I’m experimenting a little with my personal blog. The TL;DR: is that:
If you’re curious about the why, and perhaps even the how, keep reading.
The word “ritual” has interesting overtones.
I know for many it has very specific religious meanings. For example, having grown up Catholic, I get that. I’ve lived it. Catholicism is full of rituals.
But I love when people expand their view on what it means, particularly in a more secular direction.
With ChatGPT’s new image generation capabilities, I decided to play. Specifically, I wanted to see how weill it would take this image:
from the Ask Leo! home page, and re-render it in different styles. (Click on any for larger, if you dare.)
AI is a simulation of intelligence. It’s right there in the name: artificial — not real — intelligence.
AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence is “a type of highly autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) intended to match or surpass human capabilities across most or all economically valuable cognitive work.”
A good way to think of it is that AI tends to be single task or limited in task focus, whereas AGI is, again by its very name, general purpose, where “general purpose” translates to “anything humans could choose to do”. I’m not sure I concur with Wikipedia’s inclusion of “economically valuable”, though.
But when questioning whether it’s actually intelligent, that pesky “A” is still there.
The real question should be: does it matter?
(This seems like something I’d more commonly post on Ask Leo!, but it feels a tad off-target for my audience there, so here it is in my personal blog. Enjoy. 
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As I first wrote this, the TikTok platform was no longer accessible in the United States. It’s since returned, at least temporarily. For how long we don’t know. 90 days? Longer? Permanently? Who knows?
TikTok allowed for the rise of what I’ll call the “accidental entrepreneur”. These are folks who began posting for fun, and then gained popularity to the point of generating enough revenue to be a small business. Several even quit their day jobs in favor of content creation on TikTok. It’s an awesome story.
Unfortunately, though, some of them are learning a hard lesson today. It’s a lesson every online business person needs to learn, and be periodically reminded of.
When I was approaching sixteen, it was still important, and even “cool,” to get your driver’s license as soon as possible. In my case, it was extra important, since we were about to move, and I’d need to drive to continue going to the same high school.
No pressure.
Looking back, I’m surprised by the approach I took. It’s an approach that has served me well throughout life.
It’s easy to believe that friendships, once established, will last forever, or at least a very long time. Particularly when we’re young, there’s little evidence to the contrary.
And then we grow up.
One thing I dislike about the phrase “OK, boomer”, besides its incredible condescension, is that it pretends all individuals of a certain generation are alike.
Trust me when I tell you we are not.
It was time to replace our well worn U.S. flag, but I was hesitant.
I’d planned on raising the new flag the day after the election, with the assumption that Harris would win. Needless to say that didn’t happen.
“Traditional media” is broken. It’s an echo chamber for singular perspectives that are driven by business and other interests. Examples abound, but the perhaps the most clear was Washington Post’s recent failure to endorse any presidential candidate. It’s a billionaire owner making a decision not because it’s good for the public or the press, but to protect his interests from a certain outcome. It appears to have paid off, perhaps at the cost of the country.
“Social media” is broken. Algorithms control what we see, and what we see is an attention bubble full of engagement bait. Most social media platforms exist only to show us more of what we’ll engage with, rather than what we actually ask for. Platforms that don’t are struggling because people end up finding their feeds, while exactly what they asked for, boring in comparison.
So, what’s the solution?
(Be sure to check out the work-in-progress snapshots at the end of this essay.)
I write a lot.
A lot.
I write in so many places, it may not look like it.
Everyone seems to assume there’s just one definition of “love”: theirs.
One person’s quest to love is another’s heinous act.
And no, this isn’t a sex thing.
It’s a religion thing.
Does love mean accepting people or saving their souls?
I rarely go a day without seeing a social media comment that “politician A just put politician B in their place!” or that “A scored massive points with their clapback to B!”.
“A clapback is a quick, sharp, and often witty response to criticism or disrespect. The term is often used to describe a comeback that is particularly effective or memorable.”
– via perplexity.ai
No. Just … no.
Cancel culture isn’t new; we’ve done it since humanity’s dawn. It’s critical to a functional society. The fact it seems special lately is due to a) a new name and b) faster and wider communication.
I’ve learned many things from my father, and I’m grateful for all of it.
Some I learned by example, some by counterexample, and some simply by listening to what I was being told.
It’s the latter that comes to mind today. All because of bears.
I ran across this comment via social media the other day.
You don’t have to approve of other people’s choices. You don’t have to like their hair color, their tattoos, or their piercings. You don’t need to agree with their style of dress or how tight their leggings are. You’re not required to agree with their non-traditional lifestyle or their relationship decisions. And you don’t need to like their religion, faith, or spiritual beliefs. What you DO need to do is respect that other people don’t have to live by your rules, because they’re no more important or relevant than anyone else’s. Acting like a decent human being and letting people live their lives should be an easy decision for everyone.
Here’s the problem: if you understand what “they” believe and why they believe it, you’ll quickly see it’s not an easy decision. Not at all.
My parents lived in The Netherlands during World War II. The country was occupied by the Germans for several years prior to the war’s end. My parents lived through that occupation, including the famine.
This was not just some “inconvenience”. My father told me stories of diving into ditches to avoid being captured and conscripted by a passing Nazi patrol. He and his brother did get captured once, but in a fit of “either way we’re probably dead” decision making, when they saw an opportunity to run, they did. They got lucky.
When I started 7 Takeaways, my intent was to force myself to read more, better content, by establishing a weekly public deadline where I’d publish something about the items I had come across.
Three and a half years later, I’d say it’s been working. I haven’t missed a week (though there have been a few Saturday cram sessions), and I’ve come across some interesting stuff.
And I have 600+ subscribers to whom I feel a responsibility.
What’s interesting, though, is that it hasn’t affected me in quite the way I expected.
