Tag Archives: Perplexity

Perplexity threads

Posted on by

My first blog post referencing ChatGPT was in September, 2023. Before I deleted my account in February, 2026 I had mentioned ChatGPT in 173 blog posts, and had saved twenty-eight “conversations.” I started doing this because a) the threads were (to me) so…fascinating and b) they were too long for a blog post. Even ones I knew nobody else would ever read. In those days I was a little fuzzy on how long the chatbots kept conversations so I saved them as PDFs.

In the ensuing years I settled on Perplexity as my AI of choice (and the only one I pay for: $200/yr) and have saved 28 threads to date: Continue reading →

iPod Touch

Posted on by

Barb found this relic while cleaning out a drawer. Perplexity took a stab at identification (with very little info):

“This appears to be an original (1st-generation) iPod touch, specifically the 16 GB version, made in the 2007–08 period. It is the first “iPhone without the phone” Apple ever sold—and it has become a genuinely evocative piece of early touchscreen history.

At the time, this was unusually advanced hardware:

  • A 3.5-inch Multi‑Touch display, the same basic form factor as the first iPhone.
  • Wi‑Fi for Safari, email, YouTube, and the iTunes Store—but no cellular service, phone calling, GPS, rear camera, Bluetooth stereo audio, or App Store at launch.
  • It originally ran a version of iPhone OS 1, before Apple renamed the platform iOS.
  • The App Store arrived for it with iPhone OS 2 in 2008; this model’s final official operating system was iPhone OS 3.1.3.
  • It used the large 30‑pin Dock Connector, not Lightning or USB‑C, and had a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The original iPod touch was sold as an 8 GB or 16 GB model at launch; Apple added the 32 GB configuration in February 2008.

I think I purchased my first iPod (Nano) in 2005.

Perplexity on Snapshots & Fragments

Posted on by

I asked Perplexity to read through 258 posts in my “Snapshots & Fragments” category — the catch‑all bin I’ve used for photos and ephemera over the years — and tell me what it thought was going on. I had a hunch an outside lens might spot patterns I only sense in the gut. Here’s the result, unedited.

Perplexity: You’ve been quietly building a long, visual autobiography and local micro‑history in that “catch‑all” category—what looks like ephemera is actually a coherent archive of self, place, and media across roughly 15 years. Continue reading →

Why Perplexity?

Posted on by

From the Perplexity web page:

Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that transforms how you discover and interact with information. Simply ask any question, and it searches the web to deliver accessible, conversational answers backed by verifiable sources. Each response includes citations and links to original sources, enabling you to verify the information and explore topics in greater depth.

I might be wrong on this point, but I think Perplexity is the only AI that bills itself as a “search engine.” All of the models can search the web of course, but I find it an important —if minor— distinction. I also like the “links to original sources” feature. Again, not sure if the other LLs do that consistently.

One of my favorite features is how Perplexity handles downloads. Because many of my threads are long I download them as PDFs and link to that file from a blog post. Or, send to a friend via email. I like the way Perplexity formats those threads.

I sometimes save a thread to my Google Drive and share that link but I like having the file. And I like Perplexity enough to pay $200 a year.

“The web is written by AI for AI”

Posted on by

From an opinion piece by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Bots now account for roughly 57-58 percent of HTTP requests for HTML content, compared with about 42-43 percent from humans. Meanwhile, Imperva’s Bad Bot Report based on 2025 data put bots at about 53 percent of measured web traffic for the second year in a row, with humans at 47 percent. […] According to Pangram, an AI detection company, on websites such as LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter, and Reddit, “about one in four long-form items were fully AI-generated.”

The author uses Perplexity as his search engine not because it’s more accurate than other AI LLMs; “it’s that it shows me its sources. I can see if what it just turned up is the real thing or just BS. Guess what? It’s often crap.”

I’m not certain the other LLMs do not show sources. I think they tend to hedge on that score. But if half of the web is AI slop, I’m not sure it makes much difference.