Currently reading: Blindsight by Peter Watts 📚
Starting to seriously consider replacing my old bike. I really like the look of these Tokyobike Bisou models. Going for a test ride tomorrow.
Have started to use some basic homebrew apps thanks to this fun and informative video from Snazzy Labs!
Stanislaw Lem, in 1971, with a wonderfully prescient description of LLMs in the story Non Serviam, from the book A Perfect Vacuum.
“It mimics the behavior of a man on the purely linguistic plane and nothing more. Nothing will amuse such a machine, or surprise it, or confuse it, or alarm it, or distress it, because it is psychologically and individually No One. It is a Voice giving utterance to matters, supplying answers to questions; it is a Logic capable of defeating the best chess player; it is—or, rather, it can become—a consummate imitator of everything, an actor, if you will, brought to the pinnacle of perfection, performing any programmed role—but an actor and an imitator that is, within, completely empty. One cannot count on its sympathy, or on its antipathy. It works toward no self-set goal; to a degree eternally beyond the conception of any man it “doesn’t care,” for as a person it simply does not exist. … It is a wondrously efficient combinatorial mechanism, nothing more.”
I gathered some of my shorter novels. They’re all under 120 pages. It’s good to have a selection of slim novels handy. When you’re tired or feeling indecisive it’s easier to pick up a shorter book than a longer one.
In the pile are two by Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, two from Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal and my current read: Cole Enough For Snow by Jessica Au.
