I’m old. One of the elder Millennials who grew up on the internet. I stubbornly didn’t use emojis in any context for a very long time, but I did use emoticons sparingly =)

Eventually as more people of more diverse generations started using them in conversation with me, I adapted to kind of speak where they were at. Like you I mostly use them as punctuation at the end of a sentence to help clarify intent if I don’t think it’s clear otherwise. They can help be an indicator like that

Most importantly though, I think we all need to understand that there will never be a really clear consensus on this. We are going to have to learn to communicate with each other where we’re at and if you disregard someone solely on the style in which they use emojis you risk disregarding the opinion of some very intelligent people. And I think, personally, you’re gonna come off as a bit of a dick about it if you feel the need to post responses telling them so. I can’t change your opinions for you but maybe keep that to yourself.

Further notes: I actually include a lot of emojis and ANSI color sequences in my programs and scripts. Drives some people crazy but I find it really helps make some things more readable and draw my attention to things (taking care about what effect this might have on downstream ingestion of course, but most things handle emoji competently these days)

Theoretically, I’m all onboard with the night shower arguments. I’d love to be a night shower person. But I don’t think I’m physically capable of waking up in the morning without the shower routine.

I appreciate how angry this post seems to have made some people. Maybe I’ve just been in the furry fandom too long. I feel nothing anymore.

Alright, don’t take this diatribe personally, but it just set off a chain of thoughts for me I’m gonna post now because loudly hating on AI at all times is the morally correct thing. You don’t seem like a person looking to be convinced.

In a capitalist society our only real power is as consumers. I know even that’s not really terribly true these days as they largely dictate the markets at us but it’s all we’ve got. An overwhelmingly negative public sentiment does still erode value and makes it harder to support the illusion, we’ve seen that recently with the DLSS5 stuff. It also fortifies community opinion by creating a unifying front. It can slowly shame susceptible targets into changing their stance and help convince people who may be falling for it when they see their friends and respected individuals take a firm stance. Anyone who says armchair warriors can’t accomplish anything just wants you to shut up so you don’t accomplish anything. Ideally you do more, but what other options do we have against this currently?

I understand how AI works and what its legitimate intended use cases are (largely referring to the current crop of LLMs/GenAI here and not broader ML) and that’s exactly why I don’t use it. People who say that they have figured it out and that their specific use cases are legitimate are practically indistinguishable from those who have drunk the Kool aid. Are you one of those rare people I don’t even fully believe exist who has a valid use case or are you another mark who’s fallen prey to the lying machine that lies, was built off plagiarism, destroys the environment, and was purpose built to devalue labor? One of these things seems slightly more likely than the other.

Fuck AI.

I revisit Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind every few years when I wanna get my guts all twisted into knots.

I think when Kaufman is left on his own he’s too much of a bummer and Gondry on his own is just too far out. But somehow they come together in a perfect balance with Jim Carey in perhaps his best serious role, IMHO. The soundtrack really takes it the extra mile.

I appreciate it because Joel and Clementine come off as just two kinda fucked up people having a kinda fucked up relationship; very relatable. Neither is perfect or completely at fault and the film very much leaves it up to your interpretation if they can or should work together. I don’t think it has a happy ending, do you? Compare that to something like 500 Days of Summer where you’re really supposed to sympathize with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character but mostly I end up wanting to push him into the mud. Hard.

The subplot between the doctor and his secretary is maybe a little unnecessary? But Kirsten Dunst is amazing so whatever.

I wish I had stayed.

OK, I apologize. That first post was overly negative so allow me to offer some real hope and advice. (I was sitting in the middle of class when I typed that up and needed to get it off my chest. I moved to a new country and started uni again, which is maybe not the best way to deal with burnout. It’s helped in some ways but hurt in others. That’s my problems though, a story for another time.)

Let’s go back to the fire metaphor for burnout, I think it’s more apt. Not necessarily through any fault of your own, that fire is burnt out now. Someone careless came along and doused it in gasoline until it flared up and dissipated. That first fire was built out of the kindling of you, not intentional but incidental over a lifetime as you slowly piled things onto it. This new fire you need to build is going to have to be more intentional. You’re going to have to pay attention, put thought and care into it. That’s going to take practice and possibly several failures first until you get the hang of it, don’t give up.

This new fire won’t be the same. Not in composition or how it burns; that’s just life. It’s OK if you need to take some time to mourn that, I think it’s only natural. But just like a forest fire sweeping through it leaves fertile ground for new things to grow again. Time and patience which sucks because it runs counter to a lot of what we’re dealing with, but just know it as a fact.

For something concrete to begin with, focus on your self and your interests. It’s hard to sit down and focus on just reading a book when you feel like there are so many dozens of other things you need to tend to, but just take that time for yourself. Speaking personally, if you’re anything like me you got some part of yourself wrapped up in that job/career even though you didn’t want to, even though you didn’t ever see yourself as that kind of person. You need to fill that back in with yourself and if that takes the form of books, or comics, or movies, or videogames, or bike rides or whatever silly thing it is that makes you happy, you just need to do it. Trust me, this is important.

Keep going, you got this.

I’ve been thinking about this for a long while. I like to use the analogy of RAM because I’m a nerd.

When I was younger I felt like I had 32GB. I couldn’t even fully load it, I was into so many things I’d stuff it full and still be running at half capacity.

As I got older, more processes began to run long. Taxes, relationships, the tedium upkeep of life. Then work takes a big bite. You have the space so you run it. 24GB, 24/7. And they run it hard.

But then it gets burnt out. It’s just … fried. You can’t load things into it anymore, they don’t hold. Your memory or attention or energy or some combination of all three fail and the task fails. You had 4x8 but now you’re running on 1x8. For everything. The life tasks build and then there’s more: all the services, the nags, the endless notifications on endless apps, a million group chats buzzing by and the ever growing fascism.

But it’s not RAM. You can’t just go to the store and buy new stuff and replace it. You can’t just take a week off and relax and expect that it’ll start working again. It’s … unclear what will make it work again. Is it just broken now, forever???

You try to load stuff into it anyways, because you have to. Hobbies you used to enjoy. But the memory is still no good so it gets corrupted. That thing you used to enjoy now feels like an obligation and trying to engage with it feels like the memory of touching a hot stove. It slips away. And the entire social group you built around that interest? That slips away, too. It’s all too hot to touch, you don’t have the room and it feels bad: it’s tiring and draining and too much for you anymore.

I used to think burnout was a check engine light. I’d notice it go on, I’d recognize it happened, then I’d get to the shop and fix it. It took me years to figure out what was wrong and I still don’t know what to do about it. And the work just isn’t designed to let you deal with this stuff.

Oh yes, I think Peter Watts is a great author. He’s very good at tackling high concept ideas while also keeping it fun and interesting. Blindsight has a vampire in it in case there wasn’t already enough going on for you 😁

Unrelated to the topic at hand, I also highly recommend Starfish by him. It was the first novel of his I read. A dark, psychological thriller about a bunch of misfits working a deep sea geothermal power plant and how they cope (or don’t) with the situation at hand.

Blindsight mentioned!

The only explanation is that something has coded nonsense in a way that poses as a useful message; only after wasting time and effort does the deception becomes apparent. The signal functions to consume the resources of a recipient for zero payoff and reduced fitness. The signal is a virus.

This has been my biggest problem with it. It places a cognitive load on me that wasn’t there before, having to cut through the noise.

Dropped Reddit cold turkey when they closed the API.

It was an adjustment at first, but I do feel like the ecosystem has continued to grow and evolve, as well as me just adapting to what was on offer better.

I still never purposefully visit Reddit, but sometimes I just end up there from search results or links and it gives me the ick.