Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Week Notes 5

    I’m a couple days late with this one, but what are you going to do? I was never really shooting for a rigid schedule when I started with this week notes format. Glad I took it easy over the weekend instead.

• Technology and Free Software

  • My tentative file-syncing solution

    The devices I want to keep certain files in sync between are my Linux desktop, Linux laptop, gaming PC, and Android phone. The gaming PC and Android phone are not strictly necessary to keep in sync with the others, but it's moderately convenient to have certain files synced and available on them.

  • My speech/language-enhancing technology wishes

    Though, there would still be times when I just don't have the cognitive spoons to articulate things myself, and in these instances I wouldn't mind the technology doing it for me, and all I would have to do is the physical act of vocalizing it.

  • looking ahead

    It's been awhile since I've stepped into the good ol' Pub. I hope all my fellow patrons have been doing well!

    ~bartender, just a coffee for me. need some caffeine on this Monday to get energized for some more work today!

    i've begun work with my wife on a small indie game we have been wanting to build for a long time, and so that's going to be my main focus for the next little while until it's done. she is handling the graphical assets and storyboarding, and I am doing the programming and audio production. we're fleshing out the concept and story right now. i've settled on building it on the LOVE2D engine.

    [...]

    aside from the usual programming and web stuff, i've been enjoying the much cooler temps here in my neck of the woods. we've been in the 40s and 30s here, and I love getting a fire going in the trusty ol' wood stove and sitting around in the warmth. i've also been doing some livestreams and videos of some FOSS games my wife and I enjoy playing together, mostly Luanti (which used to be known as Minetest). lots of fun.

  • Generative AI and Me: Rediscovering the Value of Personal Experiences in Writing

    The creative industry is mad at the advancement and use of generative AI, which not only stole their work to train the generative models such as ChatGPT but also threatened their job as a cheap replacement for some low-caliber jobs. They should be rightly so, as none of them were consulted/consented in the reproduction of a cheaper version of their work. Having said that, I must admit that I use ChatGPT to write code. It has tremendously improved the speed at which I can code and find information. Which previously meant Googling and going through stacks of answers on Stack Overflow. Now, I can ask ChatGPT what I want, and it gives me a ready-to-use answer. How well it writes the code depends on how well I can explain the problem. I also use other forms of AI, such as Grammarly, which is helpful for me as I am linguistically challenged. Even after trying hard, I can not always write correct grammar in English or Hindi.

    In the words of Ed Yong, one of my favorite science writers, "There is no ethical way to use AI." With all due respect, I neither accept nor deny this statement, but I do acknowledge that many more learned people than I am have already raised their voices on both sides.

  • Re: ed is the standard

    Today I raad the enthousiastic Gopher post by Kensanata, titled `ed is the standard' [1].

    Kensanata uses tin as usenet newsreader with ed as the editor. Also Kensanata used ed to compose email messages on the command line.

  • Short Post: "Flow" Review (No Spoilers)

    Last night me and my best friend went to see "Flow", a Latvian independent animated movie following the efforts of a group of animals - a cat, a secretarybird, a lemur, a capybara, and a dog - to survive in a flooded, post-human world.

    I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in; I had watched the trailer but it only vaguely interested me, and more for the technical aspects of its animation than its story. The plot looked basic - cat goes on boat, has adventures (presumably including a waterfall, as is customary in media with boats), finds true friendship, roll credits. The movie itself was absolutely nothing like I expected, and I was profoundly moved by it.