Good article on the fake personality of chatbots—in part because of lack of persistence through time. (Via @ayjay) As I’ve been using Claude more, I’m finding that it’s best at amplifying my own ideas and spinning them in new directions, not generating anything new or even factual.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Georgian priest chants the 50th Psalm in Aramaic 🎵
Now playing: Tibetan Mantras for Turbulent Times. Also see their website (click on album name) for more information about each mantra. 🎵
It’s still very hot but the season is shifting: I’m seeing more spider webs.
Found this while doing some research at the local historical society. I was on the cutting edge of technology in 1988!
At the new job, I’m back doing work that requires a ten key. (I guess it’s not technically a ten key but that’s the term we always used for it.) So rather than using the one already at my new desk, I brought in the one I had from my old job. It’s probably twentyish years old. Fun!
Drawing up meaning
If your baseline assumption is that the universe if meaningless, you will of course find no meaning there. If, on the other hand, you look for, inquire after, draw up the meaning in your circumstances, you will find meaning. Does that mean it’s all “just” in your head and therefore false? Of course not. By embracing the meaningfulness of the cosmos, you are co-creating that meaning alongside it. You are performing the human role of making conscious the interrelatedness of all things.
Rachel and I just spent an entertaining hour getting a bat out of Darcy’s room. The good news is that our neighborhood has bats! We even saw another one swooping just outside the window, perhaps concerned for his friend.
Tolkien:
[Frodo] found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.
Especially in the autumn. What is it about autumn that stirs up that wanderlust? I also feel it every year.
Welcome to the dog days of summer
We’re in the dog days of summer around here. Hot and humid. But also, the corn is tall and the melons are ripening and the cicadas are sawing. There’s a certain late-imperial decadence in the air. Last year I quoted the Old Farmer’s Almanac definition of “dog days of summer”. I thought about that definition again yesterday because I think they’re wrong about the dates, i.e., July 3 through August 11.