VoidSpace

2023-11-29: Recent Interests

As the year comes to a close, I want to reflect on how it's gone and what new things I've found myself interested in during that time.

I mean first thing's first, I moved out and live on my own now. That happened back in April, but somehow feels like it's been even longer.

Living on my own is really nice, it gave me the quiet I was looking for (I lived with 5 pets back at my old place, on top of my family), and it's my own private place in this world.

The rent is pretty bad though, when April comes around next year I'm gong to be either negotiating a few hundred off, or I move out (especially with housing market trends).

The biggest unexpected thing I became interested in this year would have to be cars. I've always been interested in mechanics and engineering, and I can't believe it's taken me this much time to finally become interested in a mechanical marvel we use nearly every day.

I'm hoping early next year to buy my friend's old Miata, and use it as my daily driver. It's been prepped for a turbo, and has a relatively new engine in it (around 50k miles on it).

I was really lucky with the timing for me being interested in cars, and for him selling it.

In this last month or so, I've gotten back into older media and simpler technology. This happened around this time last year too I think, and I'm not sure what compels me to do it.

I think it's an appreciation and longing for a time that wont exist again. With the flood of information from everywhere, it's hard to imagine what it was like before then. Part of that is definitely childhood nostalgia, as that's when I remember the world pre-smartphone (and pre /mass/ internet adoption).

I feel like I can best describe it like "there won't ever be another Wii craze." It's just not a thing that I feel like can happen again, where a large portion of the public outwardly gets on some kind of craze for more than a few weeks. With all the information out there, all the new content that's created, we've become consumers of information and toss out trends and ideas faster and faster.

That creation of big data does kind of tie into my worries about AI too. Mostly us doing rapid iteration on chat models and having open versions anyone can use. Like don't get me wrong, I'd rather everyone have access to chat models and AI tools instead of just a few large corps. BUT the issue is that this encourages rapid iteration without a proper board of ethics or safety. It also turned the tides for companies like OpenAI not longer being non-profit, because the cash opportunity became too large.

With rapid iteration, I don't know if we'll understand when we have AGI, or when it's just a good immitation. Or if there's even a difference in the end. If it looks like a duck, and acts like a duck, who's to say it's not one? It's NOT, but in practice that doesn't matter if it can emulate it very well (and continues to get better).

Or I'm just worried about something that I don't entirely understand.

Lighter note, I got a Milk V Duo. It's a very small (Raspi Pico/Arduino Nano sized) single board RISCV computer. It's been really fun learning it and writing things for the minimal linux install it's set up with.

I'm turning it into a document storage system, as it's very energy efficient and if paired with an eink display could create a very low power way to hold onto important information. In some kind of event where I need that.

Anyways, going into this new year I have a lot of work work that needs to get done. Hopefully it can be finished on time, and if it does that'll mean very good things for me and my team.

I hope everyone has a good December as it comes up and passes! Remember to take some time off of technology. Even if it's just going to the store without your phone.

Post comment