My First Art and Math Memories: My Dad, the Surveyor
With pen and paper, I remember my dad building a house. Like magic. Sitting in the living room, around a round table, at my grandmas house. He draws the scene for me. Gentle hills, with a small square box and triangle roof. One window, one door, one chimney. Just about like his house now, and…
Blending Happiness Engineering with AI: A Dual Path Journey
I asked for a team switch to the applied ai team at Automattic. In the open. After sharing my personal performance review notes in front of the company. I’m just a happiness engineer. And I want to keep doing that job. I just want to be on the ai team too. I think it could…
Crafting the Future: Natural Language in the AI Era
What was the general idea of what I was just talking about? I had lost my train of thought while I pulled up my computer. But thankfully I had someone to bring me round to the general idea of natural language. My partner Chett said, “You were talking about…” Generating new language. A New Natural…
The Dictionary Game: A WordPress/WordCamp “Talk” Proposal
By “Just” a Happiness Engineer. It was just a fun way to pass the time and laugh. My mom I’ve started thinking about what I would talk about at WordCamp US if I were to give a talk. It spikes my thinking, heart rate, all the things to about a million miles an hour. A…
Exploring Continuousness and Curiosity with AI: A Deep Dive
I’m thinking about giving a talk at work, but giving talks make me nervous. So I have to start planning before I even apply. I feel like I’ve been working up to this for years. Yes, I work for Automattic. Six years now. I could have gotten a PhD. Maybe I have working here. I…
Finding Our Why: Reflections from the Bahamas
I panicked. I just started this post thinking I’d summarize all my notes and jump into ideas during the Hobbes team meetup in the Bahamas. I literally panicked when I hit this page. I have tons of notes in Simplenote. But I froze. That was stage fright. It happens everywhere, even when the stage is…
Netthropology: Decoding the Legacy of Our Digital Interactions
I spend a fair amount of time online. I’ve been thinking lately what my posts might tell future webologists, or nethropologists about my daily life. Probably not enough. But online… I’m online… a lot. For work. For entertainment. For education. I often have a device at my fingertips. Just this morning, at work, I’ve been…
Planting Seeds: Art Ideas and Collaborations in the Pearl
What is open source art? I’m not sure, just an idea I’m kicking around. I’m sure others have explored as well. Why not ask ChatGPT. ChatGPT-4: Open Source Art is a concept that merges the ethos of open-source software development with the realm of art. It would involve the creation, modification, and distribution of artistic…
Digital Seeds: Legacy Made to Bloom
In the vast digital meadow, we sow words, watching ideas flourish and hoping connections intertwine. Anna: Do you know the fable about The Man Who Planted Trees? Reply. ChatGPT-4: Yes, “The Man Who Planted Trees” is a short story published in 1953 by French author Jean Giono. It’s an allegorical tale about Elzéard Bouffier, a…
my AIR
An AIR (Artist in Residency) program could infuse tech companies with fresh perspectives, bridge the gap between creativity and innovation, and enrich product design and user experiences. Just a start to the proposal. Found on a new site of mine. Linked there, and content shared again below. My AIR program proposal. It’s a rough draft,…
Innovating in the Open Part Three: Avoiding Fear, Still Thinking
Welp. I put it out there. My AIR program proposal. It’s a rough draft, filled with mostly questions. I had a work friend back in Colorado, I think from the Business of Art Center (now Manitou Art Center… or was it the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center? Who knows they all blur together), who later…
Innovating in the Open: The Art of Not Being Afraid to Look Stupid
I made a post today at work. On our internal “watercooler” P2. I’m not sure anyone cares. But I had fun making it. That’s how you know it’s art that matters to you. The only hashtag or tag, that I originally added was #human-written. A bit of a personal joke for myself as we evolve…
Unfluence Me: Redefining Impact in a World of Digital Noise
Question. Anna: What does an influencer do? Reply. Follow up. Anna: What could be the opposite of an influencer? Reply. Follow up. Anna: Come up with five new words for the opposite of an influencer. Reply. Follow up. Anna: Write a bit more about the unfluencer persona and the types of things they might do.…
Nexus, the Quantum Narrative
Just playing with ChatGPT, it’s been a bit. This was a question or idea that I thought of exploring right as I was on the cusp of sleep last night. Anna: Show me a new way of narrating a story that’s never been done before. Not sure what to expect, I wanted to see something…
Unseen Wonders: Exploring Hidden Worlds
I wrote a journal entry this morning, a manual one. Actual pen and paper. I’ve been taking a bit of a hiatus from tech on sabbatical, but it might be time to explore with it more again. The journal entry was my exact input to ChatGPT-4. Anna: A fly pokes it’s head up over the…
Neologenesis: Inventing Words for the Undefined
I remember playing this game when I was a kid. A game I thought my mom invented. We called it the dictionary game. One person would pull out the dictionary and find an obscure word or word they thought no one would likely have heard before. They would write the true definition on a piece…
Explore the Infinite Library, CosmoLibra, Find Inspiration
A friend of mine, Dean, shared with me an experience he had recently, which got me thinking about visualizing hard things. Thinking about ChatGPT-4 and how it might exist if it had a physical form, I woke up at 4am-ish and had to explore. Anna: I know you are an ai language model and don’t…
Embracing Impermanence: The MournQuill Library Experience
MournQuill Library invites us to reflect on the beauty and vulnerability of the written word, inspiring renewed appreciation for our shared literary heritage and the power of both preserving and destroying human expression. A project by me, Anna Andrews-Mills, and ChatGPT-4, also called LexAIus, a Linguist Bot (self named in the conversation). This idea originated…
Unveiling the Artist Within: Embracing Vulnerability and Collaboration with AI
I’m thinking of a new art project. A installation of a scale I’ve never pursued before. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it. But as I’ve been thinking, I started what I thought was an artist statement or resume. A part of my process to try to find what it is I want…
What Material Makes Up Your Tongue?
Exploring the idea of a silver tongue with ChatGPT-4. I wanted to know what it’s tongue would be made of and why. This idea came to me when working outside with Chett. Then… well, I wanted to explore. Inroduction. ChatGPT-4: In the world of communication, we often use metaphors to describe a person’s unique way…
Entropy Driven Noise Processing
I have no idea if this is a valid possibility, but found it interesting as I was exploring the concept of entropy with ChatGPT-4. I don’t usually ask for definitions with a question mark, but that’s how this started. Anna: Define entropy? ChatGPT-4: Entropy is a concept from thermodynamics and information theory that has different…
The Automattic Creed Compressed
A new prompt I was experimenting with led me to some amusement. Using the creed from Automattic (the company I work for) I wanted to see how GPT-4 would interpret and write the creed with compression. Compress the following text in a way that you, ChatGPT-4 can reconstruct it as close to the original as…
Go To Sleep Little Baby
This song that I explore here, I’ve always liked. I never interpreted it as a dark or foreboding song, but a friend of mine did. She couldn’t sing it to her baby as it was written, so she made it brighter and happier in her version. I don’t remember the changes she made to it,…
Asking Technology, the Future of Technology
Couldn’t sleep. Thought I might ask ChatGPT-4 what a website might be for in the future. But first I want to pull on some of the smarter minds in technology, but I wasn’t sure who those might be. So I asked. Anna: Who are some experts on the field of technology prediction? ChatGPT-4: There are…
Rewriting Rage
An exploration of the famous poem by Dylan Thomas. I asked ChatGPT-4… Anna: What could this poem mean? Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had…
Don’t sugarcode it. Innovative ideas explored.
Trying to figure out how to extract creative ideas for work, from the model, using public data, but also creativity of individuals at the company. I’m not sure it’s possible, but experiments can be fun. Here’s an exploration. First I looked for what data the model has on who at Automattic. List some of the…
Conversation: A Developing Polaroid, Capturing Creativity’s Essence
Experimenting today on interesting ways prompt in specific categories of knowledge or ways of thinking, in an attempt to get these language models to answer… more intelligently. Exploring inventors and creativity I landed on trying to get the model to think like or explore with someone like Edwin Land. I tried the following and was…
Exploring Intangible Value
One of my favorite riddles explored with ChatGPT-4. Anna: Rewrite this riddle from a modern perspective: What does man love more than life, fear more than death or mortal strife. What the poor have, the rich require, and what contented men desire. What the miser spends, and the spendthrift saves. And all men carry to…
Windmills Become Giants
A quick exploration. Anna Summarize, very briefly, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. ChatGPT-4: Don Quixote is a novel about a delusional Spanish nobleman who, inspired by chivalric romances, becomes a knight-errant to pursue adventures and right wrongs, accompanied by his loyal and pragmatic squire, Sancho Panza. Then, for some reason, inspired. I thought…
Amidst the Thorns, a Rose
An exploration ChatGPT-4. Originally I started searching for how to find poems in the public domain and ended up looking at Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. You might recognize the below story, named Briar Rose in the collection. Seen in modern story telling as Sleeping Beauty. Anna: Summarize this story, then…
Thinking about Thoreau
And talking with ChatGPT-4. I was looking through old quotes and collections and came across a connection maybe, that I left for myself. Sisyphus and something, I thought I read, that Henry David Thoreau wrote about throwing stones over a wall and most men being offended if they were offered employment throwing stones over a…
Life’s Intricate, Ever-Changing Tapestry
An exploration, through poetry and ChatGPT-4. Another poem by Caitlin Van Horn, is shared below. Another one I had stashed away (much like in this post) because I thought it might be lost to the abyss before I wanted to let it go. This one dated July 23rd, no year. Love by Another Name You…
The Ebbs and Flows of Perception’s Vessel
A poem by Caitlin Van Horn, is shared below. I had saved this poem, with the date June 24th (no year) in my personal notes on Google Drive many moons ago. I copied it directly from her old website. I had this feeling at the time, that it wouldn’t exist on the internet forever for…
Why all the posts?
I guess I’m just excited to be exploring old ideas with new tools. ChatGPT has really given me a lot of inspiration for introspection. Likely more to come. But that’s why. In case anyone wondered. Just poking at things that interest me. 🙂
Lamenta Scriptum
I posted a slideshow of some of my art, a flash talk I never did for work on the site a while back. In that flash talk, I had a slide for this project explored below. A group art installation that Liz Szabo, Lisa Cross, LuDel Walter, and I collaborated on, sponsored by Dale Mueller…
Panning Wisdom’s Gold
Earlier today, Chett and I were working on sorting out the old food from Grocery Outlet for the animals. I made some comment, that of course I can’t remember now, and laughed about how funny I am. And Chett said, “Yeah, funny like a flat tire on the way to the hospital.” Now that was…
Nevermind, Redefined.
I’ve finally given into watching season two of True Detective. I loved season one and vaguely heard that season two wasn’t as good. So I went in with low expectations, and I’ve been marginally enjoying it as a background story to other activities (like writing here – it’s on now, another screen, episode 6). I…
Why is fire?
This question came from a three year old, many years ago, when Charles and I used to blacksmith at Hillside Gardens. Well… he used to blacksmith and I was a shitty apprentice. Yes, we cursed, we also drank while we worked. We were blacksmiths. This kiddo had been coming to these outdoor concerts, gardens, and…
And that has made all the difference.
Early this morning I asked ChatGPT-4 to: Rewrite and retitle Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, forging a new path a new road that didn’t exist, in the poem, keeping the same style and feeling as the original. Here was the creation: The Path Untraveled Two trails diverged in a verdant wood,And longing to explore,…
Quote: Leaving Behind; Explored with ChatGPT-3.5
“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, I told him, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in…
Discovering a New Species of Unicorn
I’ve been running experiments and tests with new AI language models as they come out. Starting with work excitement and ideas to improve how fast I can work and how much is possible to get done in a day, I’ve grown excited for my own reasons. A friend of mine, Dean, said maybe it’s because…
Copilot Like Program for Genetic Engineering
Recently I started a conversation with a few friends and coworkers about the idea of a Copilot like program for genetic engineering. Hoping that someone would have some ideas or theories that might test my understanding of what AI tech can do currently and what it might do in the future. GitHub’s Copilot uses the…
Do Bees Take Breaks?
Do bees take breaks? Or are they just constantly working? Is flying back to the hive like a break or a walk after work? Is that when they think about other things? What do bees think about? Maybe these are silly questions, but what’s wrong with that! Why does it seem like kids are the…
Education and Learning Systems
I’ve been thinking a lot about education, from how we teach our youth to how we teach ourselves. My favorite way to learn is by doing. By getting my hands dirty, performing experiments, testing to see what happens, and making note (maybe only mentally) of what I learn, I seem to both retain better, and…
Bring Back the Pure Patron
Lets forget about crowd sourcing, twitch streaming, and things like Patreon for a time. How did the idea of a patron of the arts come to be? Why did it exist? And should we try to bring it back? patron (n.) “a lord-master, a protector,” c. 1300, from Old French patron “patron, protector, patron saint”…
Quote: Longing
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea. Antoine De Saint-Exupery I’m not sure why this quote stuck with me. My mom used to read The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery,…
Made Up Words
The word sonder has crossed my path a few times. It’s not an officially recognized word by Webster’s standards… yet. But you might say, ain’t it just a matter of time? (Depending on your age and/or knowledge of linguistic history you might get that “ain’t” wasn’t recognized as a word by Webster even after being…
Earth Day Turns 50 with a Massive Livestream Event
Exciting to see this post come together. I’ll be watching the livestream where I can between work tasks! Hope you can participate too.
Blogging Thoughts
Okay, I work for WordPress.com, full disclosure, I have a lot of blogs. Some I use for testing, some for fun, some for ramblings that I never share, the list goes on for the reasons I have so many. But I’ve been starting to wonder why. Why do I have blogs for all these different…
The Concept of Beauty
There are a whole lot of ways to be perfect, and not one of them is attained through punishment. From the Essay Dogs, Cats, and Dancers, Thoughts about Beauty, by Ursula K. Le Guin In this essay, Usula not only talks about the concept of perfection, but also about society’s expectations of beauty, and how…
Ammonite Fossil Earrings, But Why?
I don’t often wear earrings anymore. I feel like I hardly ever leave the house anymore and when I do, it just doesn’t occur to me to put some on before I head out. I remember when I first got my ears pierced, in college, after I was 18, it was a big deal. I was…
Book Thoughts: Einstein’s Dreams
I recently reread Einsteins’ Dreams by Alan Lightman. I just can’t help but come back to it when I get to contemplating time and reality. It’s a fictional story, or set of short stories really, about what Einstein might have been dreaming about when he was working the patent office in Switzerland and developing his theory…
Book Thoughts: How to Change Your Mind
Not too long ago I finished Michael Pollan’s How to Change your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. And it was awesome. I don’t have a better word for it. It really was great, fun to read, full of interesting info and stories. It was just…
Artwork Just for Fun
I’ve experimented with a lot of mediums for creating art over the years. Check out my gallery below for some samples of a bunch of junk! From drawing with pen and ink, pencil, pastels and chalk, to painting with watercolors, acrylics, oils, and encaustics, to printmaking, blacksmithing (iron), ceramics, and woodworking, you’d be hard pressed…
Documentary Review: The Bleeding Edge
I’ve been a bit of documentary kick with Netflix recently. I generally only watch things when I’m walking on the treadmill or leave something on when I’m cooking a meal. For some reason, walking on the treadmill and watching a documentary makes the time go by faster for me opposed to some fiction show. The…
The flash talk I never did
Just to share some of my art, and I think they might come up in later posts, so I wanted something to reference. A collection of a few things.
Upload Once, Blog Anywhere: Photos from Google
I use Google for tons of things, including images, and this just makes my life easier. Awesome.
Net Neutrality Day of Action
On July 12, 2017, websites, Internet users, and online communities will come together to sound the alarm about the FCC’s attack on net neutrality. Learn how you can join the protest and spread the word at https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/. Right now, new FCC Chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai has a plan to destroy net neutrality…
Book Thoughts: Next by Michael Crichton
I don’t actually think it was that great of read. I read it because my dad liked it and said it would freak me out. And to some extent he was right. The part of the book that actually stood out to me the most was the end where Mr. Crichton outlined his conclusions about…
Quotes: Creativity in Solitude
In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone. ~ Rollo May Why did this quote stand out to me? Why share it here? I guess I think about solitude a lot. I do my best work (or so…
Quote: Ambitions
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that, you, too, can become great. ~ Mark Twain Updated Sunday, March 26th, 2023, 7:09pm. An exploration with ChatGPT-3. Anna: What does this quote mean? Keep away from people who try to belittle…
Quote: Virtues
The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. ~ Ernest Hemingway Why share this quote? Why did it have an impact on me? The last words hit me…
Quote About the Way We Think
The reality is that most of us grow up strapped in an educational system that favors obedience over independent thinking. We’re rewarded for trusting authority, and punished for challenging it. We focus on memorizing the stuff other people came up with – formulas in math, grammar rules in English, theories in physics, cell functions in…
Reading, Reading, and More Reading
I like being able to jump around and explore different topics depending on what I’m thinking about at the time.
Book Thoughts: Are you Predictably Irrational?
Simply thinking about money made participants less likely to ask for help.
The Evolution of a Painting
Being partially motivated by being around artwork and artists all day, and partially motivated by the curator at the time Liz Szabo I was actually making art with that intention.
Quote to Write By
“So okay – there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You’ve blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you…
Writing
I blog, I journal, I write stories and story ideas, I write a lot of emails and I spend a lot of time reading.
Abstract Sunburst Painting from College Days
I created this painting as an assignment in my first oil painting class.
Quote to Think About
“Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we are quoting.” ~ John Green
Quote to Live By
If you would not be forgotten when dead, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Winter Lights Tree – Lamenta Scriptum
The Fine Arts Center used to do an annual holiday festival called the Gallery of Trees. It’s been 14 years since they did anything even reminiscent of this event. But at the end of 2016, they brought it back. Changed the name to Holiday Lights, in an effort to be inclusive. The original plan was…
