markjgsmith

2024/06/19 #

• I forget which podcast I heard this on, likely a recent What Bitcoin Did episode, the idea that the best way to structure the economy might be a mixture of right and left depending on the situation. Some things, the thinking goes, are best run in a more collective socialist way, like health care and telephone / internet networks, whereas the startup scene is perhaps better suited to an approach that would be considered more right wing, with less government. I thought that was an interesting idea. #

• The bullies are at it again. Several more unprovoked 'Pay!' harrassment incidents. Also the police seem to be making a point of passing by where I am. At least 4 or 5 walkby and drivebys in the past 24 hours. That's very unusual. It's intimidation plain and simple. I'm tired of constantly going over every damn interaction to try and figure out what if anything went wrong. It's never ending. It's the last damn thing in the world I need right now. If anyone is stealing from anyone, it's most definitely the world stealing from me. Constantly.

  Here‘s a typical chain of events that happens. It's not a perfect description, each time it's slightly different, but this should give you a relatively good idea what sort of thing happens each time.

  • They manufacture situations, to make it look like you did something bad, when you in fact did nothing of the sort
  • When you protest, they say 'we learn'
  • If you don't protest they escallate and escallate
  • And actually even when they say 'we learn', they end up escallating anyway
  • Then they say you have to learn
  • And eventually it's such a cauldron of hate in every direction they just blame you for everything
  • Then you get mutilated, actual physical mutilation of your body
  • Then it starts all over again

  It's like every situation is in some way ambiguous, but it's done like that on purpose. The various sets of folks react differently. You've got those that are blaming you for doing something bad, then those that appologise, then those that are saying the entire thing was some sort of learning thing, then the blammers turn back up and they are blaming you even more, and then a bunch of people are saying it's just a big joke, but is it really, yes it is, no it isn't, and 'yah!', and 'lie!', and things get dangerous, and innevitably you get mutilated.

  And all the while they are starving and thirsting you on and off, anger goading you, food and water goading you. It's just a full on assault from all directions everywhere you go. But maybe it's nothing, and remember, be happy.

  And that’s not even saying anything about the weird as fuck synchronicities that are constantly happening whenever you do anything like listening to podcasts, browse the internet or even write code. The entire freaking world seems like a malicious dystopian panopticon AI algorithm orchestrated version of the Truman show, probably running on fucking Etherium. Plot twist, it's actually running on Bitcoin, and it’s even fucking worse. #

• cat << EOF > The UK, the EU, podcasting and AI

  It's the year of elections, with the EU having just had their big election event, the UK about to have theirs in July, France at around the same time, and there's also the US. Elections are happening everywhere it seems. I'm usually not that interested in elections, but for some reason this year I have been. I think that's because the dynamics are genuinely quite exciting at the minute, with big shifts in opinion, economic conditions and ongoing wars causing geo-political forces to be very strained.

  It's also been the first real EU election that didn't include the UK. Ironically enough, I think that's also caused many in the UK to become more intetested in the politics happening across the waters and througout the continent. I've learnt really quite a lot about central and eastern europe just reading round ups of what's been going on in each country. It's rather fascinating, no less because the EU is so big these days.

  But the other big thing that's changed in recent years is that podcasting has become very popular, almost mainstream. People are able to have access to a much broader set of media sources, much of it created by non government groups or independants. I've been listening to politcs discussions all throughout the Bitcoin scene on podcasts like What Bitcoin Did, Crypto Voices and Bankless, the Peter St Onge Podcast and of course great discussions and interviews on the All-in podcast. But also, more recently on podcasts like the Rest is Politics and the Rest is Money. It feels like a genuinely different environment than back when Brexit happened.

  The other big change is clearly the AI and LLM revolution that's happenned over the past couple of years. If the rise of podcasting has significantly changed the environment, and in my opinion it has, then how different will things be after a few more years of exponential advances in AI tech?

  In the Uk, some pundits are predicting that the Conservative party will have their biggest election loss in over 100 years. That's pretty massive, but it's even more massive considering that the rest of the EU has been going in the total opposite direction, with the political right and extreme right gaining huge ground.

  What a strange time for this to be happening. It occurred to me earlier that such a big election defeat, at the very moment powerful AI tools are being democratized, could be a lethal blow to the Conservatives. What if they never recover?

  EOF

• Just started getting the dreaded "This device may not be supported" error message when I try to charge my iOS device from my backup battery. Come on world, seriously?

  I guess you've started another mutilation cycle then. Back on the warpath again world are you?

  Update: As I sat here finishing typing this note, the old lady that leaves garbage in her trail, and has been hanging around like a bad omen the past few weeks, and constantly warpathing, walked / hobbled past with her walking stick, and said simply 'Up!'. World is back on the warpath big time.

  I hope you find your way off the warpath you are on world. #

• World continues to be on the warpath. It's new favorite thing is pepering small groups of 2-3 people along any route I am walking, who appear to be just having a normal conversation. Then as I pass them, one of the gang says 'Pay!' loudly.

  I say they appear to be having a normal conversation, but that's not entirely true. Everytime something seems off about them. They somehow stick out like a sore thumb. I think it's because unlike a regular group of people having a chat, they're attention is actually focussed on me approaching. That makes their interaction seem off in some way that you instinctively notice.

  This sort of anger goading will continue and escallate for the rest of the day. They have already decided that I'm to blame for something, they just have to find what that is. #

• It's abundantly clear that everything I do is tracked here. It's not clear exactly by who, same as the gang stalkers, you never really know who is doing it. Just some amorphous anonomous gang of folks. A lot of the constant bullying they do is subtle in nature, passive aggressive if you will. One thing they definitely do is play with smells.

  At the internet place where I get online, I find that whenever I discover a new food dish, then the very next day, the smell of exactly that same food suddenly appears at the internet place. This has hapenned many many times at this stage. Most recently it's been with:

  • The red sauce spicey chicken balzack from GS25 store
  • Rogan spicey noodles
  • Yogurt and sweet fruit desert street food

  But it's happened with so many more things that I've lost count. Each time I discover something new, or change my pattern and start eating something that I hadn't had for a while, almost immediately that smell appears at the internet place. It's like clockwork.

  The people near the internet place are always barking orders at me, in ever more sly and devious ways. Using smells is just another example of the same thing. I imagine they likely have a saying they say to themselves, something like "Always be ordering". Ultimately it's just another example of warpathing. #

Today’s links:

• Postgres is all you need, even for vectors - I don't have a ton of experience with postgres, however if you can simplify your setup by just having 1 database, things will be much easier. Looks like you can do vector db stuff with postgres by just adding some plugins. I guess the implication is that it could be used for AI / LLMs workloads? It's not specifically mentioned. anyblockers.com #

• Good code is rarely read - Not the best article title, the thesis is that you shouldn't need to read good code much because it's so effortless to read and understand it. Sounds simple enough but it's actually really difficult to write code that's easy to read, especially on larger code bases. www.alexmolas.com #

• New Post: The UK, the EU, podcasting and AI markjgsmith.com #

• Nvidia passes Microsoft in market cap to become most valuable public company - The new dynamic among the top spots is interesting. Nvidia is more similar to Apple than Microsoft since it's trying control the entire stack. It's good that not all the top companies are full stack, but I think it would be interesting to have a top company that was full stack and building exclusively open source software. And for that matter a purely software company that was all open source. I wonder if that's even possible. www.cnbc.com #