ones look pretty skinny and anemic.) Made me go out and get that Alanis cd...I feel it's a little brave to admit liking Alanis, but she has some really interesting lyrics. Of course, if you think too much about the relationships between the characters portrayed in the video, it's pretty icky.

Strange that I was self-conscious about liking Alanis; she really is and was awesome. I guess a little overexposed back then.

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There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

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horrible but hilarious nsfw under the tag, click to see

Much protest is naïve; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone's individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.

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Protest from City Hall to State House...

I guess I never posted the funnest I've ever had with a text scammer:

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A friend introduced me to this version of "Baby It's Cold Outside" that cuts the Gordian Knot of "is the original non-consensual pressure, or is He empowering Her to break the social mores blocking them both from having a good time while saving face?"

Honestly funniest video I've seen this week!

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TIL: Zildjian the famous cymbal maker is now in Massachusetts (they started 400 years ago in Constantinople, moved here 100 years ago)

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This is your quinquennial reminder that as a nation, we don't pay enough attention to the fact that in "Rocky III" Rocky fought a character played by Hulk Hogan. And that that character was named "Thunderlips".

O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider, I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you'll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris' chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces.

what the hell is the point of a nation that doesn't take care of its people. You know, Musk is doing a pretty good Lex Luthor impression these days.

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Over the years I've accumulated a few nicknames based on "Kirk".

"Kirkles" was the original and one of the best.

"Captain" jokes based on Star Trek have some play, though not as much as you might think.

"Kirkjerk" remains my main online handle (including gmail, which is deeply unfortunate) There's also "Kirkamundo" and "TheGreatKirkini" which I used in the AOL-IM days.

But it wasn't til yesterday that the teenage sons of Lynette pointed out "Kirkules" (rhyming with "Hercules") was lying right there all this time!
It's one of the greatest thing except for one Achilles Heel (so to speak) - the spelling. "Kirkules" looks like it might be spoken "Kirkles". How to get it more phonetic? Kirk-u-lese? Kirkuleez? Repost from 2 years ago.

I still stand by this, and often kinda am able to live into it a lot.

there's a minor gray lining to that silver cloud, which is, when you like or love most everything in the world it can be tougher to make really peak experience stand out (and I guess if you were always peaking, floating on a crowd of euphoria, that might be a challenging way to be anyway) and/or show the individuals who are most special to you that they are the most special. Sort of a "figure-ground" art thing. But I'm trying to get the knack of that as well.

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"We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!"

Screw Trump's idea of "justice". It's retribution, not law and order.

And it doesn't help deter crime.

But I'm sure it feels like it does, right? And that's all that matters - the vibes, not any evidence, and sure as hell not any sense of mercy.



This morning my Mom, Aunt, and I experimented with a new REALLY random ritual - yesterday I impulse bought a marked-down Spider-Man Lego Advent Calendar, and since it was too late to open up one door every day, we just played "build a miniset, open a gift"

Don't think it's going to be a new tradition but it was kind of amusing this year...

Merry Christmas!

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I always like hearing when a language puts a single word to a concept in a way English doesn't - the other week Lynette told me I'm "neko jita" - a Japanese word (lit. "cat tongue") for someone with poor tolerance for hot drink and food.

(grabbed off of loveblender)

A friend writes "In billy-nagar on the last Sunday of the year, exulting with a hurray and immediately a deep nap after a tough year in actual rat races." made a doodle for Wren based on yesterday's photo:

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RIP Jimmy Carter.

What a model for how to behave admirably after a life in politics.

And in politics; what a shame forthright honesty about difficult times wasn't such a big seller.

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Me and Rayyan, the tubas for SoH at Boston Common! A few months ago I started digging Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast, and realized the Stop and Shop brand was just as good for like half the price. But lately they never have the generic in stock. Hard not to take that personally, or get a little conspiracy minded about it (oh of COURSE the one good cheap cereal is the one they don't make enough of)

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Isabelle pulled me backwards, she laid me down on the eiderdown, she raised me up, she kept me in her arms: she was taking me out of a world where I had never lived so that she could launch me into a world I had not yet reached; the lips opened mine a little, they moistened my teeth. The too feshy tongue frightened me; but the strange virility didn't force its way in. Absently, calmly, I waited. The lips roved over my lips. My heart was beating too hard and I wanted to prolong the sweetness of the imprint, the new experience brushing at my lips. Isabelle is kidding me, I said to myself. She was tracing a circle around my mouth, she was encircling the disturbance, she laid a cool kiss in each corner, two staccato notes of music on my lips; then her mouth pressed against mine once more, hibernating there. . . . We were still hugging each other, we both wanted to be swallowed up by the other. . . . As Isabelle lay crushed over my gaping heart I wanted to feel her enter it. She taught me to open into flower. . . .Her tongue, her little flame, softened my muscles, my flesh. . . . A flower opened up in every pore of my skin. . . .

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There may have been a time of collective rituals, when sensual release attained its apogee, but we are no longer engaged in collective rituals, and the stronger the passion is for one individual, the more concentrated, intensified, and ecstatic the ritual of one to one can prove to be.

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I'm not going to get into a lot of detail about Henry Ford's reasons for promoting square dancing in public schools, because I find it distasteful. I'll just say that it seems like any time you want to know why Henry Ford did something you don't understand, you can assume the answer was likely either "increased efficiency" or "antisemitism."

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