who is in control?

 I've noticed this thing going on, and maybe it's obvious to others, and has been obvious, but when money is flowing companies are essentially driving people to come work for them, they are more tolerant with behaviors and opinions of their staff, etc.

On the flip side, when money isn't flowing it's the opposite where before employees are almost 'in control' in this environment the company is in control.

What is interesting in particular to me is that it seems like the government can make this swing each direction, by making money easy, then money is flowing and the first scenario holds. When they turn down the faucet things tighten up, and the second scenario holds. 

What got me wondering is, suppose there was no faucet or big picture control, what would the environment look like, would it naturally balance where they have somewhat equal control (or replace power in the above statements too) would companies naturally be in control, employees?

random idea: meal tracking templates

 I struggle with using apps where I can't mine my own data, at some point I'll make a app that does this, but in the meantime I wanted to take notes in a smallish notebook. While laying in bed I got to thinking, I have a 3d printer, I could design a template that I lay over the page, draw out each of the meals/snacks boxes, and maybe a column for calories and a total box. This could be handy for just having a nice form to fill out but in paper form.

Ive been wanting to track what I eat for at least 2 reasons. 1. Sometimes I feel like crap, heartburn/etc. I want data to look back at. 2. I would like to lose some weight. I'm not huge but I think if I have limited space to write what I'm eating I might be more cognizant of what I end up eating.

I could also do one for health tracking. Of course I could maybe also design it so I just trace the words in the headings/rows, but just having defined spaces might be cool.

If I do this (good chance) I'll update this post with images.

Easter 2025 Traditions

 I just wanted to make sure I tracked what traditions we did for Easter this year.

1. Made some cute angelfood/golden oreo/peep cars on Saturday before.
2. Made flatbread the day before
3. Watched various Easter movies/tv shows.
4. Made Quiche for breakfast
5. Made Crescent rolls with various chocolates/marshmallows inside
• A big cadbury creme egg
• Small Cadbury Creme Egg
• A big marshmallow
• Dark Chocolate
• Plain
6. Orange Julius
7. Egg Hunt
8. More Movies.
9. What else? 

(Random note, tyson got Tunarr installed, and figured out how to create an xmltv file and hooked up our hdhomeruns, so we can watch live tv, I have some issues with them being off. I think I did a bunch of other random things, but that was the major things).

AI assistant

 Ok yea million posts like this of course. 

I came across this on hacker news: https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2025/04/12/how-i-made-a-useful-ai-assistant-with-one-sqlite-table-and-a-handful-of-cron-jobs

It reminds me a bit of a prototype I put together where I kinda made a Todo app that saved todos to a file and then could read it as part of its context, etc.

I've also wanted to build something along these lines where I describe what I'm eating and it tosses it in a database maybe with some tags, so I can ask about stuff and it can query. 

I also wanted to do this for tracking exercise...sure a strict webpage/app and UI would be fine. But sometimes just saying hey I weigh x now out loud with one button press .....feels like less friction. Also asking hey how have I been doing for the last month, low friction. 

Pretty cool, so cool I finally just created a discord bot so I could use it similar to the articles telegram bot.

Speeding things up

 I was recently working on a project, the code was running slow and we weren't real sure why. 

Here are some things to think about when trying to speed things up. You can use a profiling approach, and that can point where your slowdowns are. I did a bit of profiling but it wasn't helping, so I took another approach. 

 

The first thing we were doing was reading content from a file. To me figuring out a baseline helps us understand, with the exception of using a new language or library that can read faster, once we were able to read the file in a silo, no other processing this was our baseline. 

What I did was just write a simple Python script it read the file and threw away the output, I added some code to calculate how many lines per second we were reading roughly. It was fast.

However, overall, processing the file, which includes reading the file, doing some stuff, saving the results off, may have taken a considerable amount of time, but after baselining we realized we could at least get the lines wayyyyyyy faster than what our current code was doing. (We were using a different approach to read the file than what my baseline was, there were reasons for the alternative approach, but ultimately they weren't needed so this was a source of major speedup).

I may come back and give other tips but find a baseline so you know, if my code runs in hours, and I know that a particular step takes an hour, you know that whatever your final improvements shouldn't be faster than an hour (excluding any extreme optimizations, or language changes). 

This also helps you guide, if for some reason that step takes a lot more than an hour fixing that step to reach that hour will get you some good gains.

Have y'all ever heard of Ahmdalls law?

The short version (which I'm butchering) is if a particular step only is a small part of processing then optimizing that step won't get you as good as gains compared to a step that is a major part of processing. Figure out what are your major steps, baseline those, and work from there find ways to move your code towards the baselines version as much as you can and you should see improvements.

Algorithmic Complacency

 I watched this before my YouTube refrain 

https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA?si=c3_oBxiaxJKY9HCV

I highly recommend.

Not long after I had a coworker recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0226843084?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

The first talks about how much we let algorithms dictate our day to day. And so far the second (book) talks about how people are forced to live with policies and employees are forced to follow policies because that's just how it is.

It's an algorithm of another sort, hand written maybe, not tailored to an individual but still an algorithm and still determining what we can and should do.

I've been frustrated with YouTube for a while as I know that there are specific techniques in play trying to get me to watch longer and more mindlessly. I stopped going on things like Facebook because of that exact stuff. I'm looking for something and Craigslist has been not great this go around so I went to Facebook. Logged in and searched. After messaging a seller I think I may have ended up on the home screen and started to scroll, I got about 3-4 posts in and recognized this is it, it's so easy to scroll, so easy to see 'what your friends are up to'. Which def feels like a lie with all the non friend junk. But also somehow all your friends are content creators these days so now that's even more notifications. It's a mess. So I ban social media at my house. Yes I can get on if I get off wifi but there is an active step, I have to decide yes I want to visit this social media page. I have to decide I want to try my wifi off. 

Think more about what you're doing. Don't let algorithms or policies dictate your life if you can help it.

what about resetting

 With all the stuff going on lately it had me wondering, what would actually happen if you stripped a business, government, individual, to a very basic version and said 'go' again. 

If tomorrow I sold my house, gave every penny I have away and quit my job, where would I be in 20 years, would I be in the same spot? A totally different spot? No idea, but it definitely has me wonder. 

I can't just restart, I have all my knowledge, unless a brain injury occurs, I get to restart with much more knowledge. I was listening to podcast that talked about these business owners building a business, selling it, and then doing it again, almost speed running the process.

What would happen? Would I be a engineer, would I be a manager? Would I climb the ladder quickly earn as much as I can as quick as I can, would I be working a low paying dead end job.

I don't know, but I think people are often afraid of that great reset, what if the great reset is what you needed to take things to the next level? A whole different level? A reset means maybe losing everything and dying penniless or it could mean achieving your wildest dreams.

You get an update, you get an update, everyone gets an update

 Why do we live in a world where you can't use a piece of software until it updates. This is just silly.

I want to play Xbox ,update. (Also I just stopped playing after the first time nownit collects dust). 

I want to use my cricut, update. 

This needs to stop.

At a minimum updates should remain behind the scenes and happen without the user even knowing or needing to care (I feel like chrome used to do this, I don't use it much anymore but I thought it just....updated with out my knowing it was even happening.).

If a company is going for force updates to use the product do it without my having to wait to use the product. If they don't have to update, even better let me decide when I want to update...if ever.

Anyways super annoying

just say no part 1

 I won't go into a lot of detail here. But I'm going to give my opinion.

Just say no.

Kids watching YouTube unrestricted (kids mode or not)

Just say no.

TV in any bedroom

Just say no.

Online video games for kids

Just say no. 

Mobile games for kids.

Just say no.

Social media.

Just say no.

I probably have many more.

This is a start.

everything is the same over and over

 I have to laugh. I was reading the tightwad gazette 3. I don't know exactly when this book was written but I'm inclined to believe it's been 20-30 years at least probably longer.

In it I saw a quote,

" The idea that baby boomers have fewer opportunities and must struggle harder than previous generations is believed by millions of americans. Specifically they believe it's almost impossible to raise kids on a middle class income these days anymore "

So basically everyone thinks their parents had it easier. Generation after generation.

It's just wild.

I'm not claiming that folks don't have it harder, nor easier, but just that it seems like everyone has and will indefinitely complain about this.

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.

free speech isnt free

 This thought has popped into my head at random times, but in particular when I read an article like this one:

https://www.theverge.com/news/637228/madison-square-garden-james-dolan-facial-recognition-fan-ban

If you don't agree free speech isn't free, next time you see your boss go tell them off. 

Free speech isn't free from repercussions. I guess that means free speech is only free from government retribution and not from ....what's the right word....civil retribution?

I can only imagine the way you can have the idea of free speech truly freely is by being anonymous otherwise if someone connects it to you, there can be benefits and drawbacks.

apples

 A few months ago maybe, I thought, I should eat more apples, cause if an apple a day keeps the doctor away why not?

I discovered a curious side effect.... My heartburn problems subsided a lot. Like very noticably so.

I will admit I've been trying to eat healthier in general, this year in particular so that's also a factor, but even if I eat something and I start to notice heartburn, an apple later and I'm feeling great 

This may not work for everyone but it has been honestly life changing so if you get heartburn, I'd say....give it a try (unless you're allergic), what's the worst that happens, you eat a few extra delicious apples?

generative AI, and knowledge work

 I read an HN (comments) on the impacts of generative AI on critical thinking...https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43484224

I have thoughts up front....yes there is likely a loss of the inquisitive nature of some things. I think, I don't need to think too much about this until the AI fails then I'll figure it out. But then again, at some point maybe AI will stop failing, and then we have a utility. 

Just because a calculator can add numbers doesn't automatically remove our critical thinking in math, but as I'm writing this I do think....how much of math is doing things that calculators are doing or using critical thinking to either solve proofs/etc or design computing systems to solve proofs, or conjectures or whatever. 

So what does that mean for generative AI? 

I also sometimes think about things like this as forms of abstractions. Like because we can write in python it changes the critical thinking we can and do, do, because we don't need to worry or care about which assembly operation we need to perform to move some data to memory or whatever, we just say, python do, and it does. Does that make us think less critically? Maybe? But also maybe not? Maybe it gives us other things to think critically about. 

I do plan to read (or listen) to the PDF referenced by the HN link, maybe I'll have different opinions after that.

always ready presenting

 I'm the last like 3 weeks I have been asked to present by 3 different people. (2 of the request made today lol)

This got me thinking..it's probably a good idea to have a ready made presentation I can use at a moments notice.

The problem is that it's always nice to talk about different topics or different things about a particular topic (not rehashing) so another thought is just always be taking notes in almost a PowerPoint form, so that when asked you're like 50-75% there, you have the content, make it look pretty and good to go.....

I've done a little of this, I just need to continue to be good at staying on top of having presentations always ready.

Do you have this problem? How are you prepared? Do you just say no? (Which I also have a tough time doing ;))

10 unusual uses of Large Language Models

It's high time I mention large language models here.

I'm sure you're aware, or have heard of them, however large language models are a transformer based approach of using Machine Learning, trained on large large corpuses of text, (think all of reddit, or all of youtube captions,etc). Which now are able to answer a considerable number of questions.  (Including coding/etc).

Ignoring all the ethical concerns (which of course there are lots, and we can talk about them later).

Here's where things get fun. I wanted to talk about unusual (to me) cases of LLM's I've used. So here goes!

1. I have asked LLM's to build me a playlist of songs that are popular for various times. (And subsequently asked it to write code to search my library for songs, which it failed to find well, I may try again with a local LLM and pass the song names in as groups, and see if that does better).

2. Upload a picture of my shirt, ask it to give me ideas how to tweak it with cricut iron-on's to make it unique, but also fit the theme.

3. Plan out stops or recommend places to visit for a trip. (Basically a trip advisor)

4. I used ChatGPT to figure out what airports to fly out of for various universities. (As part of my Conferenceships Chair Role for acsac.org)

5. Make lots of little apps. Ever googled QR code generator? How about extracting audio from a video? Yep pretty easy with ChatGPT to create a basic server and front end.

6. Rewrite Christmas songs to be silly?

7. Double Check doctor diagnosis/supplemental questions for doctors visit!

8. Aid in making a commercial detection algo using ffmpeg

9. Copy/Pasted a schedule into ChatGPT and asked for a ics (calendar) file....and surprise it worked great!

10. Asked it to plan out my lawn care activities for the year, and make a calendar file to load to my phone so I know when to do what!

 

What else do you use it for?

 

Mr beast??

I came across this a while back (maybe also from hacker news) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YaG9xpu-WQKBPUi8yQ4HaDYQLUSa7Y3J/view

 It's an interesting read and makes me wonder how much of what he claims about video retention applies to written communication. Specifically proposals. My goal is to try some of the techniques, and see if my proposals are viewed as better or not :).

 I'm also interested in taking a Mr. beast approach to proposals to read and see what makes a proposal successful and worth funding.

Another interesting comment in the doc says something along the lines, if you don't keep learning new things you will run out of things to draw from. So always be discovering/consuming new things. 

Anywho I think it's a worthwhile read that almost leaves you out of breath by the end with how aggressive things feel. I think it's a mindset you can approach to many fields not just youtube creation for Mr. beast. Being out of breath is Not necessarily in a bad way, but just is.

acting

 

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

 

I used to wait tables at Pizza Hut (yes they had dine in, and yes they had waiters/waitresses, crazy right?) and I often thought about how I felt like there were parallels with what I did to acting. The goal being to take my customers out of the every day, and create a space where they don't have to worry or think about anything but enjoying themselves at the meal. You ask how they are doing, perhaps you truly deeply cared what they said....but if you didn't, you acted like you did.

 

 

Now I do work in tech, and many times I feel like I don't fit in, people think I know things that I don't, that I'm an expert in some things that I'm not. There is of course the phrase fake it till you make it, which gives me similar vibes to the above. Sometimes you have someone that really is truly and deeply an expert in things, but often, we are just people who have had some experiences in a topic and that's all people need. Sometimes you just have to get outside your own brain and just act like you know what the heck you're doing....and do it.

I've done this a lot in the past, and it's worked out well, lately it's been feeling like, why are people coming to me, I'm not an expert.....but I guess maybe I am in some ways that I just can't and won't acknowledge. Time to step out of that mindset and own what I am and do and am capable of.

sometimes doing random things is ok

 

I went on a trip recently and I was of course making last minute updates to my DMS driving app.

By default I have 2 modes, normal daytime mode which is just a boring bootstrap table of black text, with alternating white and gray cell colors per row....very boring.

 Then I have a night mode it is entirely black background with a darkish green text, ....for night time...

I've been thinking for a while how can I make this work better on cell phones. I have a few problems if I have too many columns, then the text has to be tiny to see anything and we'll....if you're driving, trying to glance at something tiny in the car is not ideal. I asked ChatGPT to help me out.....it's far from done, but it's progress. I asked for it to make me a page that changes the font randomly (I don't even know what the default font is but who cares let's try other things), changes the background of the page to a random color and changes the font to a random color.... I didn't review the code too much because if it didn't work I haven't default modes, and its a display page so it's not modifying the underlying database or code, so low risk, potentially......some amount of reward.

Here is an example of the randomly generated page. (Oh I also had it add a save option so if I really liked it I can continue using it, the save option kinda works but that's a story for another day).

 

I know I know, the colors are appalling, but if I'm being honest, it's legible, somewhat, so I don't mind, plus I can just hit refresh page and it'll give me a new color scheme.

I'm planning on running with this, and fiddling with my display, I have 2 columns that are the most important, and other columns that would be 'nice'. I also have more content that I'd like to have, maybe some kind of what food is nearby that automatically pops up either within 10 miles of a place, or maybe if the time is of arrival of a city is within 11-1pm so we can easily see what's in the area. Maybe using LLMs as a semi family preference filter for kinds of food.

I'm just gonna say it, sometimes doing random things is a good thing, it inspires new ideas and things maybe you hadn't thought of before. Try to put a little more intentional randomness in your life.

(Funny side note, for a bit I would be working on multiple projects with roughly equivalent priority, so I would just take out a 50 cent piece, which is of course more fun than a quarter, dime, nickel, or penny, and flip it, heads I work on problem X tails I work on problem Y. Was a fun way to have a bit more randomness, and also reduced my decision making requirements).

Have a great day!

(I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging more again)