Car life folks and code copy-pasters

The online algorithms are so random that I recently found myself watching a lot of car/van life and camping videos (again). Around the time when we were all at home trying not to get covid (deliberate non-capitalization to express my repulsion), I started watching folks who go on survival camping trips. It’s a great way to examine and imagine life without materialistic comforts. I recently read a stranger’s post about the declining condition of our planet and how so many aspects are irreversible (like climate change). Really difficult not to think of the ‘what ifs’ and to consider some form of preparation for extreme calamities. It’s self-inflicted stress, in a way. There was a brief time also during the pandemic when I began watching clips of a specific type of ASMR on soap cutting to counteract the ‘the end is nigh’ feelings when thinking of apocalyptic possibilities. The soap cutting videos were bizarre, satisfying, and relaxing enough to lull someone to go to sleep. Not a good way to end a day, eh? It was a very brief fixation. 

—

I have a GitHub account that I created years ago so that I could share some programming code for a brown bag session during my grad school training. I recently used it to collaborate and develop some useful statistical programming functions based on textbook formulas. The goal is to streamline certain work-related things. I’m not active on that platform and really just keep it alive so I can pull-edit-push code. There are a substantial amount of code that I use everyday, and there are a few functions that I still need to copy-paste from old projects. I’m a code copy-paster. Hehe. Interestingly, I tried Microsoft’s Bing AI…which is also GPT based. I tried it out of curiosity and there was a professional thing that necessitated me to at least have an idea how it goes. I asked Bing to write me code for a particular task. It was essentially the same as searching on a web browser except that the response isn’t a list of search results, but a synthetic conversational response from a chat bot. Like a written version of what Google or Siri or Alexa would say. That’s my observation. Most of us online consumers see the front-end side of things. When I wear my ‘work hat’, I usually see the data side of things in the back-end whether in flat text or spreadsheet format so it is helpful for me to have an idea how the front-end looks like. That way, I can present my analysis in a format that makes sense to those who only see the front-end. You know what I mean? Anyway, there are many occasions when I feel exhausted at the end of a work day even if I barely moved my skeletal muscles, because this type of effort drains the brain.

—

On the topic of algorithms…I’m not amused with the amount of noise and junk that is being peddled to me. I have been actively clicking on the options that will allow me to train my news source apps (hopefully) so that useless information disappears. I’ve mentioned before that the currency of today includes attention. If content is unnecessary and suspiciously packaged so that a consumer (like me) will tend to give it attention or engagement—ayayay, no thanks. My time and attention are so valuable that I have to be very careful. I urge you to protect your time and attention too. It’s a messy and nasty cyber world out there. Let’s prioritize our immediate physical reality. Unfortunately, there are groups and institutions that thrive on negativity, chaos, and by making people feel miserable or inadequate (e.g., so that a person ends up purchasing some obscure overpriced knick-knack). Like Rumplestiltskin in the earlier seasons of Once Upon a Time (which we are binge watching), who finds opportunities when people are in desperate predicaments. Also related to monstrous evil, we just finished the latest season of Good Omens, which isn’t part of the Neil Gaiman book, but is an entertaining and twisted way to think about Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, morality and immortality. Brilliant shows worth the attention—my attention, surely.