Cali the Librarian

VISIT THEM!!!

Libraries get funding based on foot traffic! Libraries have SO MANY resources you wouldn't even think of! Your local library might have access to things like JSTOR and telescope rentals and vinyl rentals, like literally LOTS of shit you might not even think of!

What's it for?

What's it for?

Why would anyone want this?

I sit in so many meetings and listen to genuinely very intelligent people talk until steam is rising off their skulls about genAI, and wonder how fast I'd get fired if I asked: do real people actually want this product, or are the only people excited about this technology the shareholders who want to see lines go up?

like you realize this is a bubble, right, guys? because nobody actually needs this? because it's not actually very good? normal people are excited by the novelty of it, and finance bro capitalists are wetting their shorts about it because they want to get rich quick off of the Next Big Thing In Tech, but the novelty will wear off and the bros will move on to something else and we'll just be left with billions and billions of dollars invested in technology that nobody wants.

and I don't say it, because I need my job. And I wonder how many other people sitting at the same table, in the same meeting, are also not saying it, because they need their jobs.

A metaphor I've been using lately is that being a tech-interested person and watching the AI hype is like if you had followed the development of blenders for years. You watched them go from prototypes that were basically just a spinning open blade all the way to a design that has the potential to be a consumer Vitamix! It's really cool! Blenders have come such a long way, and they're ready for prime time!

And then you turn on the news and see otherwise rational, intelligent people saying "gosh, imagine, soon we'll replace all of our chefs, and our surgeons, and our high school teachers with blenders!" and your friends and family all nod and agree and say things like "wow, blenders can basically do everything now!" And when you ask people "are you HIGH?!" they show you the new blender they bought, and how well it makes a smoothie, and then they act like that's evidence for a statement like "blenders will replace 90% of the workforce" not being utterly nonsensical and deranged.

"Scientists just have to fix the hallucination problem!" they say. When you ask what the hallucination problem is, they say "I'll show you" and then they put their unfinished math homework into the blender and hit pulse. "You see, I wanted it to solve those math problems, but it just shredded the paper. It must have hallucinated a world where the answer to 2+2 was puree." When you point out that it did exactly what it was designed to do, because a blender cannot do math and it will never do math and expecting it to be able to do math just because it can make both smoothies and soup is ludicrous and bizarre, they tell you that they're sure that blenders will be able to do math any day now, just you wait, "I mean, look how far they've come! A year ago I would have said that blenders could never be strong enough to blend ice into sorbet, but now they can. So who are you to say they'll never do math???"

The thing is, there are plenty of things that LLMs and generative AI are good for. OCR is still a vital need, and AI is excellent at it. Facial recognition is an area where AI has a lot of potential. It can be used as a screening step for the analysis of all sorts of large datasets. Better autocomplete on your phone is a real thing that real people want. There are a ton of problems that these tools genuinely do solve!

...But none of them are trillion dollar problems, and that's an issue, because no one wanted to pour a trillion dollars into "improved OCR" and "somewhat better autocomplete".

Once a little boy went to school. One morning The teacher said: “Today we are going to make a picture.” “Good!” thought the little boy. He liked to make all kinds; Lions and tigers, Chickens and cows, Trains and boats; And he took out his box of crayons And began to draw.

But the teacher said, “Wait!” “It is not time to begin!” And she waited until everyone looked ready. “Now,” said the teacher, “We are going to make flowers.” “Good!” thought the little boy, He liked to make beautiful ones With his pink and orange and blue crayons. But the teacher said “Wait!” “And I will show you how.” And it was red, with a green stem. “There,” said the teacher, “Now you may begin.”

The little boy looked at his teacher’s flower Then he looked at his own flower. He liked his flower better than the teacher’s But he did not say this. He just turned his paper over, And made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red, with a green stem.

On another day The teacher said: “Today we are going to make something with clay.” “Good!” thought the little boy; He liked clay. He could make all kinds of things with clay: Snakes and snowmen, Elephants and mice, Cars and trucks And he began to pull and pinch His ball of clay.

But the teacher said, “Wait!” “It is not time to begin!” And she waited until everyone looked ready. “Now,” said the teacher, “We are going to make a dish.” “Good!” thought the little boy, He liked to make dishes. And he began to make some That were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said “Wait!” “And I will show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make One deep dish. “There,” said the teacher, “Now you may begin.”

The little boy looked at the teacher’s dish; Then he looked at his own. He liked his better than the teacher’s But he did not say this. He just rolled his clay into a big ball again And made a dish like the teacher’s. It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon The little boy learned to wait, And to watch And to make things just like the teacher. And pretty soon He didn’t make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened That the little boy and his family Moved to another house, In another city, And the little boy Had to go to another school.

The teacher said: “Today we are going to make a picture.” “Good!” thought the little boy. And he waited for the teacher To tell what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boy She asked, “Don’t you want to make a picture?” “Yes,” said the little boy. “What are we going to make?” “I don’t know until you make it,” said the teacher. “How shall I make it?” asked the little boy. “Why, anyway you like,” said the teacher. “And any color?” asked the little boy. “Any color,” said the teacher. And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.

About a guy who escaped North Korea

He said living there was like living in a pot

And he grew up there, so he grew into the shape of the pot

But once he was out

And the pot was gone

He was still in the shape of the pot

And he had to work really hard to grow outside that shape

I think its the same with alot of things

Art, gender presentation, decoration prefrences, food, hobbies

you happy in favor of

what kept you alive.

Yes, we do have the right to make demands on public behavior. Of course we do. Have you never heard of laws and etiquette? I’m not allowed to grocery shop naked. You can’t rummage through my purse. I can’t have a work meeting in the middle of a movie theatre.

I remember when it was taboo simply to answer your cell phone in public. The person answering would apologize and try to go to a more private area. Then public calls were normalized. Then putting people on speaker. Then listening to music without headphones. Do you know how many times I have hiked up a mountain or driven to the beach, only to be met with someone blaring shitty top 40 music from their portable speaker, because Heaven forbid you go one hour without noise?

It was obnoxious when it was youtube.

It was obnoxious when it was music.

It was obnoxious when it was the radio. 

It was obnoxious when it was dudes wanting to talk to you instead of letting you just read your freaking book.

Do you want to be this guy? Because being obnoxious in shared spaces is how you become this guy. 

Also a reminder that they were better at tumblr than most of us, comrade interloper was great at memeing. Like, the talent!

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If you abolish copyright law tomorrow, and sure, abolish trademark & patent law at the same time, Disney is not going to be who suffers from it.

Copyright law is not designed to protect indie artists and writers, but it does. It doesn't do so as well as it protects major entertainment/publisher corporations, but it DOES offer some protections to all of us.

WE CAN POST STUFF ON THE INTERNET BECAUSE IT'S ALL PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.

Disney/Paramount/Time-Warner cannot scour the internet for The Funniest Posts On Tumblr, Reddit, and Instagram and publish a book of them without getting permission from the writers.

If you want to get rid of copyright law, first figure out how you're going to keep corporations from grabbing everything on the internet and monetizing it however they like. Figure out how authors are supposed to make a living when anyone - including major publishers - can grab their stories and publish them in a market those authors can't reach, without paying the author. Figure out how artists can make a living when anyone can copy & sell their works.

Our entire creative & entertainment industries, and a substantial portion of our news & educational industries, sit on a base of copyright law.

Is copyright law good? No; it's pretty fucked-up. But it is the foundation of several major industries that we need to function as a society, and the structure that supports a lot of businesses, including the ones that provide services you want. (Like the one that provides hosting for Tumblr blogs.)