Frost fractals on a velux

chatGPT, GPT3 and Reading Time

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Time for a new discussion to take place. Reading time. Do you read through articles or do you skim them. Is reading the headline enough or do you read every word of the article? I ask because in the age of chatGPT and GPT3 I would ask the same question as I asked about social media.

If you want to discuss ROI for businesses and PR firms or advertisers then you need to discuss ROI for users too. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter wanted to control the timeline by using a “home” feed. The Home feed is an algorithm driven feed that shows you popular content, rather than content by friends, that you and they would converse about. The result is a lonely social media experience. The ROI goes down, That’s why I took a break from Twitter to play with Mastodon and revive my blogging habit.

Now we’re coming to the new discussion, about chatGPT. From the tests I have run with chatGPT it is a glorified encyclopaedia rather than AI. It spits out predetermined answers, rather than showing signs of learning and logic. I played with Copperman years ago, and other projects. With those, the more you chatted with the app, the more intelligent it would become. With chatGPT it always gives standard responses. It’s boring. It has no humanity. It has no character.

Writing is a creative process. You sit there, knowing that you want to create content but you need to spend time thinking of ideas, and then you need to write to the word count that you, or others has set. That process injects humanity into what you write. It also means that someone has taken the time to develop an idea, and maybe even proofread it.

By making it easy to generate content for WordPress and other platforms chatGPT, GPT-3 and other technologies are making it harder to find content worth reading. One of the biggest challenges when looking for content., reviews and information about products is the spam. the boiler plate content that people generate for a Casio watch, or other products.

Content should be written by humans for humans. The more noise we generate by fake AI, the more difficult it will be to find human content, by humans, for humans. That fake AI will also create formulaic answers to specific questions, rather than original content.

I love technology when it replaces the need for humans to do boring and repetitive tasks that can be automated, but something creative, such as writing we should keep humans. One tech mag recently allowed AI to write articles and those articles then had to be proofread and corrected by human editors.

ChatGPT is Hype

Recently I was reading a book about AI and deep learning and it wrote about how there is a cyclical habit of people to say “this is a great step forward in AI” only for interest to flare up, and then die down again as the miracle solution is understood and interest wanes again. chatGPT might seem exciting to some, but to me this looks like a human language search engine, rather than proper AI. Give it random words and it doesn’t do anything. I asked chatGPT “how fast does a squirrel run and it crashed, twice. It isn’t intelligent.

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Traxx.fm app

Byrichard

Traxx.fm is a music station I’ve been familiar with for over a year but only recently downloaded and used as an iPhone app. It was developed by a friend in Geneva.

The fitness centre where I go uses traxx.fm for background music. The advantage of this online live streaming option is that you have 20 themes and the playlists are compiled from a number of sources. As a result there is a wealth of music to be discovered without the drawback of over-exuberant presenters. There are also no commercials. If you pay for the HD version you are helping to fund them.

The reason I like the app is that it offers what last.fm used to offer to its users before being bought by AOL, continuous music you could start listening to and enjoy for the next three hours or more.

Replaceable Batteries and Wearable Tech

Replaceable Batteries and Wearable Tech

Byrichard

With a user like me it takes a year or two for a mobile phone to become depleted. After this period of time I am stuck with the weight of an external battery that I have to plug in half way through the day to recharge the device. This is, in part, due to how many apps are installed and running, on my phone, but also due to how I use my phone for audio books, and news reading. Back in the day I would have said social media, but social media is dead.


Wearable Tech Can’t Charge While Worn


With wearable tech the situation is different. With wearable tech when the battery degrades you’re stuck. With a Casio watch, or plenty of other brands, you simply go to a jeweler or watch shop and get them to swap the battery and you’re good for another 2-10 years. With an Apple watch, when the battery is at 67 percent health you’re stuck with a dilemma.


To Upgrade?


Do I spend 90 CHF to get the battery replaced despite knowing that my device is five years old and near the software update end of life or do I buy a new device and if I get a new device do I get it with, or without 4g?


With a mobile phone, if the battery degrades you can plug it in, as you walk around and use it. With wearable tech you have to take it off to charge it. If you’re in the middle of a walk and the battery dies you’re stuck. Either you carry the charger and leave some of the activity untracked, or you wait until you get to your destination and charge it then.


The Old Urge to Get the Latest


A few years ago whenever a new iphone, or a new mac book air or mac book pro would come out I would fight the urge to upgrade on a yearly basis, and when I did people were always happy to get my old iPhones. Since the 4S that urge vanished because new products were iterative, rather than revolutionary. Even the Ultra is iterative, offering nothing that proper fitness watches or dive computers did not offer. My only reason for thinking about upgrading the Apple watch is a dying battery.


An Adapted Charging Habit


The other option is to charge the watch before you sleep, to track sleep, and to charge it as you work, eat, or do something static, so that the battery is at one hundred percent for when you’re doing something sporty. When you know that a battery has degraded after five years of daily use you adapt to the new battery capacity. In my case I’m working with 67 percent of normal capacity.


The Paradox


The paradox is that I love to hate the Apple Watch. I hate that it tracks standing, and counts a day as failed if you don’t stand enough, despite beating the activity goal. I dislike that if I track something with one device or two it will get confused and count my activity as zero, when it was up to the goal, at the very least.


Health Screen


What I do like, and criticise is the Apple Health screen. I like that I can see my walking instability, my step length, the number of floors I run up and more. I like that I can see how my average running speed is changing over time and that my vo2max is going up. Plenty of watches track this.


Since the 20th of September the Health app added MET measurements to measure physical activity.


The main difference between MET and PAI is that MET is a measure of the intensity of an activity, while PAI is a measure of the overall physical activity level. MET is useful for comparing the intensity of different activities, while PAI is more useful for tracking your overall progress over time.

Bard Explanation of MET and PAI Differences


And Finally


I have spent months thinking about whether to upgrade to a newer Apple watch and I have tried various lower cost option and I like each, but I really like how complete the health data set is with the Apple watch. They also added the cycling computer option when using an iphone and an Apple Watch. It’s still buggy as shell but it has potential.


I am not upgrading because I want the latest tech. I am upgrading because to replace the battery would cost 90 CHF for a device that will be obsolete within a few months. According to research I did an apple watch is considered end of life after four years and this watch is at five years and counting, so over a year beyond the usual life expectancy.

Flying a Toy Plane 22 Miles
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Flying a Toy Plane 22 Miles

Byrichard

James May is interesting. People like me know him from Top Gear and Grand Tour with Clarkson and Hammond but his side projects are interesting. Instead of farming like Clarkson, or driving cars with his daughter Clarkson plays with grown up toys. When I say toys I don’t mean adult cars, planes and more. I mean actual toys. In the video below James May sets himself the project of building a model plane that can fly 22 miles.

The video shows footage of him as a child playing with a model plane, and then as an adult playing with a slightly bigger model plane, then a prototype and then the finished project. In the episode I watched he built and played with a model plane but in others he tries to build other things and succeeds.

What I like about Naked Science, produced by Pioneer TV, is that they produce proper documentaries, rather than breathless crap like so many others do. This is television production quality content, rather than youtube content. I recently noticed that youtube content creactors use the same sound effects, the same music, the same editing, the same chaotic jumble, that makes their content tiring to watch.

In contrast when you watch James May play with model airplanes you get a well produced, well edited, well paced documentary that is interesting to watch. This is a fifty three minute video where you don’t stare at your phone, or get distracted. You watch it from the start to the end without being distracted, or fatigued.

There was a time when I would watch every documentary in the morning, and then do something else on satellite TV. I don’t do this anymore. Too many programs are designed to distract people from adverts so they’re constantly repeating themselves.

I loved watching Mythbusters but that was the decline of Discovery Channel Documentary making.

What makes James May’s Naked Science shows stand out is that they are watchable by a “dinosaur” like me. When a documentary is well paced, and edited to be watched without commercial breaks it becomes engaging. YouTubers should strive to make content that is equal to television rather than scrape the barrel of throwaway culture.

And Finally

The premise of my post is simple. We live under the illusion that content has to be sensationalist to be worth watching, and we live under the illusion that youtube content needs to be sensationalist to stand out but that notion is wrong. Television quality content should be edited and produced to be shared on YouTube. In this day and age the notion that something has to be two minutes is wrong. The notion that something has to be in “YouTube style” to be noticed on YouTube is wrong. In my eyes we should produce long form content that is well produuced, for YouTube and social media.

YouTube is big enough for content that appeals to my generation and others to be produced and thrived. Algorithms should take this onboard. I want YouTube’s algorithms to provide me with content that is relevant to my age group and interests. I want more content recommendations such as the video above.

Ninety Five Days of Blogging In A Row

Ninety Five Days of Blogging In A Row

Byrichard

I have managed to neutralise the inner censors. I have accomplished ninety five days of blogging in a row, once again. During the first 100+ days of the pandemic I did the same. At the time I thought that this would provide a document of how life was for the pandemic. The pandemic has lasted over 540 days and I eventually lost inspiration, and inspiration for new things to write.


This is a longer challenge than NaNoWriMo because it lasts for 95 days so far, and it has no end day. I don’t need to write three thousand words a day. I don’t even need to write three hundred words a day. I write this arbitrary number of words each day because I read that it’s better for SEO. The truth is that I don’t get any visits for most posts.


Consistent Writing


The point of blogging every day is to train oneself to sit in front of a blank text box and write. Some days the words will flow, and other days they will fall over each other and dam up the river of inspiration. This doesn’t matter. Writing doesn’t need to be good. It needs to be consistant.


My goal, and my hope, is to get myself into the habit of sitting down at a notes app, text document or other, and be able to write something interesting, without worrying. I want ideas to flow. I can edit later.


Amazon’s Mediocre Internationalisation Efforts


By changing from Amazon.de to Amazon.fr I have a new selection of books. I grew tired of using amazon.de because it is so hard to search through for English books. By using Amazon.fr I have found that there are numerous books about hiking in France, and Europe. This is great, because I spend a lot of time reading about hiking, for hikes that I would not do. Those that are in Europe are just a train journey away, and that’s good. It means it is realistic to try them. Especially the short ones.


We are going into the cold, dark months. The days of long nights, and short days, of fog and clouds. Now is a good time to retreat indoors and read and find inspiration for next summer. The probability that the pandemic is over by then is low, but we can always pretend to be optimistic. I will blog about the books, either individually, or as a group, when I get through one or more.


And finally


It finally feels like Autumn, at least for today. The rivers are still empty so we still need a lot of rain. At least for one day Switzerland felt like it had seasons.

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Three percent of people in Europe use maps on their mobile phone

Byrichard

According to the report, the majority of users — 73% in the United States and 57% in Europe — accessed mobile maps via the handset’s browser. Less than a third of customers in these markets used a downloaded application.

Source

In a town like Lausanne it would make sense to use google maps paired with the phone’s gps because there’s municipal wifi you don’t need to agree to for use. As a result it’d be much faster simply to load the appplication.

With time and as dat costs go down the trend of using Nokia’s in built maps will evolve…

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Digitalshadowcaster (TM)

Byrichard

As the rate of creation of content increases so does the challenge of following what was done by whom and that’s where digitalshadowcaster (TM). The idea is interesting to content producers. 

Thus, the life cycle of an object may “Cast” a “Digital Shadow” (DS) that captures real time key information events and actions.  A given DS allows for the ordered delivery of proprietary services managed over a predictable and transparent network of Object Based Representations in Object to Object (O2O) relationships derived form Actions and Events performed on the objects by agents with specified Roles.

In plain English they’re going to make it so that a central server keeps track of the changes you apply to media files are tracked and easier to deal with. It would track events, rights managment, object search, stats, billing and more.

The flow was described as Create, adapt, product, distribute. In other words this technology would be part of every step of the process and here’s an example of it’s implementation.

If you’re a content producer and you’re making a documentary your budget isn’t high therefore it would make sense that you want well established people to help you. As a result of a personality liking what you are up to they may give you access to some footage or music.

For this project it’s cheap but as your reputation grows so the managment of those rights and the relationship can change, both in billing and in terms of restrictions. It makes the use of media more flexible.

With more content appearing so the tracking issues become more complicated, hence the need for a new system of tracking to keep everything in order.

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