Happily Ever After

As a child I loved fairytales, not just the limited offering proffered by Disney, but the concept of fairytales as a whole. I have a copy of the complete illustrated stories of the Brothers Grimm almost a thousand pages long it's quite an undertaking to try and read - so much so that I've never managed to do it. Instead I choose to dip in and out of it reading a story or two at a time.

One thing that always annoyed me about the general concept of a fairytale is the phrase "And they lived happily ever after" - thankfully most of the Grimm Brothers stories don't actually end with that or anything akin to it - a few do. I think even as a kid though, the reason that phrase annoyed me was because it suggested the events of the story were the only significant thing to happen to the characters in their lifetime, but that always seemed too simplistic, a lifetime unsurprisingly is a long time, and to suggest nothing interesting ever happened again is trite; granted as a child I didn't possess the vocabulary or the level of critical thinking necessary to articulate those thoughts, but in hindsight I recognise that was the problem.

Former Gifted Kid

There's a label that I have often seen mentioned in my social circles online, "former gifted kid" which in itself is often synonymous with neurodivergence. Perhaps this is because most "gifted" children in reality are simply children who took an early interest in fields beyond their level of academic attainment. An interest which give them a competitive advantage that didn't actually translate into any long term benefit.

Nevertheless this label is something that has been playing on my mind lately spurred on by a meme I saw someone post of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with the caption "Deviation from the norm will be punished unless it is exploitable" - with Christmas just a week away the meme is apt to be fitting for this time of year but the season and its nature imbues a certain level of self-reflection and nostalgia.

Tis the Season

Tis the season to be jolly
When careful plans are naught but folly
With a mind that spins a relentless pace
Amidst the rush of the festive race
The last gift wrapped and a want for nary
Remember to breathe, eat, drink, and be merry

52 Goals for 2025 (Update)

Near the end of 2024 as I looked forward to the year ahead and what 2025 might bring, the concept of New Year's Resolutions came to mind. Rather than set a few that I knew I would inevitably fail, I chose to set 52 goals, with the expectation that I would at least complete a few of them. The year isn't over yet but realistically I know that I am not going to achieve the remaining goals.

The idea of casting a wide net proved to be an effective strategy, I managed to rack up quite a few in the early months, then a low productivity period hit and I haven't really recovered from that - the abridged version is that my physical health took its toll on my mental health this year.

Waiting

If you grab a fistful of sand, no matter how tight you clench your fist, the sand will still slip away leaving your hand covered in nothing more than grit and residue, a reminder that something happened but with little to show for it. That's how my life has felt for the past two and a half years.

I don't know what is wrong with me. I have been back and forth to doctors, appointment after appointment, prescription after prescription, test after test. The biggest anomaly in those tests of note was a low white blood cell count but that only showed up in one test, it didn't recur.

Anti-Social Media

The first real social media site I ever used was MySpace, which appealed to me because it was a place to share your likes and interests, with a particular emphasis on music taste. It also appealed because you could edit the HTML and fully customise your profile. When Facebook came along I felt it was a step down in many ways, from the jump it was apparent the site had a "standardised" layout to make collection of data structured. Even when it came to your likes and interests those were structured into pages or groups to make it easier to collate the data.

In hindsight the motivation and the distinction between the two sites is clear, MySpace was a community, Facebook was a commodity, or to be more precise, Facebook was a data collection service and the data itself was the commodity. The community elements of Facebook were a second-thought, they were added over time, and constantly changed, often to the chagrin of the users of the site. The little utility Facebook offered in terms of establishing social connections and meeting people fell away when they opened the site to the general public. The mentality of treating it as an academic network evaporated overnight, I still remember the rush everyone made to delete, detag, and hide everything they didn't want the whole world to see.

ChatGPT - The Private Search Engine

Yesterday Adobe published an article in which it summarised research it had conducted regarding the use of ChatGPT as a search engine.

Two key pieces of data jumped out at me, first is that 77% of overall ChatGPT users in the United States use ChatGPT as a search engine, and that 24% of those users went to ChatGPT first for the answer before they looked elsewhere. The interesting thing about these two facts is that it isn't unique to any given generation, Adobe broke down the figures saying 74% of Baby Boomer users, 80% of Gen X, 75% of Millennials, and 77% of Gen Z users all use the platform as a search engine.