i recently signed up to try the Opal app for which I’d seen many ads on my Instagram feed. The app essentially puts your own smartphone into parental guidance mode, and lets you lock yourself out of social media (or any other) apps for blocks of time. I had found that I was spending more …
Author Archives: cafedave
pause
Spent some time this week slowed down and trying to reset. It was good going to a retreat centre for a couple of nights to spend some slow time. I probably rate myself a B- for my efforts at slowing down; what should have been a season of silence and solitude was interrupted with podcasts …
book: Fahrenheit 451
Reading a blog post from danah boyd I realised I’d never read Fahrenheit 451, so I borrowed the audiobook from my local library using Libby and worked through it during my holiday downtime (mostly dog-walking) over the last couple of days. The irony of listening to an audiobook while hearing about a world constantly distracted …
slowing
I’m currently in the middle of some annual leave, in the perhaps unwise situation of having a work meeting in the middle of my leave. It’s a familiar journey from being in the midst of work-mindset to being able to relax, but I find myself trying to score the level of relaxation that I’m achieving, …
A range of AI resources
So many different websites and newsletters jumping on “generative AI’s” hype cycle at the moment. A course I completed recently made a range of resources available and I wanted to put them in one place. The intriguing sounding “Hugging Face” shows a range of different approaches to high-speed use of AI tech, along with the …
competitive hotdog eating
Some of the horrors that professional hot dog eaters put themselves through. [via flowing data]
Convergence of digital marketing approaches
I woke up early today to dial into a webinar for a product that claimed to be able to revolutionise my productivity. It’s the season for such things, the Christmas to New Year lull, where approaches to work are up for review more than at other times of year. It was a ninety minute webinar …
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Death of the college essay
An article in The Atlantic, considering the quality of essay output that AI can make, reflects on the stasis of the humanities over the last 40-odd years and suggests a way forward. Have we under-valued a broad education in a range of disciplines, and are now reaping what we have sowed?
Escherian stairwell
Learning about the legendary Escherian Stairwell at RIT. [via farnam street brain food]
What I learned trying to fly a plane
There’s a scene in Get Smart where Max fights with the KAOS agents while they’re on a plane. It turns out that both of the pilots on the plane were agents, and Max comes back to the passengers and asks “does anyone know how to land a four-engine jet?” And that was the premise for …