The Transcription and Summarization Episode: LLMs, Modems, Magic, Technology, Infinite Toys, Change, Promises, Reality, Tascam, Amiga, Manuals, Summarization, Weird But Tireless, Always a Revolution.
Some quick thoughts on the world of LLMs as they start entering my life (and many others) from the point of view of a half century of technology.
The UMATIC Gems Episode: A Small Hot Room, The Mechanisms, The Robots, 40-50 Years, Sony and From Another World, Tensions and Read Heads, Tapes and Decay, The Lifespan, The Future, The Joy of Saving, The Potentials and Possibilities, Mark Pines.
A rumination on the UMATIC tape decks in my office, which are large, loud and hot.
The Bad Review Episode: 2 Stars Out of 5, Bad Cinematography and No Effort, The Timeline of the BBS Documentary, Choices Made, Experiences Lived, 10 to 15 Minutes, A Crew of One, The Unknown End, The Results, GET LAMP, Your Project's Future.
A rumination on a 2/5 review I got in 2017 on Amazon for the BBS Documentary. Believe me, I'm quite sure the BBS Documentary is quite fine, but it was nice to remember how weird and unknown the project started out as.
The Appreciation For Spaces Episode: A Moment of Recognition, A Time of Containment, The Best Separation, Thanks to Sponsorship and Gifts, The Rooms I've Travelled, A Consistency of Inconsistency, A Moment For You.
Perhaps a well-needed acknowledgement of the time of the moment where I have a lovely office to do my work and get things done.
Thanks, by the way, to FAXZERO.COM who throw money each month so I can stream from the office without sweating rent as much.
The Industrial Spaces Episode: Hurricane Electric, Ikea Paramus, Customers and Hybrid Customers, Beach Chairs, 19-Inch Racks, Content Delivery Networks, Approaches to Space and Cost, New York Conveyor Basements, Payments in Pain. And Mangoes.
A rumination on a few industrial spaces I recently spent time in, as well as a greater and perhaps too-late respect for the costs of poor environments.
The Teraleak Episode: The Occasion of the Teraleak, Testflight and Test Flight, 9 Years, The Leap Between Communities, The Result, The Press, The Future Fallout, Meaning of a Leak, Meaning to Archive Team, A Wish For More.
You can be excused if you missed the short wonder of the "Teraleak", where some Archive Team project sat quietly for nine years before being announced as the greatest single thing ever. Here's my more cogent thoughts about it after dealing with the initial panic.
The CLIVE Episode: Introduction To The CLIVE, Our High School Parents, Not Just a Salesman, Where Are They Sitting, Working With The CLIVE, Lessons and Learning, The Other End of Layoffs, Reading the Room, Thanks To The CLIVE, A Final Domain Gift.
Memories and thoughts about THE CLIVE, the father of one of my high school friends, who was the best salesman I ever met.
The Voice Quality Episode: A Very Bad Idea, Public Speaking, My Thoughts on Audience, The Unspoken Guarantee, Sickness and Health, Voice and Articulation, The Roads Not Taken, Finding Your Voice.
Some ruminations on my speaking voice, and qualities and issues related to it.
The Learning Process Episode: My Extreme Oscillation in Learning, Why I Learned The Way I Did, BBSes and Textfiles, Where This Worked, Fastest Temp, The Non-Threat of Failure, The Narrative, What Has Changed.
A rumination on my personal learning process and where it has gotten better (or not) and why I think that it all worked out, ultimately.
The Japanese Spaces Episode: Trip to Japan, Verticality, Variation, Most Favorite Small Spaces, 20 In An Alley, Specifics, The Draw of Control, The Theme, The Full Story.
A rumination on very small spaces in Japan, where I see the tradeoff of intense theming and tiny spaces, and how I take that feeling home.
So, I thought it would be "cute" to do a two-part podcast about my voice, while suffering from voice loss due to a cold.
It's not cute. It sounds grating, scratchy, and I know I'm doing some real rough stuff to my throat.
So, I'm only able to do two episodes this month. They were recorded before I really went south.
Instead, my current plan is to do five episodes in December and January, keeping the "once a week" even though they're a little bit late. I hope people understand. If this represents a hardship for you to pay for five episodes instead of four in a month, communicate with me.
Thanks for your understanding.
And now, Mangos.
I got spam some time ago asking me if I wanted Mangos, and that a reputable Mango supplier in India could provide me Mangos by the truckload. For reasons that are hazy now, I felt like responding in the affirmative, that I really wanted to know more about the mangos. This led to the resulting photos, of the mango production facility and the workers doing mango-related work. While I'm unlikely to go ahead with Mango Acquisition, it's a reminder how there are people behind everything, even, sometimes, Mango Spam.
Patreon just changed a mass of things from the creator side of the site, and with that upheaval comes a notable and increasing chance for things to get weird indeed. I'll keep you informed if I see anything change out from under me, and feel free to warn me if you're getting odd differences in the user interface or, really, anything else.
2023-11-01 02:17:47 +0000 UTC View Post
The Time Bandits Episode: The Dutchess Mall, Movies 4, Suburbia Boring/Excellence, Chaotic Universe, Surpreme Being, Great Evil, Foundations, Portals of BBSes, Robbery of Textfiles, Before It's All Ruined.
A short meditation on one of my favorite films, Time Bandits (1981) before a remake arrives. I have many movies that I enjoy, but this is a movie that formed a big part of my worldview when I saw it for the first time as an 11 year old.
The Constant Contact Episode: Why People Write In, Repeats, Questions, Meaning, Culture, Context, Contact, Response, Arms Open Wide.
Just some thoughts on how many times I find myself brought into conversations where anyone mentions anything about materials that might need a home. It's probably impossible to filter and tune awareness of when I should be brought in, but I thought I'd try.
The Modern Medicine Episode: Feeling Unwell, Emergency Drive, Portable X-Ray, The App, The Doctors, The Information, The Sense of Well-Being In Mystery, Four Figures.
A small visit to the emergency room reminds me how much more amazing medical experiences can be now, even if they cost you.
The Atari Font Episode: Atari Microcomputers, Dark Rooms, Curtains and Shades, Customizing Fonts, Creating Games, Unfulfilled Goals, Unfinished Plans, Rescue from Darkness, The Real Reason for Atari Fonts, A River of Nostalgia and Memory.
Some thoughts on my love of Atari and specifically, why I thought escape came in the form of Atari Customized Fonts.
If you suddenly feel you need truetype versions of Atari Fonts, here's a great selection of them:
https://github.com/a8bit/EightBit-Atari-Fonts
The Nostalgic Web Episode: Ingestion Thoughts, Early Web, Something Lost, Wandering Through Memories, The Early Web, The Lost Form, Expensive and Exclusive, BBS Versus Web, Reality, Mirroring Ourselves, An Evolution.
A rumination on the early Web and what that even means to me, looking back, along with the folly of trying to put myself in the mindset of the way things worked back then. As a bonus, a recognition of just how exclusive it all was.
To me, the two peaks of the early web will be SUCK and CAMWORLD. You can see them (sort of) at the Wayback machine here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000302182418/http://www.suck.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20000905161549/http://www.camworld.com/
You probably have your own.
The Deep Image Analysis Episode: The Fun Toy, The Advancements, Apple II Crack Screens, Transcriptions, A Held Out Hand, The Dark Cloud, A Lifetime of Scanning, The Advantages, The Wishful Thinking, A Critical Thinking Requirement.
Thoughts on deep image analysis, which I've been experimenting with and which has been producing amazing results, but is anything amazing anymore without concerns following soon behind?
The Hacking Museum Episode: Friends Bringing Up A Museum, What Is a Museum, What Is Hacking, How Do You Start, The Fundamentals, The Extras, Before You Hire a Staff, Hacking Stories and Lore, Mobile or Static, The Possible Real Hacking Museum.
Some pals of mine were talking with me about a hacking museum, and this was something that I was supposed to write a big document about, like an assessment, but maybe a podcast episode is all it needs to be.
The Eyeball Difficulties Episode: A Ring of Light, An Emergency Ophthalmologist, Posterior Vitreous Detachment, Eyeball Tubes, an Unfortunate Curtain, Into the Laser With Remaining Eye, Pancakes, Equilibrium, Next Steps, The Things Seen, A Community of Eyeballs, A Vision for Gratefulness.
This episode discusses medical conditions with an eye. If that's not your thing, then be aware that as of this writing, my eyeball is currently stabilized and find. (Skip ahead to other "Eye" episodes to see if something changed.)I've learned more about eyes in a week than a whole lifetime before that. Eyes are amazing.
If you were sent mail about episodes for this month, I've just deleted them and will be reposting them now.
Patreon changed the look of the website and the functionality of a bunch of things, and the "Charge For This Post" setting has the absolute lightest box to click, almost an anti-pattern, and with my eye troubles I didn't notice it. That's fixed now and the proper posts will come in and work. Thanks for understanding.
This Patreon system is getting upgrades and offering all sorts of silly ancillary ways to grab your audience and shake them upside down for pennies. One of them is a "shop".
What would I sell in a shop? Best answers get compliments.
2023-09-28 20:12:50 +0000 UTC View Post
The Media Burnout Episode: A Confession of Disinterest, A Lifetime of Media, The 14 Hour Episode, How It Once Was, The Top Shelf Mistake, Sturgeon's Law, Manga Forever, Other Interests, Word of Mouth Again.
A rumination on the fact that I've fallen off watching the sheer cliff of media experience that is being held out for me, in favor of simple sorting and working. Maybe it'll come back, but for now, here's some thoughts on what that all might mean.
The Power Wash Simulator Episode: Not Just Battle Royale, Power Wash Simulator, Plot and Intrigue, The Basic Idea, Angle of Attack, Parts Within Parts, The Urge to Clean and Make Things Better, A Messy Childhood, A Small Defined Zen Joy.
Power Wash Simulator is a game/adventure where you have a power washer and everything needs cleaning. Either you're hooked or you're running away, but either way I thought I'd mention why I'm playing it to the end.
The Manuals, Manuals, Manuals! Episode: Heading Out To Deal With Manuals Plus, The Manuals Plus Saga, The Latest Part, The Digital Manuals, Aesthetic And Information, My Great Manual Sorting Screwup, Brands and Flibberjibbits, The Future Holds. Plus: The Facade of Brands.
Lots of thoughts about two parallel projects: The Manuals Plus Loadout, now about to get a lovely upgrade, and the Manuals Collection at Internet Archive, which is getting an upgrade of its own.
The Cheshire Catalyst Episode: The Brightest Smile, A Long History, TAP Magazine, 2600 Magazine, HOPE Conferences, A Late Start, No Sleep, Close to the Edge, 3-2-1, Space Hobo, A Chance To Remember.
Some thoughts about Cheshire Catalyst, a hacker who had a lovely history and who is gone, leaving behind memories and smiles.
The Configuration Episode: Two Configuration Aspects, The Rotating Bulletin Board System, Arcade Fidonet, Power-Switch-Rotation, What Was I Thinking, Happy Life / Lack of Strife, USENET Groups and Configuration, Works Or No Works, Cancelmoose, ROFLCon Panel, I Call Upon My Brain.
I noticed I've been getting heavy the last few episodes, so here's a geek waterfall of the ups and downs of configuration, from my teens and twenties.
My memories of the ROFLCon Panel:
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2565
The Digital Faith Episode: Obsession and Storage, To-Dos in a Dining Room, The Path from Analog to Digital, The Fight for Perfection, The Battles and Triumphs, Chapter and Verse, Passages to The Light, Losing a Taste for Conflict, The Fan Mail.
Some ruminations of how digitization is digitization and what matters is we get the bits.
The Mister Jangles Option Episode.
In which your ol' pal Mister Jangles throws you a possible lifeline.
The Data Dirigibles Collection: Prehistoric TEXTFILES.COM, The Cry of the Leech, TEXTFILES.COM Comes to Pass, Downloading Archives, Downloading More Archives, Kilo Mega Giga Tera, TEXTFILES TIME CAPSULE, What Persists, The Unpretty But Surviving Clump, Slash Internetarchive, Slash Internet, Software Capsules, Ace and I Ride High
An episode about my idea that the future is just massive balls of data, floating airships of content that float slowly through our virtual sky. Let's see if I'm right. Meanwhile, come browse the capsules at:
https://archive.org/details/softwarecapsules