Photo:
Vibe coding 🖥️
Do you want access to the Chat GPT code assist as part of your job was the question I was asked. I said no, I’m not sure what I would use it for as the data structures I build and link together. To explain a task in English and then pose follow up questions to an AI Chat Bot seems like a lot more work and slower than just writing the code in plain old R directly.
Maybe I’m not with the times and fail to see the power of artificial intelligence but I generally see it clumsy and something more likely to get in my way rather than be actually helpful. But maybe I’m just stubborn. Years ago, I had this real beginners belief that it is better to code your own solution to problems then include a lot of libraries that to do a lot of extra things that I’ll never use and is overhead – though that’s not how the compiler or linker work in reality – libraries only link to symbols actually used and compilers optimize our unused code. And any library is likely written by an expert in the field who has included many optimizations I’m unaware of.
But AI is different than linking to a library. For one, it requires an external pay service that depends on internet access and you have to hope the API never changes. It also allows or maybe requires you to explain in English what you to do. That sounds nice if you have no idea what you are trying to do in code but in my experience working with AI, the generated code is full of bugs and by the time you explain what you are trying to do and then debug the code, you might as well right it correctly yourself. Libraries you learn the API and then you just link to them. No internet required.
The real problem with WOKE is the last two letters
The police department had every police car printed with the slogan, “Black Lives Matter”. The officers no longer referred to blacks as niggers around the police station nor when arresting them. They didn’t stop the abusive tactics when targeting black motorists or the dispropational focus on African American communities. They were woke.
The real problem with wokeness is it’s superficial nature of being woke. It’s not that people shouldn’t care about race, climate change or any other so called liberal cause, it’s that many liberals state their support of the cause while failing to take any kind of serious policy action to address the cause.
Wokeness as a concept is not a new one. Phil Ochs in the sixties sung, Love Me I’m a Liberal, noting many liberals support progressive causes in principal but are equally resistant to take concrete action, especially if it effects them personally. Integration of schools is a noble cause worth fighting for as long their white children in a good neighborhood aren’t bused to an intercity school. It’s a problem.
There is no simple solution, though liberals should consider their advocacy and see if it equals their actions. The advocacy without action makes the liberal cause appear weak and is often meaningless – something both keen observers of politics and casual observers of every day life are hard to miss. Liberals should avoid carve outs for their loyal followers just because they don’t want to offend or upset them.
Crooked Lake House
Neat old house across from Keuka Outlet Recreation Center with a picture of Keuka Lake shown on it.
Friday August 14, 2020 — Notes
Why do I find targeted ads so triggering? 🤬
See, what you need is BETTER HELP !!!
THINKING ABOUT Going SOLAR??? Boy, oh, Boy did you know Empire Solar Scam Sales has the PRODUCT For You!
Drinking PFOAs in your DRINKING Water?! Got Cancer? Call our attorney’s today!
Ready for bathroom renovation? Need new windows? New new siding?
I get so annoyed with targeted advertisements. You watch a video about the latest in Off-Grid Solar or Off-Grid Properties and soon your feed is full of advertising for solar scam companies. Watch a video about self-improvement, and be ready to see dozens if not hundreds of ads anywhere you go from Better Help! Have an honest question about the science behind PFOAs? The trial lawyers are ready to serve you ads. Interested in different materials to build an off-grid property? Roofers, windows companies, bathroom renovators are standing by to sell, sell, sell.
I actually really enjoy trolling those advertisers, making bullshit comments and copying and pasting random things in their comment sections, and clicking on their ads, just to get them charged money. But all it does it cause the algorithms to dig deeper, and think you are actually legitimately interested in the product. I know the algorithms are done, and it’s only causing advertisers to loose a few pennies to the sites their underwriting, but I still find it all so incredibly triggering.
I know real people aren’t actually choosing me to specifically push ads in front of in most cases. While some platforms like Facebook allow name matching, most of it is based on algorithms that look at words and sites I’ve visited in the past to try to guess what I’m interested in, even if most of the guesses are stereotypical and wrong. Maybe because it’s a because I have such unique tastes, but also I think humans are generally unique and algorithms are at best guesses of what might interest the person. And indeed, there are many products that I would be interested in buying today, or maybe tomorrow, though not all of those companies have advertising budgets or the intelligence to actually put advertisements in front of me. And algorithms have a bad time guessing humor and what real humans are thinking.
Fear itself 😱
“The problem is all inside your head, she said to me. The answer is easy if you take it logically, I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free.”
So goes the old Paul Simon song. I realized that the anxiety attack on Thursday afternoon at work wasn’t a heart attack or even particularly rational. It was my truck. Management of the critical database at work. That promise I couldn’t deliver on. So many things trigger my sometimes diabilatating anxiety.
There are a lot of scary things in the world that one should not ignore, though one should always keep it in context. You can’t insist in perfect reliability or success at every outcome, as such a world would not only be boring but provide no real chance of advancing yourself. Little risk means little reward. It can be hard to put immediate fear in context.
I am working through my anxiety issues piece by piece in my brain. Weighting the pros and cons out, piece by piece. Part of it my weak social support next work and the need to develop new friends and connections. I’ve coasted along for years since college mostly relying on my parents as an essential support but I know soon they won’t be around and it’s getting more and more difficult for them to help in emergencies especially as they get older. When you are alone this world can be a scary place indeed.
NPR
The Trump administration is accelerating plans to place a nuclear reactor on the moon to power a base for humans.
The reactor would launch to the moon by 2030, according to a directive by acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy that was sent to NASA officials in July and obtained by NPR. It's an ambitious target that has some in the scientific community concerned about high costs and a potentially unrealistic schedule.
The plan follows the United States' goal to return astronauts to the moon and be a leader in space exploration as China and Russia also aim to use nuclear power on the moon by the end of the decade. Duffy said during a press conference on Tuesday that using nuclear energy as a power source on the moon is necessary to sustain life there — and that the U.S. is behind in its efforts.