The Fediverse – and why I feel like Cassandra

Been meaning to make this whine-post for some time.

Yes, I was excited with all the discussion last year of the fediverse, the rise of Mastadon (even tho it’s been around for while), the general growing realization of the enshittification of social media.

A new kind of social internet is currently forming. Right now it might still look like ‘Twitter and Reddit, only different,’ but that’s only the very beginning of what’s to come. Hopefully.

Source: Here’s why the fediverse is the future of social networks, and the web – The Verge

But I’ve been banging this drum for a while:

If those dates seem bunched up, it’s because around that time I was actually trying to build something (roughly 2006-2007) along the lines of taking control of the data streams of your life and others [My greatest story, never much told: Nokia Cloud]

And I’m not the only one who was thinking of these things. There were folks who contributed to the early days of the social, feedable, permalinkable, likable, tunable web back then who also were trying to federate things – knowing full well what would happen if big companies controlled things in silos.

Guess who won out?

Now all of us from back then feel like Cassandras, warning of a future no one believed but gladly accepted like so many frogs in warm water.

Sigh.

 

Image courtesy of DALL-E, who described the image as: “The image created captures the transition from a centralized and controlled social media landscape to a diverse and decentralized fediverse, reflecting the themes of angst and hope discussed in the article.”

Another time shift game – and my own take on it (story time!)

This article (quoted below) reminded me of another similar iPhone game back in the day. I think it was some sort of space game. But same concept, each time you die, you come back and your previous lives repeat what you did. The idea is to use the repeats to do a task in concert.

Cool concept. And now there is another one, reviewed by the Verge.

You’re given an arena filled with enemies that you must defeat within a certain amount of time and a certain amount of chances. Once that time is up, you are teleported back to the beginning of the fight and forced to do it over again, this time with your “remnant” assisting you, killing the same enemies you killed in the previous loop.

Source: Fight monsters with the help of your past lives in Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior – The Verge

This recent article reminded me also how that other game had inspired me to write a short story within my NaNoWriMo novel back in 2012.

Check out the story here: Time and again

Enjoy.

Time and again (a short story)

I woke just as soldiers entered the cabin and shot us where we lay. They left, and as the life seeped out of me the warship rammed us, the bow cleaving my boat with a resounding crunch that threw us across the cabin, water rushing in.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I rushed on deck with two large explosives and threw them overboard. The dolphins would know what to do. I saw them snatch the explosives and disappear underwater. It was then, too late, to see that a dinghy approached. Shots were fired and two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder. I could do nothing as the soldiers came aboard and split up. One looked at me as I heard the shots ring out below. Then, he finished me off with a shot to the head.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I scrambled on deck and saw the warship and dinghy approaching. I quickly hid. Then I saw me run on deck and throw the explosives overboard. The dolphins would know what to do. I watched me watch them snatch the explosives and disappear underwater. I then saw me look at the approaching dinghy. Shots were fired and I saw two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder.

Then, I jumped up when the soldiers boarded. I knocked a few off the deck with a wrench. But one managed to stab me in the gut and I fell. I could do nothing as the remaining soldiers came aboard and split up. One looked at me as I heard the shots ring out below and on deck. Then, he finished me off with a shot to the head.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I watched myself wake up and quietly get out of bed, so as not to wake her. I watched as I watched her, she had her back to us, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and we could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I and I scrambled on deck and saw the warship and dinghy approaching. I and I quickly hid. Then I watched me see me run on deck and throw the explosives overboard. The dolphins would know what to do. I watched me watch me watch them snatch the explosives and disappear underwater. I then saw me look at the approaching dinghy. Shots were fired and I saw two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder.

Then, I and I jumped up when the soldiers boarded. We knocked most of them off the deck with wrenches. But two managed to stab us in the gut and we fell. We could do nothing as the remaining soldiers came aboard and split up. One looked at me as I heard the shots ring out below and on deck. Then he finished me off with a shot to the head and then he finished me off with a shot to the head.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I scrambled on deck and saw the warship and dinghy approaching. I saw that two of me were already hidden, waiting for the soldiers. I stated hauling on the main sail line. Then I watched me see me run on deck and throw the explosives overboard. The dolphins would know what to do. I watched me watch me watch them snatch the explosives and disappear underwater. I then saw me look at the approaching dinghy. Shots were fired. A round hit me in the chest, and I also saw two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder. I slowly crumpled to the deck.

Then, I watched me and me jump up when the soldiers boarded. I saw us knock most of them off the deck with wrenches. But two managed to stab us in the gut and we fell. We could do nothing as the remaining soldiers came aboard and split up. I watched as one looked at me as I heard the shots ring out below and on deck. Then I watched him finished me off with a shot to the head and then finish me off with a shot to the head and then walk over to finish me off with a shot to the head.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I watched myself wake up and quietly get out of bed, so as not to wake her. I watched me watch me watch her. She had her back to us, as we put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and we could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I and I scrambled on deck and saw the warship and dinghy approaching. I saw myself see that two of me were already hidden, waiting for the soldiers. I saw myself start to haul on the main sail line, and then I started hauling as well. Then I watched me see me run on deck and throw the explosives overboard. The dolphins would know what to do. I watched me watch me watch me watch them snatch the explosives and disappear underwater. I then watched me see me look at the approaching dinghy. Shots were fired. I saw a round hit me in the chest, and I also saw two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder. I saw me slowly crumple to the deck, as I ran to grab the helm to catch some wind.

Then, I watched me and me jump up when the soldiers boarded. I saw us knock most of them off the deck with wrenches. But two managed to stab us in the gut and we fell. We could do nothing as the remaining soldiers came aboard and split up. I hollered at them and startling them for a moment, then swung the boat so that the boom would hit them.

Two ducked, but three were knocked over, though not enough because the boom was not loose enough. The two who ducked stood up and shot me down.

As best I could, I watched as one looked at me as I heard the shots ring out below and on deck. Then I watched him finish me off with a shot to the head and then finish me off with a shot to the head and then walk over to finish me off with a shot to the head and then walk over and finish me off with a shot to the head.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I scrambled on deck and saw the warship and dinghy approaching. Shots were fired. I saw a round hit me in the chest, and I also saw two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder. I saw me slowly crumple to the deck, and saw me run to grab the helm to catch some wind.

Then, I watched me and me jump up when the soldiers boarded. I quickly grabbed the line the held the boom as I saw us knock most of the soldiers off the deck with wrenches. But two managed to stab us in the gut and we fell. We could do nothing as the remaining soldiers came aboard and split up. I then heard me holler at them, startling them for a moment, then I let go of the boom line as I swung the boat so that the boom would hit them.

Two ducked, but, with a horrible crack, the other three were knocked down. I watched as the two who ducked stood up and shot me down, then turned on me and shot me.

As best I could, I watched as one looked at me as I heard the shots ring out below and on deck. Then he finished me off with a shot to the head.

–x–

I woke up and got out of bed, quietly, so as not to wake her. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I watched myself wake up and quietly got out of bed, so as not to wake her. I watched me watch me watch her. She had her back to us, as we put on my overalls. She was so beautiful and we could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair.

I and I scrambled on deck and saw the warship and dinghy approaching. Shots were fired. I saw a round hit me in the chest, and I also saw two rounds hit me, burning through my arm and shoulder. I saw me slowly crumple to the deck, and saw me run to grab the helm to catch some wind.

Then, I watched me and me jump up when the soldiers boarded. I knew what I had to do and didn’t wait to watch me quickly grab the line the held the boom and watch us knock most of the soldiers off the deck with wrenches.

I scrambled up on top of the main cabin.

I knew that two managed to stab us in the gut and we fell. We were actually getting somewhere with the remaining soldiers who came aboard and split up. I held on as the boat pitched one way then the other. I then heard me holler at them, startling them for a moment, then let go of the boom line as I swung the boat so that the boom would hit them.

Two ducked, but, with a horrible crack, the other three were knocked down. I grabbed my rifle and watched as the two who ducked stood up and shot me down, then turned on me and shot me at the boom line.

As best I could, with two quick cracks of my rifle, I finished off one then the other with a shot to the head.
I looked up in time to see the warship explode and rapidly sink, the wake of its momentum and the explosion pushing my boat out of the way.

Exhausted, I went back below. She was so beautiful and I could not get enough of looking at her curves, her shoulder, her hair. I watched her. She had her back to me, as I removed my overalls. I got in bed, quietly, so as not to wake her, and fell asleep.

 

written in 2012 as part of a NaNoWriMo novel I wrote
image: courtesy DALL-E

OMG, what’s with stocks apps on mobile phones?

My memories of the days when mobiles were starting to become a thing and everyone was snapping up some sort of PalmPilot or PDA, one prominent app that was offered on those PDAs and early phones (and RIM pager?) was stock price look-up app.

Back then, buying and trading stocks by normal plebes was getting to be a thing. Or at least, back in those heady days of the rise of Bay Area bros making millions off of IPOs and folks on TV and the internet flogging stocks, folks promoted stock trading as a thing.

But was stock tracking and trading so prevalent that _every_ mobile device needed an app? And back then, the apps were prominently promoted. [Tho, my memory of when they started showing up might be hazy, as I can’t seem to find any screenshots of such apps from those days. I sure feel that the prevalence of stock price apps bothered me all these years.]

<shakes head>

The iPhone still comes with a stocks price tracking app (see it also in the iPhone launch photo above). And now I read that they were even considering an investing feature.

Apple came close to creating an investing feature for the iPhone that would’ve let users buy and sell stocks directly on the device

from: Apple reportedly stopped short of bringing a stock trading feature to iPhone (The Verge)

In any case, is my grumpiness around this just because I don’t follow stock prices? Do you use the app regularly? Am I just the anomaly?

[and then I see this hand-made ESP32 powered a stock tracker 🙄]

Make. Smaller. Cars.

I think part of the reason Ford is having issues is that their EVs are or are going to be gigantic.

Ford’s been riding the trend of bigger and bigger trucks and SUVs such that they’ve built themselves out of sedans and smaller trucks that are probably better suited for EVs.

Indeed, I think the trend of the past few years of larger SUVs and trucks actually has given folks the wrong expectation of what cars should be as we enter the EV-era.

The car company says it isn’t backing off its next-gen EVs, but it is pausing some big factory projects, including a plant in Kentucky.

Source: Ford hits the brakes on $12 billion in EV spending because EVs are too expensive – The Verge

 

UPDATE: After I wrote this, other reasons to make trucks smaller: Truck bloat is killing us, new crash data reveals

Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? – The Verge

Just wanted to say: this is a really good article.

The article is a great snapshot of where we are in SEO, with insights from the start many decades a go. Great quotes from interesting characters, too.

As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful anymore, what happens to the cottage industry of search engine optimization experts who struck content oil and smeared it all over the web? Well, they find a new way to get rich and keep the party going.

Source: Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? – The Verge

What do you think of Humane’s AI-powered wearable?

It’s a gadget designed for interacting with large language models, not apps, and for talking instead of typing. But it’s not yet entirely clear what you’re supposed to use it for.

Source: Humane officially launches the AI Pin, its OpenAI-powered wearable – The Verge

I’m not so worried that this is a new kind of device, trying new forms of interaction and design. And kudos for being gutsy to use LLM so early in the evolution of the tools.

But already folks are pointing out LLM errors in the demo. And I’d like to point out in the launch video, Bethany, Humane’s woman co-founder, never speaks with the device [my experience with Siri and Amazon Echo showed that women have a heard time being understood by voice input tools, let alone those in the over-55 bracket]. And do we really want some device blaring out results in public, results that might be quite personal, instead of being respectfully silent and replying thru a headset?

Again, I welcome new devices that try new things and attempt to change our expectations of what our tools should do and how we should interact with them.

And I totally agree that we’ll really only see how useful this is after it’s out in the wild and being used.

But, will it go the way of smartwatches (well-received for many reasons) or the way of smartglasses (well-received in particular use cases, but by no means a consumer device)?

What do you think?

 

Ha, right after I wrote this I found this article (via Hackaday): The Humane AI Pin is a bizarre cross between Google Glass and a pager

Lots of good points, some echoing and elaborating on the same things I mention. Go read it.

Frak you, ChatGPT – good writing is still good writing

Humans are really good at coming up with better ways to create things. And humans are also very good at pointing to anything new as the end of the world as they know it. And those folks are not far off their prediction, but not how they think.

Writing will make you styoopid
Did you know that Socrates was against writing? Writing wasn’t a newish thing in his day. Nonetheless, he didn’t think it was an effective way of communicating. And he worried that folks would become forgetful.

But writing has been central to humanity’s growth and dissemination of knowledge and in the sharing and enjoyment of stories. Can you imagine a world without writing? You would have to meet up with me for me to tell you what I’m writing here.

Derivative drivel
I’ve been following how folks have been reacting to generative AI for making images, text, music, and audio. The worried ones are concerned about copyright, plagiarism, thinking effort (familiar, eh, Socrates?), and such.

Yet, if you think of the process of writing, there’s extensive reading (indeed, the best writers are voracious readers), there’s the exercise of learning styles from existing sources, there are editors and proofreaders to help the best writers be better. And we know that plagiarism and ghost writing happens.

So what’s the fear with ChatGPT? The system is trained on a broad range of material – just like anyone who reads everything. The system synthesizes all of that into an output – just like anyone who writes. 

Indeed, the article quoted below from the NYT is one of the few very well-balanced explorations of the impact of generative AI, in this case, on college admission essays.

A.I. chatbots could facilitate plagiarism on college applications or democratize student access to writing help. Or maybe both.

Source: Ban or Embrace? Colleges Wrestle With A.I.-Generated Admissions Essays. – The New York Times

Good writing is always good writing
One thing that no one seems to point out in all the articles I have read: no matter WHO writes the text, krap writing is still krap writing.

In a previous post where I used ChatGPT for programming, I mentioned that ChatGPT is a krappy programmer, but was helpful to accelerate my programming tasks. In the end, I had to know how to program for ChatGPT to help me.

The same is for any writing: you need to be a good writer to turn the ChatGPT text into good text.

_____ will democratize ____
When blogs came out, folks said that anyone could become a journalist, everyone would be writing online and there would be an explosion of text online.

But in the end, the best blogs were written by writers and journalists.

When podcasts were reborn, folks said everyone would be able to create audio channels of all sorts. But the podcast that brought podcasts from the dead, Serial, was produced by a long-time radio crew. And all the best podcasts are made by professional audio teams.

Good writing and radio is made by folks who know how to create, do the effort, and produce good writing and radio. Generative AI will not displace them.

As one of the students mentioned in the NYT article says:

But she found the responses too broad and impersonal, even after she gave it details about her extracurricular activities like teaching dance classes to younger students.

“I feel a little more pressure to create, like, this super unique, interesting topic,” Ms. Vakharia said, “because a basic one these days could just be generated by ChatGPT.”

In short, she knows she still needs to put in the work to write a good essay.

Good writing will always be good writing.

 

Image from janeb13

Mosaic of things that draw life from light: finishing a project

Back in May, I mentioned a project that I was working on, inspired from a line in a book, leading me to hack solar deck lights.

I just want to say that I finally put it all together. I made two candlelight-like motions-sensing solar-charged pieces, and one pice that also had LEDs for blinking like firelflies.

An aside: Fireflies?
A few years back, I made a gizmo that would turn on at dusk and blink a firefly pattern. Alas, it was only a single LED, and a very crumple circuit.

For this latest project, I also wanted to do LEDs flashing, but chose to do six lights, randomly flashing, all to the same firefly pattern.

I will admit that I used ChatGPT to help me figure out the blink patterns and then program it. Alas, I first asked ChatGPT to program in CircuitPython, so I could use my Raspberry Pi PICO. But something wasn’t right and I think I fried two of them. SO I chose to them just do it with an Arduino Nano clone. ChatGPT was kind enough to convert the code (tho, don’t tell it that it did a mediocre job and I had to clean up the code).

In the end, the third part of the project was a candle-light motion-sensing solar-charged piece that also blinked for fireflies.

The other light-driven part
Now that I had the three solar-power parts, I filled up a flowerpot and spread wildflowers around (see image, right).

And waited. Until the flowers grew.

Now I have a pretty flowerpot with flowers that draw life from light and three candle-light electronics that draw life from light (see upper left image for dusk and day views).

Now to send a note to Becky.

Going with the reflow: building my own oven for Level One Manufacturing

A while back I read an interesting article that placed hobbyists making things (Level 1 – 1-100 units) on the same axis as big manufactures (Level 3 – 5000+ units) [as an aside, the writer now has a robust 7+ person company making tools for Level 2 manufacturing].

I’m definitely in the Level 1 side of things. I often make just one of something.

But in the world of electronics, often you end up with multiple boards for really cheap or you want to make a few dozen of one board for your own use. Assembling things and soldering components is a pain at that scale, especially if you want to use the more compact surface mounted components, and especially if those surface mount components are really teeny.

Easy Bake
I find being able to use free tools to design a circuit board, easily print the boards, and then use cheap components to build your own circuitboard as a kind of superpower. The range of creations out there that anyone can design and build is wonderful. (can I interest you in #badgelife?)

What a lot of folks do when they have a bunch of boards is either use a hot gun to solder a boardful of components, or do as the pros do: use an oven.

There are hacks and such of folks manually reflowing the solder, following a solder reflow profile of different temperatures. But the ease of tools-beget-tools means there are controllers one can use to automate the oven process.

Unexpected purchase
In the process of moving house, my mother had a toaster oven that no one needed, so I claimed it specifically to make a reflow oven. [🤔Hm, I wonder if I would have ever started along this path to making an oven if I didn’t have this free toaster].

I then picked up a controller from a great guy, who, by the way, went thru the three layers of manufacturing in the past seven or so years – he’s now a Level 3. Indeed, the origin of his reflow oven controller was from his time as a Level 1, before he bought a proper oven as he stepped up to Level 2.

I ripped out the guts of the toaster, rewired it to be directed by the controller, and ran a test run.

Alas, seemed like my oven (in green) couldn’t keep to the desired temp profile (in pink).

I did some reading. Saw a lot about oven volume and element strength, insulation.

So I figured I need to insulate the oven big time and get things in order.

Interesting but a non-experiment
I wrapped the insides in a insulating blanket, plugged up some holes, added some reflectors. And then, excited, ran the test run again.

WTF. No better than uninsulated. Then I see that the controller maker never insulated his oven. And thinking of it, the time frame is so short, probably doesn’t make a difference (which of course the data supports).

Then I wondered if my two elements just couldn’t hit the temps, even though they should.

A test run at really hight temps showed that the elements and oven are more than able to reach the temps in time, albeit, not matching the desired curve.

Then, in what are those, ‘fuck, why did it only occur to me now after all the work I put in?’ moments, I realized I could tweak the controller to hit the needed reflow temps by just raising the desired temps in the controller profile.

Worked. Now, even though (left below) the pink measured temp don’t match the green desired temps, I am hitting the right temps for my reflow.

Indeed, I was able to match the required temp curve for my solder paste reflow profile (right below).

Keep calm and make something
Of course, all this was leading up to a board I wanted to make.

As this was the first board I made in a reflow oven, I learned a lot in the process: This was my first proper project to use solder paste, meaning getting a stencil and making a jig to hold things. The components were the smallest I’ve ever used. The board was double-sided, so needed a tricky two rounds of reflow. The chips had closely spaced pins, so needed to clean that up – rework. And I had some thru-hole parts that had to be added, that were easy peasy.

And, yes, the product worked as designed. And that’s why I made it myself as there was no one selling something similar. Fortunately for me, someone had designed this one and graciously made the design available.

What’s next?
Funny thing is, when I bought the controller a while back, I had a lot of ideas on things I wanted to make. But now, my head is elsewhere and the oven has not been used since the run of a few copies of the board above.

Hm, could also be that the price of just having someone else assemble the boards is falling fast, and, well, after buying all the oven and components and boards and all, and putting in the time needed, this board might have been cheaper just having it assembled for me. This also means perhaps I now have a higher hurdle to make it worthwhile to use the oven.

Let’s see.

From China with Love
As with most purchases of boards and components from China, when you want only one, you end up getting more than 10 of everything (soo inexpensive!). Therefore, I still have a handful of extra unassembled boards. I might just complete all those and sell them (at cost, most likely, as they were not designed by me).

And for the boards I had in mind way back when, I think I will have to balance the cost of me assembling them verses someone else in China doing it.

Looking back and ahead
Two things are constant in the maker world.

One is, why buy it when you can make it for more?

Two is, often it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. In the process of doing, you learn, you share, you discover new things that open new doors.

I did spend a pretty penny on building that reflow oven and making one copy of that board. And who knows if I will ever make that money back in savings making my own boards, in these days of cheap assembly. Nonetheless, I do feel the whole journey was fascinating, granted me a whole level of abilities, and opened up a range of new things I can do.

Let’s see where that path of this journey takes me next.