Use Your Words

(Yes, that’s a reference to True Detective.)

AI, or more properly LLMs, is the technology that will eat its own tail.  
First of all, I have no issue with large language model tools like ChatGPT.  Like any other digital tool, they are neither inherently good nor bad.  Fire can cook my food or burn my house down, depending on how I use it.  Second of all, these tools are far from actually intelligent, no matter how miraculous they seem.  They are not thinking in any sense of the imagination.  They are merely extrapolating more quickly than we can comprehend using an enormously complicated rule set that, at this point, I don’t think anyone fully understands.  All of this is only possible due to relatively recent advancements in computation speed, calculating at speeds that even computer professionals find hard to grasp.  For me, the truly interesting development is the natural language processing of the user queries.   In my mind, that ability to take casual, everyday language and produce any kind of usable output is incredible.  Of course, just like search engines, knowing what you’re talking about and being able to formulate a good query goes a long way toward getting good outputs.  Or, as someone once put it, being able to formulate a good question is halfway to solving your problem.

Here’s the thing though; with so many people using LLMs to generate content, eventually, many fear that the only “inputs” or training data that will be available will be older output from those same LLMs!  The biggest complaint about AI or LLM-generated content is that it’s generic and all starts to sound the same.  If that’s true now, imagine what it will be like in just ten or fifteen years as original training data becomes harder and harder to come by for the developers.  And, maybe I’m being generous based on how quickly we’ve seen things like ChatGPT and Claude.ai take off.  Just two or three years ago, almost no one had heard of these tools, or they didn’t even exist in a form available to the public.  I know I was one of the early adopters among my peer group when I used ChatGPT to summarize and rewrite some of my notes into a short report at work.  Though, it’s possible that I should be worried about how dry my writing had become, considering that no one noticed it was generated text and not strictly my own work.  

I recently read two books, both of which had significant things to say about these tools: More Than Words and Against Platforms.  More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI is written by John Warner, who is a writing teacher.  Naturally, his argument is a little biased, but not entirely without merit.  Essentially, he tells us that writing is more than just generating content.  Many of us write to learn, not just about better communication, but also about the subject of our writing.  I cannot disagree with his assertion that being a competent communicator is a better-than-fair goal and, like it or not, words, in particular written words, are the tools we use to communicate.  It follows then that practicing writing and practicing clear thinking via our writing to enhance our communication is not only a laudable goal, but one that can easily atrophy through the overuse of LLM-based tools.  If we’re doing more than just generating content for other robots to ingest without ever concerning ourselves about a human audience, then what we’re doing can hardly be considered “writing” in his definition.
Against Platfoms: Surviving Digital Utopia by Mike Pepi takes a slightly different tack.  He argues much like I do that LLMs, which he prefers not to refer to as “AI” for the same reasons I dislike it, namely that they are far from intelligent, are just tools which vary in quality based on the choices made by their designers and programmers and produce results that likewise vary in quality based on the user of those tools.  It’s no different than the results I get using a hammer, and they differ from the results that a master carpenter gets using the same hammer.  He does, however, warn us against trying to solve social or political problems with technology.  Naturally, his arguments extend far beyond the LLMs, but I agree that using LLMs as a surrogate for things like actual human interaction is unlikely to produce positive results.  Loneliness is not cured through better programming.

So, what does it all mean?  Honestly, I don’t know.  I do know that I will continue to use tools like ChatGPT for certain aspects of my writing and research.  I will use it to brainstorm as long as I find it useful.  And, I will definitely use it to write code faster than if I were piecing it together myself from individual searches.  I still plan to do the most creative writing myself because my real intelligence still does it better than the artificial intelligence can, and I enjoy it.  Perhaps, one day, I’ll be one of the few remaining real people on the internet.

I’ve done what I call “climbing the fitness ladder” at least five times already.

I’ve had a challenging relationship with my health and fitness over the years.  I work in a job that leads me to be more or less sedentary.  I spend most of my day in front of a computer writing reports, running scripts, sending email, and not moving nearly enough.  I’ve gotten into “shape” at least three times, and tried to get back into shape at least two more times in between.  Something always seems to happen that causes me to slip back into inactivity, sloth, and weight gain.

The first time I really got into good shape was after college.  Like most college students, I gained weight while studying, drinking, and thinking about my future career.  I hated my body and myself.  So, I started to do something about it.  In school, I took a “self-defense” class, which was really just a semester of Shorin Ryu karate.  The main punishment for making mistakes was pushups.  I could barely do any at all.  So, that’s where I started; ten perfect pushups.  Just ten.  At twenty-one, I was able to quickly climb the ladder to fifty pushups.  Then I added shadow boxing with weights and hitting a heavy bag.  Then more pushups and situps.  I got into pretty good shape.  I did that at least three times a week for several years.  Then, I changed my routine to nothing but push-ups and sit-ups in the morning, followed by more at night, along with dumbbells and pull-ups.  I didn’t do heavy weights, but lots of repetitions and sets.  I was lean, and I could bang out ten pullups at a time without too much struggle.

Then, I moved to Texas to be with my now ex-wife.  There was no room in her little apartment with her and her daughter for me to continue working out regularly.  Again, the weight started to pack on.  To be fair, that wasn’t aided by the fact that she was a good Southern cook and fed me very well.  We bought a house and moved out to the Houston suburbs, but I still didn’t get back to working out.  Then, I lost my job and had more time and anxious energy than I knew how to handle, so I started again, with ten pushups.  Again, as I was a relatively young man, I was able to quickly climb that fitness ladder again.  Then, I got another job, and before I’d gotten far, I slipped off my routine and started to pack on weight again.  This time, my ex-wife more or less hoped to kill me through cholesterol, weight, and high blood pressure by feeding me a steady diet of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  I’m not going to lie and say I hated it, but it was killing me.  And, yes, she really did say to the man she was cheating on me with, that’s what she was trying to do.  I read the email.  

I didn’t waste time after she moved out, though, I just got back on that ladder.  The first exercise?  I bet you’ve guessed it already: ten pushups.  By the time our divorce was final and I was showing off for the next woman I dated, I was doing fifty knuckle pushups again, not to mention all the situps and sets with the dumbbells.  I wasn’t in the same shape I was when I was in my early twenties, but I was doing pretty well.  Naturally, that relationship didn’t last, and not long after, as I mentioned last week, I was diagnosed with the “Emperor of all Maladies”: cancer.  To be specific, diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

It’s hard to do pushups with a PICC line in your arm.  It was inserted above my elbow, ran through the biggest vein they could find, and dangled over my heart.  The idea was to pump as much poison into me as I could take, hoping to kill the tumor faster than they killed the rest of me.  I know that’s a pretty bloody-minded way of describing chemotherapy, but let’s get real here; that’s what it actually is.  Obviously, since I’m here typing this, I survived my year of slow dancing with the grim reaper, but I was left in a somewhat reduced state.  Can you guess what I did next?  Yep, I started doing pushups again.  

Eventually, I worked my way up that fitness ladder again, and I managed to blind my new wife to all my other faults with an unreasonably fit physique for someone my age.  Not long after we were married, I remember a guy working with me who was surprised to find out my age because I was in such good shape.  But, as complacency set in, and boredom at the repetitive nature of exercise, combined with job changes, job stress, COVID, the death of my father, and a few other issues, the weight started to accumulate again.  And, worse yet, I got soft.  And older.  At 56, calories stick to me like iron filings to a magnet.  Just a furtive glance at a piece of cheesecake puts pounds on me, but once they’re on, they seem impossible to remove again.  

This time around, I have some chronic injuries to deal with, too.  I’ve developed arthritis in my knees far too early, and a fall broke my left elbow and shoulder, resulting in rotator cuff tendonitis.  So, I’ve seen an orthopedic specialist who’s given me physical therapy exercises to do.  As I get stronger from those, I’ll add in my favorite starting point to restoring fitness: ten pushups.  I plan to keep on with the physical therapy exercises to keep my weakened joints stronger, but I do plan to add more movement back into my regular routine.  I’ve done work with resistance bands, which I’ll start again, and I plan to start tai chi this year, somehow, someway.  My main goal is to keep moving, slowly, for as long as I can.  If my family history is any evidence, I have a lot of years left to live.

So, if you’re trying to get healthier for the first time or again after a rough time, start small and work your way up.  
Even if it’s just ten pushups.

No, not my wedding anniversary.

On this day, eighteen years ago, I went to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center to meet with an oncologist for what I thought was going to be a discussion of my treatment plan.  The day ended with me checking into the hospital because the doctors were afraid that I was going to drown in my own effluvia before the night was over.  I had been diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which was apparently contained entirely in a single, large tumor on my right lung.  By the time I had gotten the biopsy to confirm all that, the tumor was so large that I couldn't breathe well and couldn't lie flat.  Though to be fair, it may have been due to the fluid that had built up in my chest as my body tried to protect itself from the tumor, which I named "Cletus".  
Obviously, I did survive that night, and the year of intense chemotherapy that followed.  I lost hair, weight, muscle, and color.  I was a pale, emaciated version of myself that I despised looking at in the mirror.  But, before the end of that first visit, I had already determined that I was going to do whatever the doctors told me I needed to do not to die.  I followed their instructions for the most part, and they held up their end of the bargain; I didn't die.  

It's shocking to think that it's been eighteen years since that happened.  Eighteen years of life I've stolen back from the Grim Reaper.  Do yourselves a favor, dear readers, go enjoy life while you still have it.  

At one point not very long ago, geologically speaking, I wrote in a blog of some kind virtually every day. That changed for a number of reasons, including too many of my coworkers getting far too interested in what I was writing. But, also, at the time, I was aggressively single, and wrote about the comic adventures of dating after divorce while nearly middle-aged. And, of course, I wrote about my phantasmagoric year of exploring the inner workings of the health insurance industrial complex as experienced by a cancer patient. Definitely an adventure, but not one I’d advise anyone taking, regardless of how much weight I lost and how quickly it left. In the end, I found it off-putting how many people wanted to comment to my face about whatever frivolous thing I’d posted, not to mention the startlingly wide array of women who seemed to think I had become so lonely that my criteria for a date had slipped to nil.

The thing is, after a surprisingly short amount of time of not writing, I feel like the habit left me to some degree. I lost the momentum of sitting in front of a keyboard on a daily basis and just grinding out words. Now, I wasn’t telling stories so much as I was reporting lived experience and sharing light opinions about vagaries of modern life, but the simple fact that I could sit down and write without hesitation about any number of topics was proof that my so-called writer’s block was a myth. Lately, I’ve seen evidence presented in a number of ways that reinforce this idea. What I feel isn’t really the legendary writer’s block so much as it was fear and laziness. Fear that whatever spewed from my mashing the keys would be so horrible that no one would want to read it, or worse, would laugh out loud at me and point as I walked by. Laziness in the form that to best avoid the disgusting results I feared, it was better not to have begun at all.

Of course, all of that is rubbish. A lie my reptilian hind-brain tells me to avoid making an effort or making a change or inching out of my comfort zone to any small degree. Sadly, dear reader, I know only one way to destroy that particular set of self-imposed handicaps: write and share it. Or, as the kids used to say, the only way out is through. So, let’s see if blogging really is dead or if that’s another myth told by bloggers who have convinced themselves they have writer’s block. So, to conquer my so-called writer’s block, I’m going to write every day. It may not be much and it may not all get posted, but I will write something every day for the rest of the year.

And yet, we are so often constrained by it and use it as a measure of accomplishment. Take this post, for instance. I had intended to write it and share it on the first day of the new year. But, sadly, demands on my time carrying over from the previous year meant that I didn’t quite get to it until now.

It's been several years and at least one pandemic since I've blogged regularly. There's no guarantee I will again, but I find myself with the urge to write. Besides this blog, I find myself wanting to scratch that old itch; writing fiction. Specifically, science fiction. I've gotten a couple of ideas for a space opera setting, similar to the universe developed by Mark Miller in the Traveller role-playing game, but with a little more light-hearted action. However, after a couple of false starts at world-building for a setting that might hold these stories, I decided that the best thing to do would be to start by making that setting the object of the creative writing. Again, not my first attempt at that, but in the closing days of 2022, things aligned so that I had several tools for WordPress that would make this experimental project significantly easier. Namely, I wrote two plugins specifically meant to help science fiction writers.

The first plugin is the Space Opera Template plugin. Essentially, all it does is add templates to an active WordPress installation containing code for random generators. I've had the basic PHP code for the actual random generators for a number of years, but adding that to a WordPress site has always been a bit of a challenge because when a site's theme changes, so do the templates. That means that any time someone restyled their WordPress, they'd have to copy my templates from one spot to another, or the pages with those random generators would break. The new plugin makes those templates available regardless of the theme. I probably need to do some things to refine the styling of those pages so they pick up the theme style, but that update will be for a time when I get writer's block.

The second plugin is the Future Date plugin, which, as you might have guessed, allows one to override the built-in WordPress time and date functions to use another "futuristic" date. I used an old plugin, wp-stardate, as the basis for mine. (By that, I mean I stole a LOT of code from that excellent plugin!) So, yes, one of the future date options is to use the "classic" stardate from Star Trek. Then, I added functions for the Terran Computational Calendar, which seemed fairly science-fictional in its thinking, as well as the ordinal date and the Empire of Man dating format used in Warhammer 40K. But, not satisfied with that, I added the function to force dates into the future using a modifier of the user's choice and a trailing text identifier, so one could make the format either "Stardate xxxxxx.xx" or "xxxxxx.xx Stardate", or whatever the user desires for those identifiers. Or even none at all! So, now, you can blog in the future of your choice!

But this all really started last year when I decided to evaluate my portfolio of domain names. I've had quite a few over the years, and some, like HavePalmWillTravel, have outlived their usefulness. I got HavePalmWillTravel when I used a PalmPilot, complete with a folding keyboard and camera and Cisco console cable, as part of my "road warrior" existence. Now, 90% of those functions are handled by my smartphone, and I probably could find a USB-C to Cisco cable if I really wanted to do that. Thankfully, it's not something I usually need for my job these days. So, as sorry as I was to see some of those old domains go, a lot of them had become recurring costs for projects that were either over or never got off the ground. While I was doing that, though, on a whim, I checked for some others and found that EncyclopediaGalacticaFoundation.com was available, so I bought it. And, yes, those plugins and some other styling have been happening on that site as part of the aforementioned creative writing and world-building project.

Now, I just have to write it.

So, that's what I have planned for the new year, along with continuing to work long hours at my day job to pay for all the other things I do.

So, I guess I've gotten popular somewhere because I see someone banging on my WordPress security.  They keep getting locked out though because they're assuming that the default username is "admin", so they're never going to guess that password.  I do hope they give up sooner rather than later, though, because I'm getting tired of the 20-minute and 24-hour lockout emails telling me that they've been unsuccessful in trying to brute-force the password.

I suspect that the increased activity is from either Twitter, where someone was chattering about me, or from Reddit, where the person on Twitter got crossways with me about something they clearly didn't understand.  Either way, it is mildly interesting that this is going on as it has some implications about various kinds of social media and web traffic.  And, I suppose, for someone who is less security aware than I am, it could be more concerning.  I just backed everything up and went on about my day, though.  Nothing much here I'm overly concerned about.  Nothing important lives only here and I don't have anything valuable here, outside of passwords, which aren't shared with other sites or systems, and source code, which also lives other places and really isn't worth much anyway.

Update:  Oy! I wasn't suggesting you try a new username to crack!  That one isn't going to work either, dummy!

I’m feeling a little burned out this week.

When I scaled back my posting to these weekly link posts or reposts, I thought it would be easier than making original content. And, at first, it was. I just had to comment on whatever link I was resharing and set up how I saw it or what I thought of it. It was relatively easy. But, after a couple of years of that, it got a little boring for me. And, the general rule is, if it’s boring to write, then it’s even more boring to read. A bored writer does not inspire people to read their work.
The other thing is, I haven’t written a single sentence of fiction in more than five years. I don’t think I can really call myself a writer if that’s the case. Over the past year, I have filled pages of Morning Pages, which has definitely helped my writing and creativity in general, but it hasn’t gotten me a single word closer to writing fiction. I can probably come up with a lot of reasons for that, but, ultimately, they’re all excuses. Some time ago, I threatened to change the format of what I posted, which I did to some extent, but I quickly fell back into the old posting format. Now, here I am. I’m fairly burned out on all this blogging that I’ve been doing for years. I don’t know who comes to either of my active, or semi-active, blogs anymore, so I’m not even sure who I’m writing for at this point.

So, what does that all mean? Well, I’ll probably step away from the blog for a bit. Maybe a couple of weeks. Maybe a couple of months. And, in that time, I’ll try to break through whatever is going on that’s blocking me from writing fiction. I suspect that it’s just fear of looking stupid or like a bad writer after all this time. You know, the usual things that hold a person back.
Blogging has become more of a chore than a joy, which means it’s time to make some changes. I don’t know what those are exactly yet, but either way, I just need to do something different for a bit.

I'm no stranger to getting things done in spite of being depressed.

Look, even before the pandemic, life could get pretty hard sometimes. I mean, with brutal schedules and lack of staffing that's been frankly endemic to corporate IT, which is what I do for a living, anyone can get beaten down and get depressed. Add to that the endless list of economic factors that have added weight to everyone's state of mind and all the politics and social media and the usual family "stuff", and, well, it's surprising to me that we don't just put antidepressants in the water like fluoride. But, we don't. And, losing it at work is only going to make things like bills and health care, and family issues even harder. So, what to do? Well, there's a lot, actually, but a good place to start is the list of suggestions in this article on Monster about dealing with depression at work. They suggest, of course, talking to a professional and investigating if your company has an employee assistance program, which usually includes some kind of access to counseling services. And, if you're worried about being judged harshly by the boss, keep in mind that those services are all strictly confidential.
One thing that I've done, when I was going through my divorce, for instance, was to journal about what's bothering me. And, I tried to schedule the worst of the breakdowns for when I was home, alone, with the dog. It helped. Also, my ex-wife once told me that no one can see you cry in the shower. In retrospect, it's a little sad that she not only knew that but thought that I could use the information, but she's also right about it. The most important thing is, though, do your best, but don't do it alone. Get help before you can't do your job because that just makes all the other stuff that much worse.

So, as I wrote at the start of the month if you're struggling with depression or any other mental health issue, don't wait. Go get help. You can find some good resources at MentalHealth.gov - How To Get Mental Health Help And, most importantly, if you feel like you're going to hurt yourself or others, please, do reach out to someone.

Suicide & Mental Health Hotlines in The United States

Crisis Text Line
Text HOME to 741741

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
1-800-273-8255

SAMHSA Treatment Referral Helpline
1-877-726-4727

Trans Lifeline
1-877-565-8860 (for the transgender community)

TrevorLifeline
1-866-488-7386 (for LGBTQ youth)

Veterans Crisis Line
1-800-273-8255, Press 1

Mental health is serious, but we can still have fun with it.

So, I know I tend to be super serious about things like mental health and medication because it can be a huge deal in someone's life, especially if things aren't going well. But, that doesn't mean that we still can't have a little fun, too.
I thought I'd share this before, but I can't seem to find it anywhere on my blog, so I'm going to risk it and share an amusing game I first saw via my fellow geeks at Boing Boing called Antidepressants or Tolkien. It's a fun little quiz that throws a strange name at you and asks the simple question: is it an antidepressant or a name from Tolkien's work? I have to admit, I only got 15 of 24 questions right. It's more challenging than you might think! I mean, yes, some are obvious, but some really are NOT! Either way, it's a fun little game and has at least a tenuous connection to mental health, so I felt it was good to share. Who knows? It may even end up being accidentally educational!
Either way, have fun and come back next week for more!

If it's done well, there's an opportunity to help people.

Of course, Hollywood likes to exaggerate things a bit, but even when that's the case, there are opportunities for learning and increased awareness of mental illness and dealing with it. As I mentioned last week, this is Mental Health Awareness Month, so I'm trying to share topics related to mental health and psychology. I'm especially trying to share things that I think might be helpful to anyone who is either having mental health issues or may have a loved one with mental health issues. So, even though the examples in this video from GQ shared via BoingBoing of a psychiatrist rating mental health scenes in movies can be a bit extreme, knowing what they're trying to depict and how it might present in the real world can be helpful. Also, the doctor gives some advice about actually getting help for some of these disorders and what actual treatment may look like.
I think what was particularly helpful was that he reminded people that an actual diagnosis may take multiple visits over some significant time and that it's not really a "disorder" unless a person's life is being significantly impacted in a negative way. Take my own example of depression, for instance. It's only in retrospect, after getting on medication, that I realized how much it was affecting me, and I had what most people would think of as a mild case. I mean, I was basically functional, but I was having more and more difficultly doing regular, daily, work-related tasks that a few years ago, were no problem. Now, though, that I've been on the antidepressants for about six weeks, I'm doing much better. I never had the severe symptoms that are usually depicted in the movies or on TV, but it definitely was having a negative impact on my life. I'm glad I finally listened to my wife and got help.

Just remember, there IS help if you're having a problem with your mental health, whatever it is. Most importantly, it's okay to ask for help and take it when it's offered.