Potato is yum

Potato is yum.

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  • AI’s Not Leaving

    This… might be my most controversial post. Simply because I’m mentioning the word AI. But I’m going to attempt to present substantial evidence to explain why I have come to this conclusion.

    So a lot of people have the thought that once the AI bubble pops so to say, the AI is gonna just magically disappear or something. This is… a dubious understanding of AI. When people hear about AI they think of it as something like crypto mining where it’s something that produces a product while a datacenter is churning through precious energy and coolant (often water). This is only half of the truth.

    A simplification of AI is that it is simply an algorithm that takes in various inputs and then does something to it internally and then spits out an output. The idea that a model uses a lot of computing power is actually the exact opposite of the reason why AI has been developed. In fact, the purpose of AI is to reduce the computation necessary for tasks. This can be clearly seen when neural networks are used in pattern recognition for protein folding in drug discovery, particle classification in physics, and spell check in word processors. Without AI, the computer would need to calculate every possible outcome for each of these scenarios which ends up being an exponential problem that quickly becomes unrealistic to calculate. AI serves as a way to reduce this computation by reducing the complexity of a task.

    This means AI is often not correct but it is close enough to be useful. The protein folding problem need not be perfect. It just needs to be good enough to show researchers results for promising leads. The particle classification need not be perfect as the experiments from detectors in particle accelerators have margins for error. A spellcheck need not be perfect as it assumes there is a human deciding if the spellchecker’s corrections make sense or not. The purpose for which AI was designed was to reduce computation, save resources, make things cheaper.

    So… then how is AI eating up so much energy and draining so much drinkable water? The cost of training. The largest LLMs can run on a 4090 with pretty decent results. However, making the model that can take inputs takes a lot of energy to produce. Essentially, AI is like an imaginary factory in your computer that takes in some stuff and spits it out. The costly part is the making of the factory, not the running of the factory. It typically costs between 10k-100m to make the “factory” but it only takes 1k-5k to run said factory. So what does this mean? It means that since many factories have been made, the millions have already been spent. The factory exists and everyone can get it.

    All it takes is someone to download their own factory and start using it just like when someone buys a factory except lots of researchers are just handing out their factories for free. Even if every company quit training AIs they have already have working models that won’t be deleted. These models can be used forever and at a fraction of the price that it took to compute their creation.

    AI isn’t going anywhere and we’re gonna have to figure out how to live with it.

    Sources:

    Running an AI

    Making a model

  • Does Medium Matter?

    As we go about our daily life we consume all kinds of content. I watch youtube, play games, read webcomics, read books, and so much more. When I think about my time usage, I spent maybe a third of my 24 hour day looking at some kind of art. That means I spent at least 8 hours a day looking and processing art. That’s a lot of time. But there is no world where I would be able to invest my full attention for 8 hours. So, what does this mean?

    Based on my feeling I will consume different kinds of media. If I feel energetic and want to do something I’ll pick up a competitive game like counterstrike or titanfall. If I want to do something but want to relax I’d load up minecraft or stardew valley. Now let’s say I didn’t want to do anything. Or I didn’t want to have to sit in front of a screen and just wanted to slouch in a beanbag for an hour or two. Well then I really only have two options, a physical book or my phone. Well. We all know that narrows down the list of media I could consume by basically… nothing. I could scroll shorts, read webcomics, read magazines, read books, read web serials, basically anything. I could even play mobile games.

    I think everyone can agree that the medium of your art matters. It’s quite an obvious deduction. Through a short discussion with some fellow authors I realized I haven’t properly analyzed my usage of prose as my medium. The medium is important because it changes how your art conveys your message and how it is consumed. In previous posts I have explained my philosophy on the meaning of art. In short, I believe art is simply a vehicle to convey ideas and the “goodness” of a work is entirely on the effectiveness of this vehicle. Different wrappings can make the vehicle more enticing to use or attractive but at the end of the day the vehicle will drive and every consumer will drive it differently.

    To add onto this analogy, we could say prose is like a car. You have different kind of prose on the form of short stories, poetry, and much more that correspond to compact cars, mini cars, and full on SUV novels. But there are other kind of vehicles. For example a game could be like a bike or scooter that requires more effort from the user to run. Or large works of art being trains that are small and efficient at conveying large quantities of information on an idea. Or entire productions of a rocket ship similar to that of a film.

    But when we look at the analogy, we notice that all these vehicles have their strengths and weaknesses. Those strengths and weaknesses matter. A lot.

  • Why My Launch Flopped

    My launch for my “first” book kinda flopped. However, it was an expected flop. I didn’t do the things I was told to do. Why not? Because I didn’t care that much. I wanted to see if I could do it. Do it my way. And yup. They were right. I’m not him. I can’t diff the market with my incredible skill and prowess. So I guess I need to follow the tips that all authors have followed.

    So let’s just go through a few of the glaring issues with the launch.

    First, I didn’t prepare enough chapters. I heard some wrote their whole book before beginning publishing. I was like bah I can write a chapter a week easy! Eh. Yeah. I kind of forgot I was returning to school. Because of that, we’re down to a chapter every other week. Still better than my previous attempts but like… not great. Optimal would be finish the whole book and then post daily. Something that I did not do. My next book, however, will do this strategy.

    Second, I didn’t workshop a blurb or cover. I did commission a cover but I should have screened it. My current blurb kind of sucks. My current cover also doesn’t fully depict what the story is about. So, I need to work on marketing better. This is expected though. I cut corners on this.

    Third, I didn’t have a workflow for my plan meaning every chapter I’m making new threads and have to keep track of them to wrap them up in a timely manner. Currently I’ve been attempting to wrap up short threads in 2-3 chapters but I’m creating a new thread every chapter and it’s getting a little out of hand to keep track of. So, a better outline and preplanning would go a long way. And that’s also why my next book “Past Self” is taking much longer to prepare and I don’t have anything to say about it yet.

    I learned a lot more than this. But I could sit here all day and I think there’s no better way to learn about how to screw up than screwing up. So I screwed up and now I’m gonna screw up better. Screw up less? Screw up less better. Ah whatever.

  • AI;DR

    tl;dr use ai;dr.

    I found this hilarious meme when I was scrolling through discord today. And I think it’s such a good acronym to use.

    The typical tl;dr of too long; didn’t read is generally used by people to reduce a piece down into it’s essence or core. I find it ironic that ai;dr has been made as a way to show how ai attempts to also produce these reductions of art. It seems slightly comical. There’s a lot to say about this but I’ll save my AI speech for next Tuesday.

  • At What Point Does Many Individuals Become A Society?

    So I’ve been reading a lot about philosophy and there is a distinct difference between the individual and a society. For example, the happiness of the individual is vastly different than the happiness of a society as the a society’s happiness is more about the norms and axioms that are the foundation of the society. For an individual, happiness is on a very personal level where it depends on social status, aspirations, and many other ideas.

    To add to this, societies have certain obligations to fulfil towards their individual members while not all philosophies agree that individuals have obligations to themselves. Are you obligated to make yourself happy? No. Not really. The assumption that I must be happy is inherently biased. And we can all agree that not everyone in this world wishes to be happy.

    Much like this, different philosophies disagree on the obligations of a society to it’s constituents. Some think that a society has the obligation to make it’s members happy while others believe they only are obligated to allow their members to be happy. What’s right? Who knows. But this got me thinking, at what size could a philosopher consider a group of people a society?

    I’m probably gonna read a lot more to try and figure it out. There’s probably a long debate on this and I’m just joining the party.

  • Snowflake Method

    So I recently learned about the snowflake method for story writing and I’m considering putting it into practice to see how well it goes for me. The current short story I’m working on “Past Self” will start releasing in a week or two once I finalize the outline and begin to snowflake it out.

    Since this isn’t a contest submission I’ll go through the parts that I’m doing in case anyone is interested.

    So the snowflake method is where you start from the essence of something and branch out into a full story. In the case of “Past Self”, the essence is “The crown corrupts the one who wears it.”

    From this core idea, I branch out into an outline, a setting, a character, everything.

    Here’s a little peek into what I’ve been working on as a blurb:

    If you saw your future and saw a tyrannical dictator, what would you do?

    Peter Stelle is on a hunting outing and emerges from the forest with a city on the horizon. Opening the computer in his truck, he realizes thirty years had passed since he went on his camping trip. Below the clock, Peter sees a familiar face. His own face.

    “Stelle fully eradicates the remnants of the opposition party.”

    “Stelle celebrates his fifteenth year in power.”

    “Stelle establishes World Peace day to celebrate the unification of world power.”

    “Stelle accused of involvement with missing political opponents. Refuses to respond.”

    In a fit of panic, Peter logs onto his personal website to see a message from a user he hadn’t seen before.

    “Sir Stelle, we have the reporters.”

    “Silence them.”

    “Video attached to message”

    Peter scrambled to erase his presence from the logs, but it was too late. In the text files there was a message.

    “Who are you?”

    Peter grabbed his hunting rifle. This couldn’t be him. What? Why? How? That couldn’t be the real Peter.

  • Another Delay :(

    Yeah so this chapter was supposed to come out yesterday. But um. I have an exam. So. Another delay.

  • Water Jugs

    I have been focusing less on these creative projects and more on my health as of late. This has yielded some very nice results. Obviously, yielded results at the cost of delayed chapters and less attention to this website. I think it’s a good change for me though. And this is my website so I can do whatever the hell I want with it. In fact, this originally wasn’t going to be a blog but I kind of just ended up turning it into a blog.

    So why do I care so much about health? So sixth months ago I was told I had cancer. Shocker right? Anyway, that was a wakeup call for me to get my life in order and start to do things. Life is short you know? It was a pretty real reminder that this whole living thing could end at any moment. Being a teenager, I really didn’t have this sense of time. Since, as a teenager I had my entire life to do cool stuff. Right? Well, entire life if you keep living. So that’s when I figured out that if I want to do cool things, I need to live long enough to have the time to do the cool things.

    I started this website because I found myself bored and unable to put my thoughts anywhere else. My journal would be a great place but in the end that would get locked up on a hard drive and never seen by anyone else. It would kind of be pointless to write. I still write a journal but not for thoughtful stuff like this where I simply word vomit everything I think about. Instead my journal is about plans for what I want to do, my dreams, my aspirations. My journal has mostly become a way for me to talk to myself and process the things in my head every day for plans and other things I wish to do. However, when talking about like how I live, how the world works, and other important philosophical problems I often found myself unable to figure out where to put all that.

    So, I recently got restaged and found that my stage 4 cancer was in remission. This is great news. I have learned. I have learned just how important health and longevity is. I read all those webcomics of people going crazy for long life. Read all those Chinese stories about people injecting mercury into themselves to live longer. I get it now. After seeing what potential death could be like, I saw it. I see why I should take care of myself. I see why I must sleep a full eight hours a day. I see all of it. It’s so important. After all, if you’re dead how can you do cool things, read cool things, watch cool things, make cool things, be a cool thing?

    From that, I decided I was going to start working out every day. Turn these 130 lbs of stick into something sizable. Something that could eat another illness and stand up to continue doing. And I think I’ve found the best workout buddy for me. Two water jugs.

    Yup. Two gallon water jugs (for non Americans, 3.785 KG water jugs). These things are awesome, they are highly adjustable because it’s water meaning I can change the weight by just walking to my sink. They are easy to store and conspicuous to have anywhere since it’s literally just a plastic water jug. And they also are great for when you’re done working out because you got water right there to drink.

    I’ve been working on a lot of very focused lifts with these water jugs and am seeing some pretty good gains. Obviously my diet of protein, protein, and more protein is very helpful but I think the water jug tech is quite incredible. Maybe try it out if you can’t get a home gym setup. It’s cheap and effective. And if it doesn’t work? It’s just water.

  • Complete Art

    I finished it up. Chapter tomorrow.

  • Past Self Release Soon

    The short story for this month will have the first chapter release this weekend along with the scheduled chapter for Fool In Space. 🙂 that’s it. I’m a little busy D: