Archive of 2024 | Singing in the Night

December 2024

A thought on GenAi

I just had to use GenAI to 'code something' because search sucks.. But that isn't the interesting part. See i spent like an hour polishing the turd it gave me... the original output had a lot of deprecated api usage, and php warnings in it.. Which under my current set up warnings are treated as errors because they output to stderr. Which Nginx doesn't like... Anyway. 45-60 minutes polishing, and it's still not very performant code.. I'll probably pound on it some tomorrow, add caching or something not the point. AI, or the large dataset statistical modeling sort of "AI" that's currently being hyped will never replace human intellectual labor because in order to use the output it generates a human who knows what they're doing still must be involved somewhere in the pipeline.. When humans aren't the results can be subpar at best and disastrous at worst. Is the "market" aware of this yet, i don't think so.. But AI seems more and more like a bubble waiting to burst the…

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November 2024

Warmlines for…

I am not shocked that there are not warm lines for disabled people. But everytime i have to reach for one, and there isn't one. It makes me angry, and sad For those not in the know a warm line, is a mental health resource, that with trained people that doesn't attempt to do rescues. Usually with call takers that have training/experience in the issues faced by a particular group. It's not 988. They will attempt rescue. They will transfer you into 988 and attempt to facilatate the best intervention, if your that bad There is sort of an informal system, run through the Mastodon social network. and certain discord servers., But the election swamped it. And many of the best people on it, were occupied with there own crisis. And how useful is that, If you have to utilize hard tech in a bad mental state. I've been wondering where my activism needs to go in these times, this might be it

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Yerning for a break

I can't wait for my Hiatus this year,not that i won't be working during it. I love all the various things i do. But I don't commit to projects, that are time intensive or have real deadlines during it.. and just take care of my own development as a writer/technologist/spiritual leader in training. Usually Runs Nov 15th through end of January, but it got bumped back a bit, this year starts on the 20th.

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Science and Tech…

Science and Technology News sucks lately, but not in the way you think.. There's avtually good reason for hope if you put down your New York Times, and pick up Scientific American, or start watching Nova, et al. Or there would be if there were qualified people to actually report on the News Due to layoffs and budget cuts most of the people who were actually good at this stuff are no longer working. What's left is a bunch of Junior writers whom are overworked to the point of collapse, and AI. Someone online recently suggested that yours truly should.do that work. But when i told him the approximate cost just to try the idea .There was a sudden silence. Digital artist hang outs be like that :)

Permanent link to “Science and Tech news... A comment”

October 2024

Excuse Me!

I take Mondays as a slow day. I'm a semi professional church worker. I also do a lot of work for intentional internet communities Currently I'm the editor of the tilde.town zine. amongst other things. Wednesday-Sunday are busy for me. I also support a couple of older autistic people 65+ by answering my phone at odd hours and performing seemingly random Google searches or whatever. I'm busy. I like what i do That's why i take Monday slowly/off completely. Everyone who is not an ableist dingus understands this. Well this morning one of the aforementioned ableist dingui made a comment about how he can't wait to see me have a full 40 hour work week and fail at it. That's not what he said but it's what he meant Excuse me do you think i only do what i do because i can't get a "real job"? Do you believe that your "real job" has more value then mine.. Do you look down on me for taking one day slowly.. Most of the time i can't even take off because... You have to get paid,…

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Permanent link to “Hole in the floor, where'd it come from... Nobody Knows.. How big it grows”

September 2024

Permanent link to “Demure Signage”
Permanent link to “Food Flasback Sept 13th 2020”
Library…

Using a Library with a learning disability in the 2020s is a walk in hell. For starters most of em aren't ordering there own audio/ebook stocks anymore... They use corporate platforms Libby and Hoopla to provide those services. These apps are often incompatible with the types of reading assistance software that readers with print disabilities use . They have to be compatible somewhat But the Sec 508 Regs have a major blindspot. Pardon the pun, when it comes to sighted users who are impaired in their ability to read... The other problem with audiobook/ebooks is that. There are an increasing number of books/ other materials you just cannot obtain. Because of content exclusivity deals. E.g a Netflix exclusive movie or book is netflix only, and they mean it. Same with "Only on Audible" books, ditto with small/vanity presses that only publish on Amazon. Bottom line there are less resources at the library that i can actually use as a disabled patron then there were ten years ago.…

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This is home

Further Up and Further in Ten years ago, on a day like today. I was just settling in for a movie. It was almost exactly this hour, or it was mid fire at any rate. Although that system for marking time would not be invented for another five years. It had been a long hard and lonely day like today. Full of arguments with college authorities, projects due with too little time to do them, and arguments with insurance companies. Almost exactly like today Ten years ago on a day not so different from today, I was feeling very lonely. All of my friends had graduated the previous year and moved away from our college town. And in my depression I had withdrawn from socializing online. had deleted my online presence, and only permitted two people to contact me from that life. Ten years ago today on this day that was indistinguishable from so many of the days before it and the days which followed. There was a knock at my window. Had I been sane I would have pretended to be asleep, or busy. Knocks…

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Heavy Metal…

I was once asked on an irc channel what was the most "metal" catholic prayer i know was "metal" as an adjective has no fixed meaning. But these come to mind. Oh Saving Victim O Saving Victim, Open wide The Gates of Heaven to us Below Though Foes surround me on every side Thine Aide Supply Thy Grace Bestow To thy great name be endless praise, Immortal Godhead, One in Three. Oh, grant us endless length of days, In our true native land with thee. Amen. Preface for Our Lady of Good Counsel It is truly right and just. our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord. How generously you poured out the gifts of your Holy Spirit upon the Blessed Virgin Mary to make her worthy to be the Mother and companion of the Redeemer. Enlightened by these gifts, she sought your will unceasingly and obeyed it with fidelity. In her canticle of joy she proclaimed the greatness of your mercy and gave…

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Wishing for musical…

At at times like this i wish i was a musician.. I just had a sound vision of a track that starts out as the national anthem 6 bars in there is an abrupt but somehow graceful transition to another piece of music. I'm thinking the Star Trek TNG theme. Purely because that's my go to for optimistic future based on good moral values. But the intent is to reject "patriotism" where that's used as a synonym for Jigoism/right wing values. And make clear that inclusive tolerance and service to the truth Are American values. I don't know how to bring something like this about though. Here is a favorite of what i have managed to do musically nothing to do with the stuff i was discribing

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Oppression of…

there are those who say "Disabled People aren't oppressed"... According to one of my friends it is acceptable to punch such individuals in the face. Although providing education is preferred. Here's your education for today. In order to access most US govt programs for disabled adults, your required to receive social security benefits. Social Security Disability Benefits don't start until you've worked a job that pay social security payroll taxes for a certain number of years For people that fall outside this requirement there's Social Security Insurance. Which pays about half as much. And has an "income and asset limit" This limit is set by congress is not tied to inflation. It was last updated in 1984 and stand currently at $2k for a thirty day period. This limit was always strictly enforced, but under Trump it got bad. Real bad, like i'm required to tell the SSA if i sell my Magic the Gathering cards bad, small amounts of Mutual Aid are fine.. For now.. .But I…

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NaNoWriMo AI and…

We want to make clear that, though we find the categorical condemnation for AI to be problematic for the reasons stated below, we are troubled by situational abuse of AI, and that certain situational abuses clearly conflict with our values. We also want to make clear that AI is a large umbrella technology and that the size and complexity of that category (which includes both non-generative and generative AI, among other uses) contributes to our belief that it is simply too big to categorically endorse or not endorse. I have just read NanNoWriMo's AI Ableism statement I HAVE THOUGHTS Indeed some NoAi arguments are rooted in Ableism, this means that the opposition to AI needs better arguments. Some disabled people look at such arguments and conclude that NoAI people are ableist. This is reasonable coming from a community that is so oppressed within society, that many, including members of other oppressed groups deny we are and have been oppressed. But there's a distinction to be made…

Permanent link to “NaNoWriMo AI and ableism, a disabled perspective”
Permanent link to “Michealmas the Holiday we lost (cc acdw)”
A Requiem For CoHost

To the CoHost haters out there just shut up. It was a nice website, although i never got into it as much as i meant to. The world needs more cozy websites. Not all communities need/want to be federated. That isn't why it's going away. And if you want a federated Tumbleloging software suite go and build one, I'll wait... Cohost as i understand it was an experiment to find a way. To build communities, without the capitalism driven enshitification. Which has rosined all aspects of the current Technological Revolution. It didn't work. But they haven't failed either. The next team to pick up the torch will have valuable data. This is how any human endeavor that is worth anything at all works We are building a Cathedral here not a strip mall. It's taken us about 400 years to get into the current mess, i expect it'll take about as long to g I applaud the non software software club for building a site that tried to put people first. Take a bow CoHost you deserve it at the least

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Welcome

Welcome to NightSong I wanted a place for all of my longer mastodon rants that I'm proud of.. Here it is. I'll be going through and adding stuff as time allows. Called it nightsongs. Because a friend once joked that it was no accident that my fursona is an owl because. I do my best work late at night. There is no grander vision no manifesto. You might get notes on the new Muffin Recipe, I'm developing, in addition to the mastodon rants

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Permanent link to “Elf in the Self”