Yesterday I noticed that the blog posts I write in Hugo via Vim are uglified on Mastodon and Calckey. By uglified I mean that the neat and tidy key words that I use as tags are converted into hashtags on Mastodon and Calckey and this makes me both sad and angry. It makes me sad because hashtags are a way of spamming conversations, and of allowing people who are not invested to participate in conversations.
Disinformation and misinformation work for a very simple reason. People who did not study history, and do not follow current affairs do not have the background information to spot what is true from what is untrue. They are unable to use history’s lessons to see the warning signs and act accordingly.
Algorithms and Social Media In Mindf*cuk by Chris Wylie we read about how big data and algorithms were used to identify and exploit people’s gullibility to get them to vote for Brexit in England, and the Republican candidate in the US.
Yesterday I went for a bike ride. By my norms it was a relatively cool day, just 27 or so degrees, compared to the 30-37°c I have ridden in, in the past. I was comfortable on the bike, with a cool breeze to cool me down.
I went by the lake and I think other people were heatstruck. They were lethargic and innatentive getting off buses. They were all by the lake side, sunbathing like marine iguanas.
When you cycle you feel the difference between different landscapes between seconds. You go from farming landscapes to wooded areas near forests before finally getting to the cities. In the process you notice the difference in temperatures between these different land uses.
The Permanent Summer Heatwave This summer has been mild in Switzerland, so far, but it could get up to 37°c for several days at a time again. As heat becomes more common the way the Swiss are building new properties becomes absurd.
Originally I wanted to write about following route 50 from one village to Romainmôtier. I changed my mind as I createdd thetitle for this post. Yesterday I cycled with two people on electric bikes on my normal bike. I didn’t feel that I was making that great an effort, especially since I was cycling at a relatively slow speed compared to usual. I actually felt that I was taking it easy.
Yesterday chatGPT was down, yet again, so I browsed through the web looking for other Large Language Models to experiment with. In the process I came across personal AI. Personal AI is an app, at the moment, that runs on your laptop, but will eventually come to mobile phones and more.
The premise is simple. You tell the AI things about you, and it then returns answers based on what you told it.
For those who want to use Hugo, but find post creation and management complicated there is a FrontMatter plugin that should help. This is a plugin that makes it easy to create new posts in the category of your choice. It automatically creates the title, description field, that you need to populate, date, preview, draft status, tags and categories. It displays each post as a block and you can see within seconds whether a post is published, or just a draft.
Cycling is one of the best sports to do during a heatwave because you have a 25 km/h breeze blowing over you, until you stop. If you flee the oven like cities, and head for the woods by a stream, you will feel the coolness provided by nature, rather than air conditioning.
Yesterday I cycled along the lake from Nyon to Geneva. Most people headed to the lake to go for a swim but I don’t.
There is a level three risk of foresst fires at the moment. Now is a time when smoking and other forms of fire should be forbidden. Now is the time of year where the sides of roads catch alight easily. Forests are at risk. Yesterday when driving home I spotted a fire by the side and I reported it on Waze. They don’t have a “warn about roadside fires” option yet.
The Fediverse is great because people are experimenting and trying new idea. It’s also great because we can be there through every step of the process. This is also why things could be better. I am now writing my blog in Hugo first, and then moving the content over to Wordpress at the moment. I could just replace my Wordpress blog with Hugo but I don’t for two reasons. The first reason is that I’m experimenting, and if I change my mind about something, I can, without affecting Quality of Service.