62 - Mayday, Eclipse and Coronation
🇪🇸 Mayday came and went this week relatively uneventfully here in Palma. It was nice weather and many places were closed so the few that were open were pretty busy! The boat show has been ongoing here but I did not seem to get any invitations and we didn't bring our yacht so we have not ventured into that.
Continuing our exploration of Palma, V and I checked out the great sports and leisure facilities here in town. Noteworthy among them include the Tennis Club (next door), Queens Center and Deva Yoga Shala. An advantage of being a global traveller is that you get to experience, compare and contrast all of these and meet all the interesting people therein!
The lunar eclipse and coronation are ahead this coming weekend - decide yourself what that implies - I see plenty of ritualistic opportunity that will likely become clear(er) with a little hindsight. For example, you might recall that on the lunar eclipse in May last year Terra Luna collapsed and on the lunar eclipse last November FTX collapsed. There does seem to be rather a lot of collapsing going on these days so nothing would surprise me! Recall our previous discussion on this topic. Jordan's expectation is here.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) - you really ought to be aware
My focus this week is to help you understand the developments that are happening in the AI space. You may well have heard of ChatGPT but thought it irrelevant or something that you would never encounter. Think again - it is but one of a whole slew of AI related products that are already transforming many so-called "white collar" areas and the speed of change is increasing.
- Programming - ChatGPT is happy to give you steps to take to learn programming and it will suggest an outline learning journey with pointers to readily available source material. But it can do much more - just ask it to write any program for you in any language and it will do it. When you copy the code to your computer and try to run it you will likely encounter errors; just tell ChatGPT those errors and it will tell you how to solve them and get it working. Be amazed. See one example here and listen to TechLead give his opinion. Mind-blowing!
- Art and Photography used to be space reserved for people with special talents and time. You will be amazed by the current state of StableDiffusion and MidJourney - just two examples of AI in this area. Watch Matt explain how to use ChatGPT to write prompts for MidJourney here. For those who want to run their own instance of StableDiffusion Laura shows you how to install this on Google CoLab for free as well!
- Music is also an industry that is being and will be further challenged by AI developments. Listen here to IAMLXGEND explain how he uses multiple AI tools to make his music. It is refreshing to hear how some will see this as an opportunity - he does not want to be a dinosaur! A fascinating video!
- Language learning - being here in Spain I was wondering if this might be possible and how to go about it. Well, listen to Jerry explain to you how to install voice input and output to ChatGT with a couple of clicks and then learn your chosen language. Like him, I think the second option is the better one - the additional controls help. He has a follow-up video explaining how to do this too on your phone.
- Learn anything - Bri explains to you how she uses AI to help her learn anything!
- For creators in general listen to this selection of 10 tools that might well give you a productivity and idea boost - be amazed.
- Lastly, consider NLW's recent discussion with Annie; impressive as this is it obviously has some "trainer wheels" and constraints in place. At the current pace of development expect those to be removed in short order.
Do you begin to see how much this challenges everything you may have believed to be true? Not only does this technology give you the ability to learn faster and better than all of the traditional education methods but it also is getting to the point where it obviates the need for you to learn a skill; it will just do it for you!
There are many traditional "knowledge work" professions that this technology will transform faster than you can ever imagine. Listen to this extract from recent All-In-Podcast where the hosts (all Silicon Valley VCs) talk about some of their ideas and what they envisage as the implications.
You might want to pause and reflect on the above - what are you going to do with this knowledge and these tools? Will you just ignore it all or will you leverage some to your advantage?
More in this issue
- Photo memories from around Palma this week
- Project Updates - Pablo and his developments amaze me
- Plenty of useful links - don't say nobody told you!
- Closing out with a progress report and some ideas
🛠️ Project Updates
First update this week is a fascinating interview of PabloF7z by gSovereignty. This is a wide-ranging discussion covering covid-time realisations and sovereignty decisions that I certainly resonate with. He is also a passionate and extraordinarily prolific software developer. You can check out his many recent developments.
During the interview they also talk quite extensively about World-Travelling with plenty of tips, tricks and experiences. This is certainly something I can identify with and it seems that more and more of us are choosing this - for rather obvious reasons!
BTW: The book they discuss is indeed a seminal work - albeit not for the faint-hearted! Click below.
Additional links: The free pdf, The Spotify audiobook, The mp3 audiobook, The paperback and Kindle and The wiki.
Next I have got to include this superb discussion hosted by NVK with a number of the key Nostr developers and supporters. If you ever wondered what it would be like to be in a high-powered team design review - this is it! Enjoy...
You will get solid insight into some of the most talked-about and currently controversial changes in the Nostr world and you will see that making the right decisions on these things is not always as obvious as you might imagine. The joy of open source project life...
🔗 Links for your edification
Andrew clearly summarises what so many think - hard to disagree with any of this.
Jeff and Peter have some fairly straight talking. You will recall that I too am a fan of Jeff's book The Price of Tomorrow. Suffice to say, Jeff seems to have been right about all he wrote in that book back in Jan 2020.
Next up is a most thought-provoking read of Knut Svanholm's Alchemy - Everything Divided By 21 Million read by Guy. This did make me think back to Aesop's Fables - we have talked before about how essential wisdom has been there for all to see (and many even know the stories) but most will fail to make the connections.
The weekly Glassnode market summaries are well worth a watch. It is fascinating to see how all this on-chain information enables you to gain insights to the behaviour of the players that make up the market.
This is a most interesting interview by NLW: Des Dickerson is the CEO of THNDR Games that build online games with Bitcoin as the underlying money and rewards infrastructure. I do rather agree that this will be one of the use-cases that brings widespread use as more and more people wake up to how corruptible and corrupt Web3 is.
Maverick asks a few good questions on that "Dazed and Confused" performance and it should be well apparent: when you are in a hole, stop digging! I really have to admire his insights, experience and a superb sense of humour! What do you think of his suggestion?
James is similarly skeptical about JP's performance and what is next. Interesting too to listen to Andrew H's view with all of his relevant experience. And Greg Foss is clear and outspoken as ever on KitCo. Maverick's EOD Thursday update is equally clear and he highlights how wrongheaded the regulatory thinking be might be.
The girlz are back!
For whatever reason (perhaps in contrast to our mediterranean lifestyle here in Mallorca?) these girlz popped up in my feeds : whatever - what fun!
WildBeare lives in Wales UK and recently took advantage of a cold snap to go out solo camping in the snow!
Not to be outdone, Rirang goes out to do something similar in Korea taking advantage of a rather chilly Siberian Blast. She really does seem to enjoy that homemade alcohol drink and the pork belly with kimchi!
🤔 Closing Thoughts
We have talked about how people are standing up and pushing back on the nonsense (and ultimately repressive) regulations that are being introduced. Happily there is quite some awakening taking place.
Thanks to UK Column and the Thetford residents for this clear summary of how they are making a positive difference.
Richard asks a few good questions - I guess by the time you read this the answers should be clear(er).... or perhaps not?
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