Posts in: Journal

Total Cost of AI?

I was listening to the latest episode of The Important Thing, where they meander around the implications of generative AI. One form of the question they articulated was what happens when stuff is cheaply generated for, as I heard it, by such AIs and for everyone. The question that came to mind for me was: is it even cheap? I don’t know. I haven’t done my homework, so I am speaking for myself in articulating this question — I have a vague sense of recently seeing some reporting on energy usage by these breakthrough AIs (one reason they’re in the cloud is it isn’t practical to run this client-side, they need the cloud)… but I don’t know the particulars, or how it compares to say, crypto mining.

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Trying to build my first iOS app (again). SwiftUI this time. I figure I don’t have the baggage of other frameworks, and I don’t yet know what I’m missing either.

Here's a tip

Regarding the Towson Apple Store union request to allow tipping (via Macrumors): As someone who both is pro-union (union family, and while I’ve never had a union job, I have thrown the IWW a few bucks) and a former Apple Store employee, I agree with John Gruber. Tipping is a bad look, even as a sacrificial negotiation point. Tip culture is obnoxious (and confusing). Demand better pay, more time off, and just tell me what the price of the damn computer is.

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Some nights it is just our cat and me. I, sipping some whisky; him, staring into dark shadows of the alley, tracking the rats.

I was going to write something pithy, maybe slightly trite, which I thought to be true.

I recognized some complications and the pithy thing became definitely trite and untrue. I also realized I am not in a mood, or perhaps the mode, to try to share the more complicated rendition of the thing I thought worth sharing.

Still in sponge mode, and running a little dry.

I regret never having sent a real telegram while I could have.

About to put this device down.

I am rewatching the Bourne films as they popped-up on Netflix for me. I had to replay multiple segments because I was also trawling Mastodon and my RSS reader.

I remember when I’d pool my few dollars with friends and rent a VHS or two, hit up the pharmacy for some Mountain Dew and Dots, and watch the movies end-to-end with full attention. Then, we’d go upstairs to go sign-on to the Internet. (After making sure everyone else was asleep or at least didn’t need the phone, of course.)

My toddler received a STEM “certificate” from the LEGO education booth at the White House Easter Egg Roll with the slogan “rebuild our world” (it was a hashtag actually). My mind went to a dark place … he might just have to.

We’ve got the kiddo sleeping in his own bed again, mostly. He still needs some company (or, we offer it because it gets short term results) before he really falls asleep. As I was laying in the dark next to him, thinking he was almost out, I popped-in an earbud. I re-started a podcast. Something made me snicker to myself.

He angled his head over near mine and put his lips to my ear. “What’s so silly, Daddy?” he whispered.

I told him he was. True enough.