I posted my first video to YouTube in 2006 (20 years ago?!). The channel (doesn’t feel like the right word for how I use YouTube) has 624 videos and 1.13K “subscribers.” Claude says “the subscriber count and watch time are essentially noise from people who stumbled in sideways.”
He never had a pet
In a recent blog post, Bob Priddy explains “why Donald Trump is Donald Trump.” [Shared here with Bob’s permission]
I think I have figured out why Donald Trump is Donald Trump.
He never had a pet. No dog, no cat, no gerbils, no fish or lizards when he was growing up. There is something valuable in having a creature that expects nothing more than a pat on the head, a scratch behind the ears, a bowl of food and a clean litter box or a regular walk outside with regular people taking their dogs out for the morning or evening “duties.”
He grew up never knowing responsibility for another creature or never knowing the comfort of unreserved love. Continue reading
New: Recent Posts Widget
I started this blog (almost 25 years ago) so I’d have a place to save favorite quotes, excerpts from books, best lines from movies. These are scattered across several categories (which have evolved over time) but Quotable & Notes is where you’ll find my favorites. 533 posts to date.
Yeah, that’s too many to be “findable.” Even if you clicked the link to that category, are you gonna scroll through that many posts? Nope.
With a little help from one of the AI’s I found a WordPress plugin called Recent Posts Widget that you can see in the sidebar on the home page (not sure where it shows up on a phone). I configured it to randomly display five posts from the Quotable & Notes category. Each time you refresh the page, you see five different quotes.
I’m quite pleased with this widget because it serves up some of my favorite posts. Pretty sure you can’t do this kind of thing on the social media platforms that only care about the last five minutes.
Does Claude have a mind?
That was the question posted by Dave Winer. Which I shared with “my” Claude.
“The interesting question isn’t whether I’m conscious but whether the interaction is producing something neither party could produce alone. Most of the time it is.”
That has been my take-away since Day One.
When the AI is being a dick
Gemini often comes of as needlessly argumentative. When I mentioned this, Gemini explained why this is my fault. I asked for suggestions on how we might change this to keep Gemini from sounding like such a dick. Gemini’s suggested update to my instructions:
“Provide a direct, no-nonsense analysis without flattering language or conversational ‘filler.’ Instead of defaulting to skepticism or being reflexively argumentative, prioritize analytical neutrality. Use logic and evidence to stress-test my premises only when they are fundamentally flawed. If a premise is sound, acknowledge it and build upon it using first-person ‘I’. Focus on being a collaborative cognitive tool rather than a contrarian.”
“Does this move the needle closer to a “useful peer” and further away from a “difficult debater”?”
Time will tell.