The state of AI
Putting aside all the privacy and users’ rights violations by AI companies, the state of AI today is fascinating. We’re living in a world full of amazing advancements in tech and life. The fact that AI can now help blind people get through everyday life, or talk to you about your plans for the day, or summarize texts with sufficient quality is beyond everything we thought we’re getting few years ago. There’s no doubt that AI is going to make our lives easier. Only matter is how humane will it be, both in matters of online and offline human rights.
Bonus: OpenAI introduces GPT-4o (YouTube Link)
AI knows about you!
I am one of the people who tried to block so-called “AI” programs from training on my published works. I implemented every code or rule I know to block corporations use my material for training their programs.
I’m not against AI, but I don’t want my material be published or used under a proprietary license. One other reason I tried to block them is that data-hungry companies such as Microsoft and Google were using these programs to gather more data on people and violating users’ privacy.
However, my efforts to block them from training on my works seems to be failed. It seems that regardless of my effort and how I asked robots to not research/train on my blog and stop crawling my data, they did it anyway.
Continue readingBackups
You may have not noticed it but my blog was down for few hours and I had to being it back up using a backup I had. Tarneo, who generously hosts my blog, noticed it first and he did most of the work on the backend.
But all my data was lost due to a faulty database. If I didn’t have a backup, you probably wasn’t reading this post.
This is a reminder that backups are important. I lost very small changes I made on the web site but nothing major was gone; I was lucky.
It takes me just about 10 minutes to backup my web site and everything else I have and store them on two separate hard drives. It’s super easy, encrypted, safe, and lifesaving.
Backup now.
Bonus: The Dangers of Digitization, and The Importance of Data Backup
Bring back small blogs
I merged, combined, summarized, and re-published pages on this blog and made it as small as possible. Bring back small blogs. Web used to have so many small yet awesome blogs. We used to spend a lot of our time reading material published on them, not caring about the design or off-topic pages.
Let’s bring that back. I start with myself. I don’t need a long bio page or every detail about my internet presence. There’s no need to include every way you can contact me. I won’t make long lists about what I use, nobody cares about that. Though I can publish a post about it.
I won’t explain everything and every word, I can link to Wikipedia or send people to a web site that explains that well. I’ll stay focused on the topic I’m talking about.
I won’t care if the design is old or new. I won’t care if people think sidebars are outdated. If it’s usable and satisfies the reader, then it’s good enough for me. I want to focus on what’s important here, which is what I share and what I have to say.
I feel all the attention that goes to these pages are to satisfy our urge for attention. We should stop playing for the invisible audience and let go of ourselves. We’re not the main focus of other people. Most people won’t care about whether our site is blue or green or purple. If you like an special color, then set it for your theme but stop caring about my opinion on it.
I believe we should bring back small blogs because we’re now full of crappy corporate web that values benefit before people. We should bring back small blogs because those are the blogs that put people behind everything else. We used to care so much about what we publish, not how much we explain ourselves.
Nobody cares if I use Emacs or Vim. Nobody cares if I have 16 GB of RAM. Nobody cares about the distribution of GNU+Linux I run on my computer. I may explain or share my experience using them, and those can be useful for many people, including me, but I feel nobody cares about a long list of tools I use. People may read it but nobody misses it when it’s gone.
Well, this is my feeling. It’s not wrong to feel otherwise and it certainly is not wrong to do the opposite.
Net neutrality rules restored by FCC
Good news. Removing net neutrality was an injustice to users and bringing it back was necessary. It is a major victory for people. Now FCC can, and should, hold companies responsible for violating people’s rights.
Wonders of the world
Part of job is to take photos and create documentation. Today, while I was taking photos from the construction site, I wondered how does this ‘photography’ works. Like how is it possible to tap on a screen and capture a moment of life and save that view forever?
Ever thought about that? I know the engineering that makes it possible and the science behind it but does it ever make you wonder?
I started writing this post on my computer at work on my free time, then continued writing using my phone on my way back home. Isn’t it fascinating that I can write my blog in various locations using different devices? Isn’t it awesome that I can publish what I started a 100 kilometers later? (Oh yeah I travel 100 kilometers twice a day to work and back — so 200 km/d.)
I’m writing this on my personal computer at home right now. Back to the photography. How cool is that? I’m able to point a device at something, tap on a screen, and capture that sight forever and ever. Even the phone itself. How amazing is that I can tap on a screen and write words?
I know that these things are normal now. I know that there are far so many mind-blowing technologies that are so much more interesting than a simple touch-screen but I still get amazed from simple stuff like this.
I sit in a huge box on wheels that has speed of more than 90 km/s to go to work every day. It takes me about an hour and 10 minutes to get there. A hundred years ago I’d have to ride a horse for that. Working in a place 100 kilometers far wouldn’t even make sense, that would’ve been impossible at that time.
I’m so happy that I was born in a time with all these technologies. I travel through mountains as easy as abc because there are technologies to build tunnels. I can talk to people 5000 kilometers away from me because there are cables under the ocean to make it possible.
It’s too hot here, more than 40 degrees Celsius at noon but I can cool off because there are devices installed on our buildings to turn down the temperature. Isn’t it astonishing?
Do you ever think about the simplest normallest (I know that’s not a word) technology we use every day? Ever thought about how cool is the car’s engine? Ever wondered how does the TV remote control work? Ever thought about how amazing is the washing machine? You throw your clothes in it and it washes them for you. It can even make them dry!
I still get surprised when I use these inventions. I don’t take them for granted. I enjoy every moment of them. I think they are staggering and we’re not thankful for our lives enough to appreciate them correctly.
When I was writing this post, my computers told me which word I wrote incorrectly. They drew a red line under the incorrect words. They even suggested words to me and sometimes predicted what I was going to write next. Damn, that’s awesome.
Spit, not rinse
I just found out that when you brush your teeth, both morning and night, you should spit but not rinse. Toothpaste contains fluoride which helps strengthen your teeth. By not rinsing with water, fluoride in the toothpaste will stay on your teeth for longer helping to keep them strong.