there's a lot of computer power going to waste
at the moment, isn't there? Devices in every pocket. Work
laptops and desktops. Under-utilized servers.
Whether it's computational or disc space or even bandwidth. Is there a
way to harness that?
If there were it'd probably just be used to power another fucking LLM.
I guess it's not the existence of the hardware that's an issue there,
so much as the cost of doing the computations. And the necessity for
speed. That's an unlikely fit.
but for other tasks.
Has it not been done because there is no use for it, or because
there is no value in it?
distributed computing for the public
Really not much to be found outside of a few old projects and ideas.
SETI@Home still cropping up in the first results. I remember that
One of those people
One of those people who seem to take up a lot of space while they sit
quietly, observing all around them
Dropping little insights but trailing off before the good bits. Aloof.
Never quite engaging.
Reminding me of those guys I used to fall in love with. Only this time
I’m wise to that. Or perhaps I expect too much of my progress
Is this something perceived by all around
or just myself
that his next thought
should ever find a way to me
Next time
Next time
Look into their eyes
Not a lover, not a friend
Not another
This time
Through those eyes
Through your own
The same
Have I been afraid
Have I been afraid?
it’s not right to say
I don’t care
I have romantic notions
of revolutions and revelations
and spiritual awakenings
into worlds where we work
only to provide and strive
only to be here
but now at the end of the day
it’s harder to say
for sure that I would
I would give it all up
and risk this sort
of relative contentment
for something in a dream
that looked like the way
we could be
but it’s not me.
I don’t know,
it’s not me.
what I am
what I am
this experience of moments
from particular perspectives
perhaps there is none without the rest
no self to exist without the circumstance
or what I am not
You look through it all
You look through it all
Over and inside out
You’ve seen it a million times before
And you can’t put it down
Not yet
From this side it tugs
From that side pushes back
But not yet
You turn it over and look
A million times more
I wanted to write about life itself but I didn’t feel I had the
authority. I started anyway, scribbling some words in the pocket
notebook, as though a poem in a haphazard sort of way :
from the very air
we exist
inhalation forming
and reforming, exhaled
to the very air
we exist
It’s a difficult subject and I’m not a poet so that’s about as far as
I got. The words form the correct narrative, more or less, but it
reads terribly. Stilted and odd.
The desire to convey a sort of visual or experiential simile for
existence sticks with me, so I’m going to try it again without the
requirements for poetry, or for anything else :
A life can be imagined as a breath. A lifetime’s experience of
consciousness and awareness is a reaction, as though a reaction by the
air itself to the very act of being formed, existing, and being
unformed as a single breath. A life or breath is made individual
through this process of being pulled from the vastness of it all.
Finally and always exhaled, there is no ending or death to speak of
only the merging and rejoining of the individual back into the air and
into life itself.
Just like the breath, your life and mine have a beginning and an end
and a transforming, ever-forward, unique and individual experience
in-between these two absolutes.
Just like the breath, we are from the vastness of life itself and to
that vastness we will eventually return.
And just like the breath, in the here and the now our only requirement
is to be.
A single breath has many characteristics, some desirable and some
sometimes not, but every breath need only to be a breath to be a
precious and wonderful thing.
Just like life. Simply to be here is not only enough, it’s the entire
answer.
unpacking
unpacking
unravelling
travelling toward
a moment of interpretation
a point where we meet
a time
we find ourselves
we find
each other
meditation
a thought came to me
during meditation
as it tends to do
and I saw it there floating
contained in front of me
like a sphere
or a void not lived within
a vast expanse
where I swim
She sits on the pavement
She sits on the pavement
outside Tesco every day
She doesn’t ask for anything
she just smiles
so I smile
then look away
at least she’s happy
I tell myself
as I step around
the bag of ice and the whiskey
she sets on the pavement
outside Tesco every day
I hope somebody else
is a better person than me
I’ve started to see the software industry as the biggest con anyway.
Creating jobs for the sake of jobs. Artificial boundaries around
sharing the output and fruits of creativity and labour, because what
we need isn’t a better world - it’s more jobs. We’ve all got the means
of production in our hands now, but we’re still toiling away trading
our time for scraps at some imaginary table. Building another photo
sharing app for the share-holders.
and why is that? Why do you feel unfree to strike out on your
own?
That’s something to ponder I suppose. Although self employment wasn’t
really what I was getting at. We’re making too many things, and with
software and media we’re even imposing totally artificial scarcity on
what is physically literally nothing at all, in order to both justify
and enable more production, more jobs, and an ever growing financial
economy to the detriment of - or more accurately a total apathy toward
- everything else.
“Striking out” and doing my own photo sharing app doesn’t really cut
it. We all need to stop for a while and look at what we’ve already got
in the world, particularly in terms of technology.
A petty example, but I’ve got 8 chat apps on my phone and none of them
talk to each other. Most of them come from companies with
multi-billion dollar valuations each, and they all basically do the
same thing. The same thing XMPP and IRC did 20 years ago.
With all the power of modern technology and communication, that’s what
we as a people are working on. Not solutions, not even needs or wants.
Just products.
That might sound slightly angrier than I think I am. I’m sure our
current systems sounded like a good idea to many when they were
devised and implemented, and maybe they were from a certain point of
view. But I am a little annoyed at progress (and my own, too) and an
apparent inability or unwillingness to see alternatives and
improvements to our current mode of living. Although I sense this is
changing rapidly.
It has come time for new ideas.
What was it you said
What was it you said in response
to a thing that I said that time
maybe the first time I was here
It’s all an illusion
I said
or something to that effect
Yes it is
you blew my mind
none of it is real
then you paused for a moment
before leaning in to say
“and so?”
On the art of expressing
On the art of expressing
observing but not changing
while feeling and relaying
A mood
intangible expression
and thought
“I thought.”
It changes
the moment is gone
Thought of me and of you
thought of me and of you.
more than thought.
we’re here.