no YouTube March

 Last year I did a month of no YouTube. I'm strict only in the sense of my goals. YouTubers goals are retention, and doing every psychological trick in the book to keep it. Some intentionally, some as a result of optimizing to the YouTube algorithm. 

My goal was to cut that out. That means that if someone sent me a video, maybe I would watch it (though was incredibly rare). Watching an MIT lecture was ok because it's pure education and not retention focused.

Well this year felt rougher than last year, I think part of that was because I spent a lot more time last year watching twitch. While it may have some of the same behaviors it's way more muted, live content is less likely to have the extreme jump cuts, etc. while last years was good, this year part of my focus was trying to get better at exploring the internet. I did this via (yes another algorithm) hackernews, and some help with ChatGPT and Google searches. (With a sprinkle of hackaday, and rasperry pi magazine).

Ok so March is over. Did I jump back on YouTube and go crazy yesterday the 1st ...nope. I think I watched maybe 1 video or part of one but honestly last night had me thinking what if I can make it through April?

A few years back I had a goal of reading more (which has the added side benefit of not watching YouTube lol) I think my original goal was 50 books, then as I was approaching it  I thought..... Why not 75 with a stretch of 100. Well....long story (pun intended) short I surpassed 100. (Mix of audio and physical reading, though almost 0 or maybe 100% 0 digital).

So who knows, maybe in a year I'll be talking about how I'm not watching youtube still.

I think YouTube has a lot of great intent but like social media, I think I need it out of my life as much as possible  using it for purely educational content is my goal, and I've often wondered about building a YouTube "filtering" app that only includes real educational content that isn't designed for views. Who knows maybe ChatGPT will make that for me :).

LLM usage 3/22/2025-3/29/2025

I'm not sure what/how to talk about this, but LLMs really are just wild. This isn't an April fools post, I've been busy and just haven't had time to really think through what to talk about here. 

 

Lets get into it.  I use LLMs for a lot of stuff and it's been integrating into my family too, so I guess let's see.

1. While at dinner my kiddo asked if we could use ChatGPT for trivia on Dogman.

2. My son wanted some fraction division practice. He started asking ChatGPT for an app to do this. 

3. I have a friend who wanted to make a sticker based on a badge. Used LLMs to make a basic webpages to upload a image (badge) and it did some segmentation. (Not amazing but worked).

4. I had another friend ask how to host webapps these days. My first reaction was oh I use this (flask) and ChatGPT will make all the code for you. (There were more questions/opinions but that was the main thing).

5. I realized when someone asks me a question.....I think my first reaction from now on should/will be, ask ChatGPT (this is kinda like let me Google that for you) to check my assumptions. However I noted, we lose conversation when questions go to (Google or ChatGPT or whatever). Like we talked for a bit about what he was up to, and I wonder if we wouldnt have that convo if he went straight to  Google/ChatGPT. I went to ChatGPT and asked the question, it suggested various servers, including the one I suggested but it also gave me other names I might check out just to see what they are (so kinda a cool way to learn about tech you maybe haven't heard of before).

6. How to handle difficult situations. Strategies for how to handle yourself in them, it was a conversation I was able to have with someone on what to do.

7. Help upgrading jellyfin server.

8. Ideas on "jobs" for a kid that replace the classic paper route (I had a paper route growing up and wondered what today's 'paper route' is). Reselling was a big one in the list. Etsy was one item which I kinda liked. I might setup an acct and try to get something rolling for my kiddos to sell something on Etsy.

9. Update my QR code generator page (internal page) to give the option of text message qr code format. 

10. Tips on being an adult. I am often wondering how people approach household management, paperwork management etc.

11. Prepping for a sports tournament what things should I bring, how to prep etc.

12. I came across a photography technique I think called jitter photography and I wondered what/how many other cool techniques exist, so there was a long interaction where I was asking for more ideas, this was fun and I came across a few new techniques I would like to try.

13. Update my loan-optimizer.com page, the navigation was broken so I fixed that with ChatGPT.

Lotta different and interesting usages. I have found (personally), with at least the default ChatGPT I tend to go Google a topic if I'm having questions about a topic, so I get ideas of things to look up in chat then go look them up on the web. I don't like to stay 100% in the chat, but I do use it for idea/direction of research generation.

I of course like using it for help with any programming when it makes sense.