plutonic's recent activity
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
plutonic Link ParentI have not, Remains of the Day was my first his. I totally see why you would give up half way, I figured there had to be something at the end and kept going because it was so short.I have not, Remains of the Day was my first his. I totally see why you would give up half way, I figured there had to be something at the end and kept going because it was so short.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
plutonic LinkAfter my frustration with the ending of 'Satantango' by László Krasznahorkai I decided to pick up Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day', it was also recommended by a reader here. Pretty good...After my frustration with the ending of 'Satantango' by László Krasznahorkai I decided to pick up Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day', it was also recommended by a reader here. Pretty good book! I think it suffered a bit in the quality of the prose, but is not bad writing at all. I just really like dense, archaic prose. I rated it a 6.5/10, maybe a 7/10. The last 50 or so pages really make the book and I think it could have been written to be more devastating emotionally than it was. It was quite short, 250 pages and I think it would have benefited by being longer. I've also started listening to 'My Cousin Rachel' by Daphne du Maurier. I've previously read Rebecca which is an amazing masterpiece. I've also read 'The House on the Strand and 'The Scapegoat' but I don't really remember much about them. My Cousin Rachel is really good so far and the prose the very beautiful, du Maurier has a real gift for the English language.
Now it's time for Moby Dick and I will be making another post in this thread in the next few days laying out my case for why I love Moby Dick. (I'm still working on it)
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Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech
plutonic Link ParentI think for me, as a lay-person is that it is unlikely that I am going to able to ask advanced enough questions to be able to get into the 'danger' territory with AI, I'm not shooting for anything...I think for me, as a lay-person is that it is unlikely that I am going to able to ask advanced enough questions to be able to get into the 'danger' territory with AI, I'm not shooting for anything beyond a college or university 101 level of knowledge, the stuff learned at that level is very well known and mostly unchanged for decades. It is when you get into more advanced levels, where the information isn't as concrete that things can get ugly with hallucinations.
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Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech
plutonic Link ParentI've tried, it lasts for a little while and then right back to blowing smoke up my ass, all the while constantly saying "OK, keeping things serious and to the point here", "Cutting through the...I've tried, it lasts for a little while and then right back to blowing smoke up my ass, all the while constantly saying "OK, keeping things serious and to the point here", "Cutting through the bullshit, no smoke here!", "Just telling it like it is!" it's laughable sometimes.
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Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech
plutonic LinkIn many ways! For example my current use is that I like to watch lectures from The Great Courses on all sorts of topics, I've been taking notes while watching the lectures and then the next day...In many ways!
For example my current use is that I like to watch lectures from The Great Courses on all sorts of topics, I've been taking notes while watching the lectures and then the next day while on one of my breaks at work I spend 15 minutes talking to a custom GPT through Advanced Voice Mode about what I learned in the lecture and it fills in any details it thinks are important and I can ask questions and get clarification when needed. These course are at a college level at best so I'm not too worried about it getting stuff wrong, be careful with anything more advanced.
I've been working on an custom GPT to scan shelves at used bookstores and compare to a list of wanted books I provide it. I've been trying this since the very early days and while things have improved a huge amount it is not quite there in ability to work in the real world. The issue is still processing time, not accuracy.
Great reading companion to discuss all sorts of things about books. Themes, symbolism, connections to other works ect, it has 'read' everything. It often brings up angles I haven't considered, also good for summarizing popular criticisms of any work. The more well studied the work the better it does obviously. Again, I'm not trying to write my PhD in Literature, I just want something to bounce ideas off of and dive a bit deeper than I would be able to on my own.
I was able to successfully vibe-code an IRC bot for a private IRC server some buddies use (yeah, we're old). You can email it pictures and have it upload them to imgur and then post them, it identifies youtube links and posts info about the video, you can request it to make DallE images and upload them to imgur and post to the channel, and a few other simple tasks. I have never written a line of code in my entire life.
I'm an Industrial Electrician and use it at work to help troubleshoot CNC Machines, it's extremely good at working through problems and recommending next steps when troubleshooting what can be complex machines from 1970's to modern. Need help deciphering electrical schematics written in Russian for a machine made in 1985? No problem.
I created a custom GPT to act as Art Historian and Museum guide when I took a trip to Washington, DC summer 2024. I walked around the various galleries and museums with one earbud in and could ask for information when needed. Worked too well in the art galleries, I had it setup so all I had to say was the name of the painting and it would spit me out a 3-5 minute chunk of information about the work. I soon realized I had to be very choosy to which paintings I was doing this to as I only had 1 day to spend in each gallery. It became quickly apparent it would take a week to clear the gallery if you did this for every work. I'm now jealous of not living in DC. You can rent audio guides to museums sometimes but you cannot ask those guides questions when needed.
I'm super excited for the future of what these things will bring, the biggest use for me has been as a learning tool. I'm not talking about it getting you through University, but to just learn about stuff as a lay person. I've always been a life-long learner and this has really made a big difference, it's like having a professor of every single topic on earth at your fingertips. Of course I am well aware ChatGPT does not in any way compare to the knowledge and understanding in any topic that an actual PhD holding professor has, but it is good enough for the kind of things I'm going to be asking it.
Downsides: The sycophancy is very real and you need to be very self-aware to not fall into that trap. No, these are not 'extremely important' 'unusually insightful' or 'deeply intelligent' questions, they are just normal questions from a normal person (I have tried to pre-prompt this behaviour out to no avail). It likes to please, you need to be careful to not lead it at all, it will tell you want you want to hear if it can figure out what that is.
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Comment on Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show in ~tech
plutonic LinkI literally get ads for Cocaine on Facebook, what the hell? EXAMPLEI literally get ads for Cocaine on Facebook, what the hell? EXAMPLE
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
plutonic Link ParentGot to see Squarepusher live in 2004, running the laptop and keyboards with a bass guitar around his neck. THIS kind of vibe. Pretty intense show. I'm a big fan of that era and earlier of his.Got to see Squarepusher live in 2004, running the laptop and keyboards with a bass guitar around his neck. THIS kind of vibe. Pretty intense show. I'm a big fan of that era and earlier of his.
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Comment on Cataloging your home library in ~books
plutonic Link ParentI have been working since the early AI days to create a GPT where I can take pictures of bookshelves in used bookstores/thrift stores and have it search for books I am looking for on a 'wanted...I have been working since the early AI days to create a GPT where I can take pictures of bookshelves in used bookstores/thrift stores and have it search for books I am looking for on a 'wanted list' that I provide it. It is getting VERY good, still cannot take full floor to ceiling single pictures, but if I get just 2-3 shelves in a picture it will do a pretty good job. Not yet useful in the real world due to the amount of pictures needing to be taken and the multiple minutes per image processing time. It also has trouble handling large wanted lists. Accuracy has improved from very bad to shockingly good though.
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Comment on Cataloging your home library in ~books
plutonic LinkI have over 3000 books in a person library in my house. I previously made a comment HERE about how I handle indexing them all so I can access the list from my phone while in used bookstores ect. I...I have over 3000 books in a person library in my house. I previously made a comment HERE about how I handle indexing them all so I can access the list from my phone while in used bookstores ect.
I never could find software that checked all the boxes for me, and while making a list like this looks like a huge amount of work, it is, but I started it when my collection was probably more like what you are dealing with and then it has grown slowly over the years. I also enjoy making lists and indexes of things, I'm weird. lol.
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Comment on Is vaping less harmful than smoking, and does it help people quit? in ~health
plutonic Link ParentI considered myself a smoker at the time for sure. I couldn't even imagine smoking actual cigarettes now.I considered myself a smoker at the time for sure. I couldn't even imagine smoking actual cigarettes now.
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Comment on Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’ in ~society
plutonic Link ParentI'm so happy I don't cringe anymore when I see a vehicle with a Canadian flag, it sucked feeling like that.I'm so happy I don't cringe anymore when I see a vehicle with a Canadian flag, it sucked feeling like that.
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Comment on Is vaping less harmful than smoking, and does it help people quit? in ~health
plutonic Link ParentI'm in my 40's, life is basically nothing but repetition now. (I'm personally OK with this at this point in my life)I'm in my 40's, life is basically nothing but repetition now. (I'm personally OK with this at this point in my life)
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
plutonic Link ParentYes, no paragraphs at all, and some sentences are an entire page long. Don't be too worried over this, I did not find that it made the book hard to read.Yes, no paragraphs at all, and some sentences are an entire page long. Don't be too worried over this, I did not find that it made the book hard to read.
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Comment on The European Union could admit new members by 2030, says its foreign policy chief in ~society
plutonic LinkCanada please? (I know this makes no sense geographically, but I can dream)Canada please? (I know this makes no sense geographically, but I can dream)
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Comment on Is vaping less harmful than smoking, and does it help people quit? in ~health
plutonic Link ParentDaily smoker for the last 25 years, I have no intention of giving it up. I don't drink at all, so a couple bowls is my way of relaxing with some tunes in the evenings.Daily smoker for the last 25 years, I have no intention of giving it up. I don't drink at all, so a couple bowls is my way of relaxing with some tunes in the evenings.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
plutonic Link ParentCather is great, I've read 'Death comes for the Archbishop', 'Song of the Lark', 'My Antonia', 'O Pioneers!', and 'Shadows on the Rock'. I find them very peaceful reads :)Cather is great, I've read 'Death comes for the Archbishop', 'Song of the Lark', 'My Antonia', 'O Pioneers!', and 'Shadows on the Rock'. I find them very peaceful reads :)
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Comment on Is vaping less harmful than smoking, and does it help people quit? in ~health
plutonic Link ParentI slowly went from ~1pack/day of cigarettes down to 4-5/day, then switched to vaping, then finally one day I dropped my vape on the ground and broke it and I said right then and there I was done....I slowly went from ~1pack/day of cigarettes down to 4-5/day, then switched to vaping, then finally one day I dropped my vape on the ground and broke it and I said right then and there I was done. It was the ritual of going out to have a vape right before bed and sitting around bored I would often reach for my vape that was hard. These cravings lasted for a few months and now, a couple years later I rarely get cravings and they are very minor. The best part is other people smoking/vaping do not cause any sort of craving.
I think I was addicted to the habit more than I was the nicotine. I mean, should I have even really been considered a 'smoker' at 4-5/day? I spent years at that rate. I also didn't experience any of the positive symptoms of quitting like people claim, my sense of smell did not change and I actually found vaping weed (my real vice) harder as it felt like my lungs were weaker... obviously this is not actually a bad thing but it still feels that way.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
plutonic (edited )Link ParentAre you a wizard? I literally pulled 'Remains of the Day' off my shelf last night as my next read before I descend into Moby Dick for the rest of the winter months. I'm really a huge fan of...Are you a wizard? I literally pulled 'Remains of the Day' off my shelf last night as my next read before I descend into Moby Dick for the rest of the winter months. I'm really a huge fan of Russian Lit. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev ect. Also a fan of Modernism in the vain of Faulkner and Woolf. For hard realism I love the french stuff, Zola and Balzac, Balzac wrote an 89 volume series 'La Comédie humaine' and I'm pretty sure you can pick up any one of those 89 books and it will be great. So far all the ones I have collected and randomly read have been. I loved Stoner and I have also read his book 'Butcher's Crossing' and it was great. I recently read Patrick White's 'Riders in the Chariot' and really liked it. William Styron, Thomas Mann, Steinbeck (I've also read most of this works), Orwell, Nabokov, Hardy, Eliot (Middlemarch is a masterpiece) Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux, Conrad (I have read almost everything by Conrad). I could go on and on but I'm here at work and can't write comments all day :)
Why I love Moby Dick, and why you should too.
Moby Dick. It is huge. It is dense. It is dripping with allegory, symbolism, and philosophy. It often slips into an archaic biblical cadence. Encyclopedic. Boring. Hilarious. Homoerotic. What more can a reader ask for?
The first time I read Moby Dick I struggled but made it through. I was expecting worse out of the encyclopedic chapters. I had prepared myself for worse. I knew something weird was going on. 'The Whiteness of the Whale' chapter really stood out as strange. It felt like the most important chapter. Was it just because the book was old that he got some of that stuff about whales wrong? It does not take much searching to find out that Melville should have known better.
Someone told me I should check out the lectures by Hubert Dreyfus on Moby Dick. These are nothing short of amazing and really opened the whole book up for me. I knew the pop culture understanding of the whale as allegory for the unknowability of existence and Ahab on a quest for meaning that does not exist. I was not aware of how deeply Melville wove that into the book. Dreyfus knows a lot about Moby Dick. It is impressive.
Call me Ishmael. Right from the first line, this person is a mystery. Ishmael? From the Bible? So we are not going to learn this person’s real name. He largely does not exist as a character in the action. He acts instead as a sort of lens through which we see the ship and its characters, especially Ahab. I do not think there is any other way to experience Ahab than through the lens of someone else. Nothing would make sense if told from Ahab’s perspective. Ishmael seems to embody the mystery of life. He revels in it, seeming to follow many mantras at the same time. He watches, listens, and records. He can be seen as a sort of anti-Ahab. Ahab tries to control the world. Ishmael tries to understand it.
Ahab. Insane. Monomaniacally driven to disaster. A whale bit off his fucking leg. This is not cool and he does not take it well. A whale does not just bite off someone’s leg and that is that. There must be an explanation, some reason for this act.
“The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies. But of all this, the Whale itself knew nothing.”
Melville makes a point to say the whale is indifferent. This drives Ahab completely insane. His war is against the indifference of the universe. What a character Melville has written here. He is a living myth. He does not even appear until Chapter 28. It is Shakespearean the way Melville delays his entry. Melville gives him just enough self-awareness to make him tragic instead of cartoonish.
The whale. White. The representation of all possible meanings, all wavelengths blended together in a polyphony of concurrent meaning. Also nothingness. No meaning. A blank. Ahab obsessively tries to force meaning onto this beast right up to his final moment, trying to force himself in front of the whale and failing. He is killed not by the whale’s intention, but by his own attachment. Then the whale just swims off and
“The great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."
In the end the color of the whale is more important than the whale itself.
A Squeeze of the Hand.
"Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness."
Published in 1851. You read this chapter and tell me what you think. I am not sure what is going on here. It is very mysterious, but so is the whole book. Homoerotic without any doubt.
Encyclopedia Dick. Some of these chapters are really tough. I hope you really like whales and whaling because you are about to learn a lot. But pay attention because there are gross errors ahead. You realize he has spent chapter upon chapter detailing whales and yet in regard to Moby Dick you have learned nothing at all. Do you think Melville did this on purpose to show us that no matter how many facts about whales or the world you learn, no actual meaning can be derived from those facts?
Just an example of the unparalleled quality of the prose. This is the scene where Pip drowns.
“Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.”
Great moments in the book off the top of my head: Ishmael in bed with Queequeg. The sermon. Pip drowning. The bird at the end. The Whiteness of the Whale. Jonah.
Favourite line: "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."