Given recent technological breakthroughs in AI, everyone seems to be conversing about technological advancement and its societal implications. A particularly thorny topic is the ethics of popular models, which were trained on copyrighted data, and is capable of reproducing the style of human creators with much less effort. Given this…
A month ago, I expressed a desire to live without optional websites as infinite feeds were making me feel overwhelmed. It's been a month and the experiment was largely a failure. These addictive websites prey upon my lowest moments. If I am having a great day, then abstaining…
I just got my bachelor's degree! It was a long journey, including a semester when I only got F's. It's a miracle I got a degree at all, let alone with the opportunity to pursue a PhD next fall. Rather than writing an overly…
Manuel Moreal has a series of blog posts on the year of living without, in which he temporarily eliminates aspects of his life to see how it goes. In a way, I've already lived a year without in 2022, and would like to continue with this trend in…
Some time ago, I stumbled upon a band. They released two albums to little fanfare, then disappeared. I wondered what had happened to its members. They were certainly passionate people. Did their musical dreams blossom at all, under different identities? I couldn't find out. I felt sad. I…
Over the years, I've grown increasingly wary of using any application that stores its data in a nonstandard format or in a relational database. My main concern is longevity: I've jumped apps enough times to know that most software companies or projects don't last…
Are our smart devices the ultimate minimalist dream? After all, a single smartphone can replace notepads, books, a compass, maps, an mp3 player, a TV, a remote control, a grocery list, a camera, a landline, and many more. Smartphones are, indeed, the ultimate Swiss army knife. I realize, though, that…
Algorithmic recommendations are a fact of life on the contemporary internet, from Google Searches to Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Amazon...the list goes on. With the omnipresence of recommender systems comes a widespread recognition of its downside. Meta has recently faced backlash for swarming the feed of Facebook and Instagram…