I run 5km 2-3 times per week as part of my cardio day at the gym. I have a routine of setting the pace at 6 minute kilometres initially and increasing every km. For example, the pace in minutes looks as follows over the whole 5km: 6, 5.5, 5, 4.5, 4. This takes 25 minutes. If I’m tired, I’ll run the first 2km at a 6min pace, then increase after that, for example: 6, 6, 5.5, 5, 4.5. This takes 27 minutes.| Consumption Exhaust
Like most programmers, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of programming. There’s a lot of chatter on the wild web that given LLMs can generate snippets, functions and even whole scripts based on prompts, and they’re often very good, that we’re headed to a world where human-written code may be less and less likely. We’re collaborating on code for now, but that won’t last. We will first alpha-go and then stockfish professional programmers out of existence.| Consumption Exhaust
After learning the basics of programming, we learn algorithms and data structures. I have very fond memories of implementing many algorithms and data structures in ANSI C and Java in the late 1990s. There was something very pleasurable in implementing well-known and well-defined computational concepts and then playing with them. Specifically, data structures like: arrays linked lists hash tables graphs stacks queues trees and on And algorithms like: binary search bubble sort quick sort heap s...| Consumption Exhaust
I posted to reddit, asking if other programmers learned the craft via copy work: Did you copy/transcribe code from books when learning to program? Lots of self-selecting confirmation bias + survivorship bias. E.g. those that survived (and are on reddit and comment on questions) used this method, those that didn’t, didn’t. I guess I really want to hear stories of people that don’t learn this way. The copy-and-pasters (code copypastas? the horror!). What is “copywork with code” called...| Consumption Exhaust
Over the last year, I rarely sit down and write code anymore. Instead, I have code generated and then iterate on it until we achieve the desired effect. I direct and collaborate. Similarly, to change existing code, I attach the file to a chat or paste the functions that require changes, summarize the change and iterate until it achieves the desired effect. My projects are almost always side projects. Whims. Ideas. Prototypes. Examples. Ad hoc’ery. Not production grade code.| Consumption Exhaust
Every movement has a counter or opposite movement. The opposite of vibe coding? Let’s call it: “Discipline Coding”. --- Tenets Self-Reliance over Delegation Belief: If you didn’t write it, you don’t truly understand it. Practice: Hand-roll core algorithms, avoid generated code, and limit dependencies. Deliberate over Emergent Belief: Good code isn’t discovered in a “vibe,” it’s designed with intention. Practice: Careful planning, diagrams, upfront modeling before writing a l...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have been thinking about what the push-back to vibe coding will look like. Rather than: “do everything for me, and do it right now” The sentiment might be something like: “do everything myself, and take my time” Along these lines, I was thinking a “code from scratch series”. A swing toward discipline, mastery, and minimalism. For example: I’m a serious programmer, not a vibe coder. I coded this massive thing from scratch in ansi c with no dependencies other than stdlib and her...| Consumption Exhaust
I read Jay Yang’s “You Can Just Do Things”. Good book, good stories, and good reminder. Importantly, I purchased a physical copy for my eldest. I’m hoping it inspires him. And, it is a good reminder to keep buying him books along these lines. Something will hit.| Consumption Exhaust
Thinking more about “Useful Not True”. It occurs to me that this idea is known by many different names across many different fields. I was thinking about instrumentalism and the placebo effect. But chatting with chatgpt shows many more (obvious in retrospect). Here are some: --- 🧠 Psychology & Cognitive Science Cognitive Reframing / Cognitive Restructuring Changing the way you interpret events so your emotional and behavioral responses are more helpful. (CBT uses this heavily.) Placebo...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Yesterday I read Derek Sivers’ “Useful No True”. Should there be a comma in that title? Anyway, good book. I think the thesis is something like: Actions over beliefs. Hack your beliefs to achieve desired actions. Gaslight oneself? This is not bad. We all do this anyway, just take the reigns. Via chatgpt5: The book argues that we should adopt beliefs, perspectives, and thoughts not because they are absolutely true, but because they are useful. Its central idea is reframing: deliberately ...| Consumption Exhaust
I read Florian Ernotte’s “Writing with LLM is not a shame. An essay about transparency on AI use.” Something like: The demands for AI disclosure often represent “empty vigilance” and conformity rather than genuine ethics, that ethical standards for such new technology are still being developed and shouldn’t be rigidly enforced yet and the AI disclosure is only relevant when content is good and valuable I was then reading HN comments on the post and read this:| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have been thinking a lot about Gian Segato’s post, see Probabilistic Era. The job of building software for people, i.e. software engineering is about taking an open problem, making it closed so we can build it and verify we have built it with tests (of various sorts). The problem is open because it is for humans or involves humans. We’re not building a bridge, we’re solving some vague business problem with semi-automation, or something.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I just read Gian Segato’s “Building AI Products In The Probabilistic Era”. Good read. Good take. But, it makes sense. He’s a data scientist and we (as a community) have had to think this way for 10-15 years when working with narrow probabilistic models. But, the scope has changed. Inputs and outputs are open-ended. His examples around replit are good, e.g. constraining the use case to code gen for websites would prevent other use cases like code gen for games.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
It would be nice to have a tiny store online that could just sit there for decades. Focus on one tiny and useful need and do it well, world class. Sell one or a few tiny products or services for that one thing. Not a full time thing, free content, self-serve product sales with on-demand support. I guess SuperFastPython fits the bill, but even it’s scope is too large. Ideally one thing. One algorithm, or one data structure, or one library/module.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was listening to an Acquired episode and the guest mentioned the role of computers (people) being replaced by electronic computers, and how programming/coding will/is seeing the same fate. Here’s the episode: How is AI Different Than Other Technology Waves? (With Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor) And here on YouTube where I got the transcript. Here’s the quote: I self-identify as a computer programmer. It’s like the thing I like to do the most. And I’m like, man, that’s sort of like say...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Among Ronald Fisher’s many contributions to statistics, genetics, and evolutionary theory at large was his “fundamental theorem of natural selection”: “The rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time.” See: Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection, Wikipedia. In plain language (with llm help): “The rate at which a population becomes better adapted (its average fitness increases) is directly proportiona...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Machine Learning Street Talk is a YouTube channel and podcast by Tim Scarfe and sometimes Keith Duggar. I’m a fan of the podcast, and have been for some time. Follow them on X here: Machine Learning Street Talk Recently, like this northern hemisphere summer, they have been releasing fantastic episodes. Both the quality of the guests and the quality of the questions/discussion. Riveting stuff. Specifically: The Secret Ingredient for AI Creativity A chat with Kenneth Stanley. Did a 7 Year Old...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’ve created a new Quake archive, this time for the Navy Seals modification by Minh Le aka “Gooseman”. This was originally an ad hoc archive as a gist here: Navy Seals Quake I decided to make it a standalone archive as I came across rare/hard-to-find versions of the mod that I believed required independent hosting. You can see the full archive here: Quake Navy Seals| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I listened to part 1 of the Acquired Podcast on the history of Google. Outstanding and nostalgic. I was a super early google user, thanks to a mention on slashdot on the late 90s. It got me thinking: what if… What if I travelled back to 2005 with my current knowledge, what would I do? What online business would I build? I was thinking about SEO and authority sites, based on the Acquired podcast episode on google.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
After a long holiday where you eat like a pig and exercise not at all, how do you get back on the path? You must cut calories and get the body/brain used to the new regimen as fast as possible, e.g. avoid backsliding. Firstly cut all junk food and processed foods. Next, cut carbs. Then cut calories to below maintenance. All while exercising daily, as close to normal as possible. Don’t feel like going to the gym? Who the hell does? Fine, walk 5km. Lift at home. Get that body moving. Strain t...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I created an archive of all official releases for Quake II (Quake2): Quake II Official Archive It complements my Quake Official Archive and Quake III Arena Official Archive. It seems that the Quake2 era circa (1998) was perfect for the wayback machine and almost all Quake2 files were archived. This Quake2 archive is the most complete of the three archives. The main files missing are a few solaris dedicated server releases, and these may or may not be “official”, more research is required.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I found and acquired a copy of the monograph: Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance, Patrick Wilson, 1977. From the first chapter: Scholars and scientists engage in attempts to make contributions to a public body of knowledge about the world. They do not work simply to increase their own private understanding of the world, nor simply to increase the understanding of their co-workers in a specialized branch of inquiry. Their work is incomplete until they have made their results public, available...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I read Samuel Arbesman’s “The Half-life of Facts” yesterday. Good book, great even. I’ll be reading more by Arbesman. One section got me thinking about LLMs, chapter 6 titled “Hidden Knowledge”. It is about how there are breakthroughs sitting in plain sight, in public hidden knowledge. For example, disparate facts spread across fields that need to be unified. “Hidden knowledge takes many forms. At its most basic level hidden knowledge can consist of pieces of information that ar...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have been thinking of coding up some more elaborate prompt scaffolding for writing projects. I guess I don’t need to. Today, I watched: I Got AI to Write a Book with One Click, and It Was… It’s a great video. It uses Make connected to models via OpenRouter. It’s you’re classic code-free workflow tool, but for prompting LLMs. It starts with a sequence for developing the story outline, then uses the outline to create 3 outlines of chapters in parallel.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I re-read Mark Manson’s “Subtle Art” yesterday. I enjoyed it more this time than the first time through back when it was released. I guess am more ready to hear it. A part that that really clicked with me was on struggle. It’s a piece I used to mention often, but I guess I’d forgotten recently. We all struggle. Struggle is growth, it’s life. But, we can pick our struggle.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I just finished “He’s Not Lazy” by Adam Price. Good book. Read more pre-emptively I guess. Preventative maintenance. Lots of things I need to remember, especially in the heat of things when thinking turns off. The most important being that any “fight” with a teenager is probably about power and you will lose because they will go further. They have less to lose. “However, there is one type of conflict you should learn to avoid: a power struggle. Without even knowing you, I can pred...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’ve been working on trying to acquire hardware for the “Old Desktop PCs for Learning” project for my eldest. We have a few bits and are hoping to get a few more. It’s harder than I thought. I guess the e-waste initiatives are working. In the old days, there were tons of old hardware out there in hard rubbish and in peoples garages. Anyway, once we get a good base stock of hardware we need workshop projects to work through.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My eldest is getting interested in PCs and building his own desktop system. Cool. I did that around his age and it was a lot of fun. A thing I did was I acquired many old systems from people (e.g. hard rubbish) and cobbled together my own little LAN of 286/386/486 systems running Linux. It forced learning in both hardware and OS/software and was a lot of fun. I was thinking we could do something similar.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
With two sons, three males in the house, exercise is a big deal. We all work out to different degrees. Fitness, strength, etc. is discussed often. I’m getting a set of dumbbells for the boys to use. I will use them too, to complement my gym stuff. Weights: 1.5kg (we have already), then 3kg, 5kg, 8kg, 10kg. They’ll stick with the lighter weights for now, with room to grow. I don’t want them to get hurt, so I asked grok3 to help me make some posters to stick up.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I built a simple custom GPT for Python code review. Mainly for my algorithm and data structure implementations for the thing described here. Here it is: Python Code Reviewer: Suggest improvements to your pasted Python code Here’s the logo I made for it:| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My kids often come home (from school) talking about how the environment is ruined or all of the bad things “we” did in “our” past, as Australians. Perhaps. I push back. Bad things may have been done, perhaps even for messed-up or noble reasons, but “we” don’t have to carry that guilt in order to learn/change/etc. Yes, I think we can explore this argument without downplaying all the bad things of the past. We can handle two or more ideas in our heads at once. And so can children....| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Regarding Code Simple Algorithms and Data Structures: Which algorithms and data structures did we have to understand + code up back in introduction to compsci? I asked gemini 2.5 flash (why doesn’t it have a prominent copy button?): Data Structures Arrays Linked Lists (Singly, Doubly, Circular) Stacks Queues Trees (Binary Trees, Binary Search Trees) Hash Tables Algorithms Sorting Algorithms (Bubble Sort, Selection Sort, Insertion Sort, Merge Sort, Quick Sort) Searching Algorithms (Linear Se...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Vibe coding is amazingly productive, at least for experiments and prototypes. And fun. Recently, I’ve noticed something missing. A feeling. The feeling you get when thinking hard while crafting a piece of code. Of desk checking it in your head. Of thinking through edges cases. I’m missing the feeling of making my brain sweat while crafting some code. I had an idea: Why not code up simple algorithms and data structures from scratch for “fun”?| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
If you’re feeling bored or lost or directionless: serve. Go and find people you can help. Jump onto reddit. Find a subreddit of beginners in an area you know a lot about and start answering questions. Give your opinion. Quote experts. Suggest directions. Help. Serve. It works wonders.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was listening to a podcast with Rick Rubin on his vibe coding book and he said some good stuff. The interview: Rick Rubin: Vibe Coding is the Punk Rock of Software The book: The Way of Code: The Timeless Art of Vibe Coding He said AI needs a point of view. That this is what we, as artists, supply. From the interview transcript: But the reason we go to the artists we go to or the writers we go to or the filmmakers we go to is for their point of view. The AI doesn’t have a point of view rig...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
A while back I showed how we can get a genetic algorithm in Python to run as fast then faster than a naive implementation in C. Here it is: Fast Genetic Algorithm in Python It was fun little project that mainly consisted of lots of timeit tests of different numpy functions and different ways of vectorizing the operations. The project was not very didactic. More of a progression. A show and tell.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was thinking about DeepMinds AlphaEvolve from last month. It’s pretty cool. The results are cool. The overall structure is pretty straightforward-ish though. As in, it did not surprise me very much. AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms (announcement) AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discovery (paper, pdf) AlphaEvolve, Wikipedia Here’s how I’m thinking about it. It’s a GA with LLM operators. Something that many people ...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Back in grad school days, it was fun to pick NP-Complete optimization problems and have little competitions to see who could get the best solution (lowest cost) in a given time frame. One of the more popular competitions we had was made semi-formal called maxpath: Max Path Pic: I’ve always enjoyed optimization more than machine learning. I remember having coffee with Kaggle’s Anthony Goldbloom circa 2010 and saying that he should add competitions for optimization problems. It wasn’t a g...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Sometimes I don’t feel like working hard. I’ll procrastinate. Everyone does. I’ll fiddle with small stuff around the edges of the project. Bikeshedding. A trick I use to snap out of it is to “look back from the future”. I’ll pretend that I’m me but it’s the end of the year and I’m looking back at the achievements for the year. At all the projects completed. I will want to see the current project done, and more. If it’s not done, I’d be most disappointed. I’ll be asking...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’ve been writing novellas for my kids for the last few months. The writing is fine. The stories, fine. Not mind blowing. The real trick is personalization. Telling stories about the kids as characters in places they know with our inside jokes. They are personalized stories. Written for them. This is key. It makes up for the so-so stories and writing. It’s a lot of work. It’s a heavy collaboration, a lot of careful specification by me of specific details to include.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I saw this on HN this morning: Show HN: I wrote a modern Command Line Handbook It’s currently number 3 with 63 comments and 245 upvotes. Nice! It’s for a book on how to use the command line on the big 3 OS. It’s a short, focused, basic handbook. I love those. I love making those. And I’m so happy that the tech community is still supporting them. And interesting in them.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have a hobby as a quake archivist. It’s fun for two reasons: the nostalgia and the hunt (e.g. variable rewards). Many files I seek to archive are lost. They maybe in the deep web somewhere, or they may be in peoples personal archives, but unless I can surface them, they are essentially “lost”. Lost to the archives at least. I was thinking, soon the AI models will be good enough to generate list artefacts on demand.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Someone was asking me about investing the other day. I gave my normal spiel about not picking stocks and instead picking countries/economies and buying indices. I also said to stick with what you know. If you know property (she’s a real estate agent) then invest in property, you probably have some edge. The conversation flowed between investing ourselves and her kids starting to invest in stocks. I made the important observation that investment goals matter a lot and that the investment goa...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was thinking about to early game modding. I made the most and best progress when I “just made stuff”. If in doubt, the second best thing to do would be to complete tutorials, e.g. coding tutorials, mapping tutorials, etc. The worst thing to do ever was to print/read manuals. There are two clear cases in my memory of doing this: Printing the DEU editor manual/guide (on my dot matrix printer) Print the Quake III Arena Shaders manual (in colour!). I never read them all the way through, and...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was talking to someone the other day about how to earn some extra cash. I said something like: There is information in your head that is valuable to other people, so valuable that they would happily pay you to learn it. Even over zoom. All you have to do is figure out what information and what people. It’s true, but challenging advice. It’s the “All you have to do is figure out what information and what people” piece that is so hard.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I drink 3-4 coffees a day, sometimes tea (earl grey) as well. I was thinking, is this elevating my resting heart rate? Am m I going to die earlier because of my coffee habit? I don’t think so. I checked in with o3. The short answer: At the level you describe — about 3–4 single espressos a day (≈ 180-320 mg caffeine) — there is no solid evidence that your resting heart rate will stay chronically elevated or that you will damage your heart over time, provided you are otherwise healthy...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
About 20 years ago, I experimented by adding simple neural net and genetic algorithm based agents to quake2. Here’s what I did back then: Ecosystem: Constructing a simple self-perpetuating society of adaptable agents (archived) I was thinking about that again today. It might be fun to develop a suite of mini experiments using genetic learning an neural net learning in little q2 agents. To setup little ecosystems on server processes and let them run for days and weeks and see what happens.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Before Quake3 was released, there were a number of Q3Test releases. It was an exciting time in 1999 from about May to about December before the final demo and retail release. Q3Test releases were made for win32, linux and mac. I was mainly a win32 and linux user at the time and getting GLX/OpenGL working on linux at that time was hard work. Anyway, during this time many mods and hacks were developed for the Q3Test.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My kids were asking how related all of their relatives are to them. I posed the question to gpt3o and asked for percentages in terms of genetic material. I thought I knew the answer, but was a little surprised. Anyway, here’s the result again: From a genetic perspective, relatedness is typically measured using the coefficient of relatedness, which represents the probability that a gene selected at random from one individual is shared with another due to common ancestry. Here’s a list of h...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was randomly thinking about embeddings this morning. I was thinking how they are fantastic at creating a continuous representation space from discrete data, e.g. words, category labels, etc. I was then thinking it might be fun to use the embedding as a representation for an optimization process, like a genetic algorithm. Or any optimization algorithm. The algorithm would sample the embedding space and drawn vectors would have to be evaluated using a simulator or objective function or whatev...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’m doing a first-pass search for files for the Quake3 Official Archive. I have notes on finding rare files here but I’m being super systematic for this first pass and thought I should document it (for next time). First, the given is we know what we are searching for, e.g. we have a wishlist of known filenames. The first pass involves either finding the file or collecting all known locations where the file used to exist. Later we can dig further into each URL via the wayback machine to le...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Since posting the q3test versions there’s been some interest in a Quake III Arena official archive. I pitched doing the same thing as the Quake Official Archive. So, it’s begun, here it is: Quake3 Official Archive I’ve added all the q3test versions, point releases, source releases and tools. Lots of mopping up to do, which will likely takes weeks to months, if not years. Fun!| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I read “Building my childhood dream PC” by Fabien Sanglard and shared in his nostalgia for his childhood dream PC. So cool. So beautiful. So nostalgic! I like the final line in the epilogue: I am quite eager to build a “Beautiful 1997 Quake Machine” now. YES! Now, I’m trying to remember my PCs. It’s really hard. Here’s a first draft of my PC history: XT (later a 286?), Dad’s, early 1990s to about 1993. 486 DX2/66 (?), Family’s, 1995-ish? Pentium 133MHz, My first PC, circa 19...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have created a custom GPT for copy editing pasted or uploaded text in Australian English. It includes all of my rules, refined over a ton of books, as well as a simple and terse way of presenting the errors so that can be quickly found and corrected in the original text. Here it is: Aussie Copy Editor Official description: An Australian English copy editor that reviews pasted or uploaded text for common errors.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I listened to an episode by Nicolas Cole on his “Coffee With Cole” podcast titled “The AI Writing Trend No One Is Talking About”. Here’s the YouTube version: The AI Writing Trend No One Is Talking About The thesis of the episode is that non-fiction writers should stop publishing books and instead use the material as prompts/context in ChatGPT wrapper apps to help the target audience achieve a desired outcome.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have written a novella for my youngest son (e.g. targets age 6 to 12). It’s about him and his brother visiting their favourite holiday destination. The title is: “The Bali Coin” Here’s the cover: Here’s the blurb: One mysterious coin. Two brothers. The adventure of a lifetime. When seven-year-old Jon and his teenage brother Alex arrive in Bali for a sun-filled family vacation, they anticipate lazy pool days, towering sandcastles, and endless breakfast buffets. But everything chang...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was digging more into old q3test bots and I found one of my old websites. The site was called “chopper land”. I remember it started as an experiment on in my student account on an RMIT server in early 1999 (I believe Minyos or minyos.its.rmit.edu.au). Found it, here: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~s9966394 (archived, Dec 2000) I then migrated to GeoCities. I believe the focus was initially on bots in the q3test (circa June 1999) then moved to all gaming stuff.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was thinking a lot about the q3test bots written about yesterday. Nostalgia. What test versions were released when? IHV Leak The IHV leaked perhaps late February or early March 1999. Quake III Arena IHV Test Leaked, Mar 01, 1999 Q3Test Mac (v1.01?) In late April a Mac version of the Q3Test was released: Mac Q3ATest Released, Apr 24, 1999. Including: MacQ3Test.bin Q3Test v1.03 An updated Mac version was released along with a linux version and a win32 server:| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Before Quake3 was released there were public test versions. And before that there was a leaked IHV version. I acquired and played all of them. I remember spending a lot of time trying to get bots working with one of these releases. It may have been the q3test v1.05. We had to run a program that modified the game, then we could use commands in-game to spawn bots. The fun was figuring out what all the bot commands did.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
A piece of fruit after dinner is a delight. I look forward to it. This is a reminder that if you’re trying to slim down, drop the fruit. I’ve been eating a piece or two after dinner for the last two weeks and my weight has plateaued for that time. Even though calories are low, e.g. deficit. It’s probably water retention, but still. Stop. Fruit undoes all the good work.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I took a break from novella work to dip back into my Quake bot archive work. I spend the morning digging into the release history for the Terminator client-side Quake bot by Olivier Montanuy and documenting it here: Terminator Bot It’s so much fun. I don’t know how this work can be made valuable to others, but if I could justify doing a deep-dive into the research history for every bot in the archive, I would.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I get that food/calories don’t have the same effect on everyone. For me, its a lot easier to gain than to lose weight. It’s very easy to overeat. In fact, I suspect the energy partition hypothesis is correct and even small amounts of simple carbohydrates make me gain weight fast. Nothing new here. But I was thinking: What is the relationship between gaining and losing weight? What is the ratio? Linear to sublinear or worse. Is it 1:0.8 or 1:0.5, probably.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
ChaptGPT 4o can generate images natively. For example: Introducing 4o Image Generation I’ve been using this feature, almost daily since launch a month and a half ago. It’s really really good. Especially compared to Dall-e and Grok3 and even Gemini, other image generation models that I’ve used a lot. But also limited. I’ve used it for photos of invented scenes, which has been really great. Almost faultless. I’ve also used it for artistic impressions of fantastical things, also pretty...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’ve been writing novellas for my kids for the past few months. They are probably objectively terrible. Why bother? It helps to turn this question around. What if someone else was writing novellas and asked what I thought? What if one my kids was writing novellas and asked? I would think it was awesome, and to keep going! You’re practising how to conceive, execute and deliver, on project. You’re practising how to develop a compelling story by trial and error. You’re practising how to ...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I have published another horror novella for my eldest. I think he’s enjoying them, it’s hard to tell. This one is titled: The Yarran Wraith It’s set in bushland that I grew up playing in. It’s epistolary with emails and journal entries as well as sketches and photos of what our main character found in the bush. Here’s the cover: Here are some links: Paperback Kindle Goodreads Here’s the blurb:| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My youngest has been reading a ton of David Williams books recently. I’ve not read them, what are they all about? Firstly, who is David Williams? Via grok3: David Walliams, born David Edward Williams on August 20, 1971, in London, England, is a multifaceted English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He gained prominence through his collaboration with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch comedy series Little Britain (2003–2006) and Come Fly With Me (2010–2011). Beyond comedy, W...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
It’s fun to think about an “operating system” for life. For example, below are some parts of my OS. Nutrition: Eat whole foods (meat and vegetables) Eat at meal times only Eat within an 6 hour interval (1-6pm) Exercise: 1h weights 3x week 1h cardio 2x week 15-20m sauna 5x week Walk/stairs whenever possible (shops, kids school, etc.) Consumption: Watch 1h of screen per day (ideally a serialized drama or half a movie) Audiobooks during exercise (walking, gym, etc.) Read in the afternoons ...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was thinking about Michael Crichton’s Sphere. The setup is so good. The middle and ending not so much. And the movie is like a direct port of the book, which is nice. I re-read it and re-watch the movie for the beginning. For the setup. What I remember from the setup: They fly a team of clever scientists out to a ship The team has to go to the site underwater, then stay because of a storm The military have found “something” and the team need to figure out what it is. It looks like an ...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Financial Independence is wild. I’ve been Financial Independence or “FI” since the end of 2021 (maybe December 2021), so 3 and a bit years. Not rich, but time wealthy. I don’t have to be anywhere or do anything unless I want (or my wife/family want or need). Here’s a definition from gpt4o: Financial independence is the state of having sufficient personal wealth to live comfortably without needing to actively work for basic living expenses. It means your investments, savings, or pass...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I listened to an interview with Derek Slaton on The Creative Penn podcast. Expanding Audiobook Revenue Through YouTube And Podcasting With Derek Slaton There’s also an episode on Brave New Bookshelf that I have queued up: Episode 35 – Exploring AI, Translations, and Zombies with Derek Slaton I may be mistaken but it seems Derek is using AI to crank out tons of zombie stories, one per week, and is doing very well out of it.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Smoking kills, tobacco is bad. In 100 years (or less), added sugar will be considered the same. Sweets kill, added sugar is bad. Here’s a summary of the hypothesis from grok3: In approximately 100 years, added sugar will be perceived by society in a manner analogous to how tobacco is viewed today, characterized by widespread recognition of its adverse health effects, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, leading to significant social stigma, stringent regulatory measures ...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I like to run. I used to run about 15km 3-5 a week in grad school. A daily run each afternoon is how I fondly remember it, especially when the work was hard/focused. These days I run 5km twice a week on my cardio days, and daily when I’m on holiday somewhere tropical. My knees hurt, I use a treadmill instead of the footpath now mostly, but I still look forward to my runs.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My latest novella has been published. The title is: Beach Fossil: An Investigation Into Strange Discoveries At Beaumaris Bay Here’s the cover: Here are some links: Paperback Kindle It is on Google Books and GoodReads. No Audible version yet, but I will soon. It will take some work. It came together really fast and after the first few iterations I had little to change. It is also the shortest and the simplest novella so far.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Writing a book description for Amazon is hard. Really hard. It’s copy writing. It cannot give away the whole story. It must give away something of the story. Anyway, I have a prompt that I use that helps. I compile the entire manuscript into a single markdown file, then attach it to an LLM and issue the following: You are a professional copywriter specializing in creating Amazon book descriptions that captivate readers without revealing major plot developments. You will be given a novella i...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I re-read Borne last week and liked it. It’s good, but not great. First time round, I hated it and DNF. I guess this time I was ready. It’s the first in a series, the Borne series. I’m still reading The Strange Bird. It too is good. Directly after Borne, I read Dead Astronauts. The cover is so great! I had tried reading this before and DNF. I finished this time, the end was a slog and I remain not a fan.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I listened to KK on “AI & I” with Dan Shipper: How to Predict the Future Like Kevin Kelly KK is always good. He talked about one of his AI experiments of getting Leonardo da Vinci, Martin Luther, and Christopher Columbus to have a meeting, to create a new city and a whole world around this idea via wikipedia pages. And importantly, that he did it for the pure enjoyment of it.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Tripped over this video of Richard Socher talking about AI: Richard Socher says your view on AI depends on what you think your job is for. If you optimize for output -- more stories, more illustrations, more healthy people -- AI is a gift. But if your role is about getting paid by the hour, AI feels like a threat. pic.twitter.com/QluGnQg7Dw — vitrupo (@vitrupo) April 22, 2025 The start of his response going something like:| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
Days slip through your fingers like water. You need a goal or objective and you must to keep moving toward it. Otherwise, time passes, you look up and you have lost weeks, months, years with nothing to show for it. The time is all burned up. Consumed. Spent. Stolen. Each and every day matters. Set aside a block of time and make progress toward the current thing. Once the objective is reached, set a new one. Fast.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I watched Dune: Prophecy recently. Meh. There was a cool scene were all the sisters were hypnotized as a group and proceeded to perform automatic drawing together. Without obvious suggestion, they all draw the same things in image after image. A shared nightmare. The final image they all draw is black with two white eyes. The two eyes are motif from the season. Very cool idea. The whole scene is great.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I finished Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” yesterday. Reading Bryson is comfort food. Comforting writing? This is not disparaging in the slightest. Bryson is a warm crackling fire on a winters night. He’s a great writer, and his topics are interesting, but reading him is very comforting. And I’m sure zillions of people would agree. He moves books. I probably have two comfort writers. Bill Bryson and David Sedaris.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My latest novella has been published, yay! Squidstone Hollow: A Historical Investigation Into The Leviathan Of Port Phillip Here’s the cover: Here are some links: Paperback Kindle Audible It’s also on goodreads and there’s a preview on google books. Like the last novella, All Our Eyes, it was written for my eldest. The mandate for this one was “less complex”. Like the last one, it is didactic, although the focus with this story is history of Melbourne/Port Phillip. It blurs the line...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I first heard Bob Lazar’s story on the Joe Rogan podcast. On it, I remember he mentioning that UFO craft were apparently found as part of an archaeological dig. I later read his book “Dreamland” and saw no mention of this, which was disappointing, because it’s one of this nuggets that really gets your imagination going. Regardless, it’s all fun stuff. Here’s the clip from the episode: Bob Lazar Says UFO was an Archaeological Finding A rough quote transcribed from the auto-generate...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I read “Incident at Devils Den” yesterday. A spooky story for sure. True? I have no idea, nor care. What I liked the most was the structure of the story telling. Specifically, the lead-up to the “1977 incident” and the twice retelling. It’s a great progression. First, we get hints while retelling background and prior incidents. It’s why the the book exists, to document an encounter: The genesis of this book is an event that occurred in 1977. While camping at a state park, a friend...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I am working my way through the latest season of Black Mirror (S7) and watched the Plaything episode (E4) the other day. Here’s a one paragraph summary via grok3: In Black Mirror’s “Plaything,” set in the Bandersnatch universe and aired on April 10, 2025, Cameron Walker (Peter Capaldi and Lewis Gribben) faces murder charges in 2034 and recounts his 1990s past as a video game journalist. Invited by eccentric programmer Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) to review Tuckersoft’s Thronglets—a...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I re-read Solaris last week. There is a great scene in the book, an interview with a pilot named Berton who “saw things”. It starts with the pilot’s log, then moves into an interview. And it’s super creepy as we discover what he, a top pilot, saw and the effect it had on him, and the fact that the panel of interviewers think him insane. While I was still some distance away, I noticed a pale, almost white, object floating on the surface. My first thought was that it was Fechner’s fly...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’m re-reading “The Case for Keto”. I re-read this one a lot. It has a great group feeling while reading, as in “some people just can’t eat carbs, and that includes you and me”, e.g. the author too. “The message should be straightforward: Carbohydrate-rich foods are fattening. Or to complicate it slightly such that naturally lean people might more likely understand: For those of us who fatten and particularly those who fatten easily, it’s the carbohydrates that we eat—the qu...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’m re-reading Gary Taubes books. I re-read them, and similar books, about once per year to brainwash myself to stay off the simple carbs. It seems to only stick for about 6-9 months before I need a reminder re-brainwashing. I’m lean, but it takes work. At core, calories in, calories out (CICO) works, but there is an undeniable level above that and it’s a level of simple carbs. For whatever reason, my frame fattens quickly when I eat them and staying lean requires complete abstinence.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I was joking to my wife that people will get sick of AI writing and will push back with a reactive style. Something like impressionistic and abstract art pushing back against polished realism. We have seen this with music as well, the preference for analogue vinyl records over CDs. Or the preference for being disconnected like CD and tape walkmans over streaming. Jokes often have a kernel of truth, I think some version of this will happen.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I just read pg’s latest essay “What to do”. It’s great, as always. He gives the generally good base advice of: “One should help people, and take care of the world.” He then goes on to suggest: “Make good new things.” Clumsy phrasing, but great advice. The rest of the essay mops up. I can’t argue. But I was thinking about this myself, personally. For me, I follow the maxim:| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’m revising my next novella. And it’s coming out dark. Each revision is even darker. I’m reminded of Steven Pressfield in “Do the Work”: My friend Paul is writing a cop novel. He’s never written anything so ambitious—and he’s terrified. “The story is coming out dark,” he says. “I mean twisted, weird-dark. So dark it’s scaring me.” Paul wants to know if he should throttle back. He’s worried that the book will come out so evil, not even Darth Vader will want to touc...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’m re-reading Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Like her Wild Mind, it’s less on tactics and more on the mindset of a writer and the writer life. The books make you feel okay with the disgust you have for your own writing and self-loathing you feel almost continuously. Or maybe that’s just me. I have internalized an early chapter in the book: “Writing as a Practice”. You write every day. It’s what you do. And the more you do it, the more it be comes a habit and hopeful...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I just reread Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook yesterday. It’s great fun, lots of useful advice. It’s also a beautiful book. The section on revision was particularly helpful to me right now. I try to jam everything I can think of in my first draft/s so and trim it back later. Jeff agrees: “Exactly because revision combines analysis and redeploying your creativity, most things you get wrong in your first draft can be fixed in revision, especially as you gain experience. Usually, however, i...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I recommend reading (or listening) to AI 2027. Then consume (watch/listen) the most recent episode of the Dwarkesh podcast. It’s a huge amount of work. The site is beautiful. The implications, if accurate, terrible. The authors are very impressive and Daniel Kokotajlo’s What 2026 looks like written in 2021 is very impressive (it’s probably more than survivorship bias). Yes, it feels like science fiction in places, but it’s all very plausible to (naive) me.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’ve been fighting an epic struggle with my LLM friends on some writing, and failing mostly. My mistake was trying to one-shot or two-shot the piece. I loaded in all of the context in structured sections (3k or 5k words), ask for a plan for a piece of writing, then ask it to follow the plan and all the context and write the piece. And every variation I tried failed. The writing was TERRIBLE! So bad.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I just finished Richard Dawkins’ 2024 book “The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie”. Another great book. Dawkins rarely misses, although the older I get the more I want a tl;dr. This was a shorter book of his, but it felt a little repetitive and a little long. Anyway, the premise is that you can look at the genes of something alive as a snapshot of what the pressures of its evolutionary past look like. From the genes, we could reconstruct the environment that shaped the curre...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
My eldest practices sabre fencing and the competitions can be quite brutal. A “bout” is basically a dual. Hard physically and emotionally. Many of the kids are roughly equally skilled and it often comes down to mindset on the day. Like most competitions, I would expect. Here’s a cool pic from wikipedia: In one competition, last year, I made a comment, something like: “There exists a series of steps or moves you can make in the next bout that will allow you to win. You just need to thi...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I’m writing constructing another novella. This one on the history of Port Phillip as told by research into a sea monster. It’s fun. It’s not literature. It’s not even great story telling. But I’m having fun. It’s also so easy to think and rethink every little thing without making forward progress. Progress in the form of pages and chapters. Work product. Not meta work product. I must remind myself to get down the first draft as fast as possible.| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
The older I get, the more annoyed I am with my fellow humans. My first thought is that I need to meditate more. I need to slip in a thought before doing something stupid. Alternately, I can use the annoyance. The annoyance is the way, the path. This reminds me of Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way. Great book, and a great title based on a quote from Marcus Aurelius: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I read “The Life and Adventures of William Buckley” yesterday. It’s really something. Even embellished by an overzealous writer/editor, it’s really something. It tells of William Buckley, a British soldier who fought Napoleon in Holland, got caught with some stolen fabric and was sentences to transportation in Australia. He was part of the Sullivan Bay settlement which only lasted a few years before failing and everyone heading to Hobart. He ran away before the trip to Hobart then man...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
I purchased a copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock for my eldest. It’s a classic gothic-horror set just outside Melbourne. Here’s a one paragraph synopsis of the book from DeepSeek: On Valentine’s Day in 1900, students from Appleyard College, a strict Australian boarding school, picnic at the ancient and eerie Hanging Rock. Four girls—Miranda, Marion, Irma, and Edith—along with their teacher, Miss McCraw, venture up the rock, only to vanish mysteriously amid strange occurrences: watches s...| Posts on Consumption Exhaust
