Chris

Authentic Intelligence

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I’d like to put it out there to the World Wide Web right now- if I ever use artificial intelligence to write this website for me, I’ll shut it down first. But, until the damn thing grows arms, breasts and sentience, I’m in charge, so we’ll do things my way.

While it is true that artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work, read, and create, I don’t believe it will take away the human soul’s creativity. AI can absolutley be seen as taking over if you think of it as sentient, but it isn’t. It is all programmed, programmable and flawed. Just like us.

AI is a tool in our toolbox, nothing more. Those tools are no different then a hammer/chisel to sculpt. No different then pencil/paper, paint/canvas, light/film/photo.

AI can be viewed as an intern. Some interns are paid and most are not. But either way, we can allow AI to do some research for us, format the data and organize data to fit our desired outcome. Now, would I trust an intern’s copy without proof-reading? No. We polish it up and make it our own, conform to our needs and desired outcomes.

If I ask AI to generate a blog post for my website I am sure it will be very competent in spitting out text that is very factual, very droll, with keywords that will generate search engine optimization and offer suggestions on how to best get the best return on investment for all of it’s hard work and I take all the credit.

Image Credit: Me (human) + AI

But it isn’t me. It won’t be personal now matter how I try to spin it off as my own. It is artificial, emotionless, calculating and maybe too perfect in comparison to my flawed brain, typos, run-on sentences, etc.

This website will no longer be a personal website at that point. It would be formatted to reach the most viewers based on the most current topics of thing that I personally don’t give a damn about. That isn’t a personal blog. It is artificial.

To be clear, I do not fear artificial intelligence. As a closet geek, I am amazed at what programmable software can do right now and still wonder what is holding us back to do even more. I took a few semesters at Stanford online for quantum computing and quantum mechanics and was in awe at the theories and possibilities. Combining quantum computing with machine learning and artificial intelligence is a step forward to benefitting mankind.  I do fear that like all tools in the hands of humans, that it can be perverted to do harm to others.

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“We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done, like we did with the Cylon. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.” – Commander William Adama
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“Technology changes, but people stay the same.” – Robopocalypse

However, as I said earlier: until the damn thing grows arms, breasts and sentience, I’m in charge of this personal website, so I’ll do things my way.

Stolen Moments

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A camera offers gentle reminders to slow down and enjoy life’s simple moments as they happen. After a while you start to notice the little things, something I would’ve overlooked had I not taken up photography.

A walk through the early fog

Reading Hacks

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RSS, or, Really Simple Syndication, is having a comeback moment for many people. I’ve used this invaluable web tool since 2005 to hack my reading workflow and highly suggest others pick this up. It’s a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. It’s an easy way for you to keep up with news and information that’s important to you, and helps you avoid the conventional methods of browsing or searching for information on websites.

My feed reader of choice: Feedbin

The benefits of using RSS include the ability to stay up-to-date with the latest news and information from your favorite websites without having to visit each site individually. It also helps you avoid the clutter of email newsletters and other notifications, and allows you to easily organize and filter the content you receive.

RSS was originally introduced in 1999 by Netscape Communications Corp., for use with its MyNetscape portal. After Netscape abandoned the standard, software maker UserLand picked up development. Although RSS formats have evolved from as early as March 1999, it was between 2005 and 2006 when RSS gained widespread use, and the (“”) icon was decided upon by several major web browsers. RSS feed data is presented to users using software called a news aggregator and the passing of content is called web syndication

All that to say, is that most of your web reading sources come to you, as opposed to visiting each website to browse their content feed. I’ve subscribed to hundreds of websites, blogs, tweets, YouTube videos, newsletters over the years and all without leaving my RSS feed reader. You can then save an article to read for later use. Read what you want, when you want. Brilliant.

After gathering your content, then what? For me, I take notes and save them for later.

Readwise

Enter Readwise Reader- One tool to benefit, or hack your reading experience. With the content I consume via RSS feeds, I can then highlight and annotate notes inside the app. Some other benefits they offer:

  1. Annotation, tagging & highlighting text are the killer features of digital reading.
  2. Ghostreader is a GPT-3 companion for reading. It will analyze the text and then format a summary for you, ask questions, define terms and simplify complex language.
  3. Text-to-speech- listen to any document narrated with the lifelike voice of a human.
  4. Integrated with your favorite tools- Your annotations can flow effortlessly from your reading app into your writing tools. Instead of wasting hours of reformatting, reorganizing, and repeating, Reader eliminates the hassle. Export to Readwise, LogSeq, Obsidian, Roam etc.
  5. Read anywhere, anytime. Online, offline. iPhone, iPad, MacBook or the web.
Screenshots of Readwise on the web, iPad and iPhone. 

Readwise is a companion app to Readwise Reader. When I consume books on my Kindle , I can highlight and annotate notes in that device. Those notes are then synchronized into Readwise and then automagically imported into my personal knowledge database for later. The same occurs when I use Apple Books. Neato.

Conclusion

The purpose of  note taking isn’t to remember- it is having the freedom to forget and reference for later.

Think of all this as taking a pencil and highlighter to writing in the margins of a physical book to take notes on and review later. But digitized.

Readwise is $8.99/mo. Matter, an alternative to Readwise, but needs more development in my mind, is also $8/mo. To be clear, this is not a piad sponsorship. But I wouldn’t turn down a gratis subscription either.

Autodiadactism

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“Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individuals who choose the subject they will study, their studying material, and the studying rhythm and time. Autodidacts may or may not have formal education, and their study may be either a complement or an alternative to formal education.” – Wikipedia.

That reads as impressive, no? All that to say, I enjoy reading, studying and figuring things out on my own, for my own enrichment. Over the years I am slowly fine-tuning the process. I have built my own personal knowledge database which houses decades worth of knowledge, thoughts, writings, white papers etc all in .txt, .pdf and .md formats.

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If you enjoy reading for knowledge, do you receive value for that time? How do you retain what you’ve read? How can you refer back to a specific instance that you came across but can’t remember where?

This is where my personal knowledge management database comes in. I call it “Grey Matter.” Others refer to their database as a “Second Brain.”

A visual graph of decades worth of inter-connected notes in my Grey Matter database
Look at that web of connected notes!

After converting then, importing all your documents into the database, you then need to sort and organize in a way that seems logical to you. I choose to sort by year/month such as: 2023/03. If you take good notes, you should be able to sort by categories after that. An extra step for me is to backlink each note to another relevant note. Example: By typing double brackets, [[photo workflow]], the database then suggests previous documents with your suggested topic. As soon as you do this, the database generates a link to that document in your current document.

Back-linking for the win

When you perform a search for something you want to recall, look it up and every document with that tag or backlink will display and you can choose your relevant article. Neat, yeah?

Make connections to your thoughts scattered over time

As a self-proclaimed autodidact, I enjoy hybrid models of both, old knowledge and new knowledge. The challenge is discovering solutions to merge the two of them together for your benefit.

Why Read?

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  1. Fresh perspective.
  2. Escape.
  3. Different worlds.
  4. Answers to your questions.
  5. Ready to read at book store, library, dad’s bookshelf, online, offline, anywhere, everywhere.
  6. The answer you seek.
  7. Inspiration.
  8. Guaranteed to add points to your intelligence quotient.
  9. New skills added on an inexpensive budget.
  10. Endless pleasure.

Books
Reading is a lifelong habit for me. I enjoy reading for pleasure as well as knowledge. To have access to both old and new knowledge in our hands is one of the greatest gifts we have accomplished together. The list of reading material below is not an exhaustive one but
Chris Denbow [.com]Chris

A Gentleman’s Take

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Delighted to have been a guest for the up-and-coming YouTube series. If you’ve arrived here via YT or Twitter, then welcome! Kick back, relax and maybe even subscribe to the website via newsletter or RSS.

Photo Film Is Expensive

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With Kodak raising (again), the price of their film stock, it doesn’t make sense to use recreationally anymore. Over the years, I have developed presets inside of Adobe Lightroom to apply to my images. These presets convert a digital image I’ve captured into a film emulator. I am very pleased with the results. Of course, you can always tweak the settings to suit you. I am giving serious consideration in releasing these presets for a low cost of 10 presets for $10. Let me know if interested by commenting below.

Kodak Gold 200
Ilford HP5+

Just For The Hell Of It

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do, what I want to do and understanding my motivations. Not sure if this is because I just turned 50 and may be having some kind of crisis. Doesn’t feel like it. I am learning how to prioritize activities and being more intentional with my time.

I enjoy writing, not just for my website, but also for my personal knowledge database. Whether it be manual scribbles or typing on a keyboard, I love writing. And for the past twenty-two years, there has always been a nagging question: “Why are you doing this?” The question always exists of “what is it for”. I wrote about this recently in fact.

Sure, Chris, you write because you enjoy writing. True.

I don’t do this for attention, money, clicks or internet fame. I’ve had all of that in the past but no longer need them.

No, my interest and motivation is solely internal. If I wanted to write to an audience, I am going to have to step up my game with relevant content and frequency. If you are still reading or have stayed with me through the years, bless you.

These thoughts give reason behind simply enjoying the process of writing instead of the results. I love writing out my thoughts and that is enough motivation to do it. Although enough of it takes place in private that hitting publish barely seems worth it at all, the process could be enough. Although it is a joy to hit “PUBLISH” and send out to the WWW.

Besides, haven’t you ever done something just for the hell of it?