Writing

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.

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.

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?

Digital vs Analog

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02-25-2023

Analog vs Digital

I observed my Royal Scrittore typewriter collecting dust this morn g moring and thought I would give it a go. Two sentences in and my fingers hurt. Compare this tothe keyboard on my MacBook Pro where every key stroke is effortless and does not hurt.

Do I want/need to sell this piece of ..antiquity? I love the aesthetic but it feels more annoying than. beneficial. And if it doe does not. inspire joy, then it is out the door.

Damn. Back to the Mac.

Ghosted

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I have had a need to simplify my websites and the expenses that come with them. That changed today.

A year ago I transferred this website to a self-hosted instance instead, for simplicity and ease of use but I gave up too much control. Today, I transferred it to a Ghost server and have taken control back. This move will save over half of the expense, too. At the same time, I moved my photography website back and to Adobe.

Today is a fresh start for this site. I am in the process of moving all of the articles published previously to an Archives page. There was an unfortunate issue with migrating the data over resulting in the first ten years going missing or a corrupt .xml file. Now the records go back to only 2011. I’ll keep sorting that out as I don’t want to lose all those memories.

ChrisDenbow.com was rebuilt in a couple of hours but it is still not finished.  It will take time to clean up the migration process, slap some paint on the walls and customize the site to my liking. For now, we’ll log this attempt at version 1.0

Update– Yes, everything from former website has migrated over smoothly except all the images in the previous posts. Those are broken for now. Eventually, I may go back to the more recent posts and add the images manually back.

Publishing On The Go

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My website has being going for over twenty years. In that time, technology has transformed my life and the way I write has gone through some pretty major shifts. What was first typed into a frustratingly slow WordPress installation can now be published from a variety of apps with surprising ease, and often now straight from my phone.

It’s amazing to me that I can sit in my car waiting, and type out my thoughts to instantly post online.

I love pushing the “Publish” button, and appreciate even more the ability to do so while I am mobile as opposed to sitting at my computer all the time.

This Week

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It’s been about a solid week since re-using iA Writer exclusively, instead of Ulysses and I’m thrilled to be back. I’ve never stuck with iA Writer except for editing Markdown files but now I am using it exclusively to publish here.

I’m thinking I have too many cameras and one has to go. Eek!

After reading about the latest iPhone, Watch and AirPods I think I will…pass on upgrading this year. I’ve finally arrived to the point where I am content and this is a unique experience for me. That Apple Ultra Watch though…

Must. Resist. The. Temptation.

The idea of using a manual typewriter is a nice one but I almost never use it because it is very loud. Satisfying but loud. (::::::)

I have stacks of notebooks with virgin paper to fill but I’ve been too lazy. This has got to change or they go out the door.

I’ve decided I am going to do one more portrait session with the film cameras and then I’m going all-digital for awhile. Film prices are outrageous right now. Ten years from now when the film market is abandoned, I’ll dust off the 35mm cameras and be a hipster photographer.

On Contentment

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Lately I’ve been playing ping-pong in my brain about changing platforms. I set myself up on a 14-day trial to host this site on another server and within 14 minutes decided it was too much of a struggle.

I’ve spent hours, months and years to get this site where I want it.

As a geek, however, I have the prerogative to change my mind at any time and without notice!

Personal Publishing Principles

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When’s the last time you went to an actual website to read a real article written by a human, without being slapped in the face by pop-ups, cookie warnings, ads, and lead-generating magnets? It’s past time to get back to the basics of the WWW. So, here are a few thoughts on how and why this website and extensions of itself exist. First off- This is a one man publishing house. So no one else to blame but me.

My Personal Site

Can be the best place to build relationships and network.

This is where I can offer my thoughts products and services best.

When someone does a web search of me, I’d rather project intentional information that I am responsible for and not some random post on social media to be taken out of context.

This is the best spot to test all my ideas/projects/products that I come up with. Not all will work, but those that do not will see a proof of concept.

This is my place where I can express myself (see below for my blog principles.) The newsletters, micro posts, blog articles, e-zines, presets and more are offshoots.

My Personal Blog

This is my personal site. There are many like it, but this one is mine. The content and style are uniquely my own in its content and style. All articles are not to be reflective of anyone else but myself.

The most successful websites reach out and share with others. Online friendships and networking opportunities have come from twenty plus years of writing.

There is no competition.

Thinking out loud in public builds trust and shows progress towards a successful idea.

Long and short form writing on a personal website gives you an honest glance inside a writer’s brain.

Building relationships means you share stories. Stories solidify relationships.

This website has oscillated between a personal journal, to honest product reviews and networking with others. There is no intent to show that I am an authority to speak on anything, or I know more than you. I am too humble for that.

This website will always be anti-advertising, anti-algorithms and anti-tracking.

This website and its maintenance help my brain.

Perfection, consistency, and expectations die here.

Failure and success will both be public here. New things are tried, most fail, but an effort to be anti-boring is strong.

My Personal Newsletter

The free newsletter is an extension of my personal website. It promises to be easily digestible, free-spirited, informal and informational.

An attempt at consistency will be made because people enjoy their routines. I’m leaning towards Sunday morning deliveries, just like the newspapers of old. Remember those?

Obscure links to points of interest, fun, hand drawn or photos shared with interesting illustrations.

The newsletter makes $0 and is not intended to spam for any amount of money. All products I share are free to use and retain a Creative Commons license ©© with attribution.

The newsletter’s intent is to share, build relationships, network, share, etc. There are no pay walls. This is to gather an audience only.

It’s a private email list. No information will be shared. Ever.

I write for only two people: you and me.

I curate information that is of interest to me. Not only that, but I share, and sometimes people enjoy them.

The Internet Is Broken

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Anyone else noticed that today’s WWW is insufferable? I don’t specifically know when it turned, or why most users became jerks, but I’ll go ahead and guess about 2010. Making money off of content became more important than the content itself. This is a long post, but in short, the best way to fix it is to write good stuff and to be nice to other people. As the WWW was intended.

In the past, we got to enjoy content-rich websites created by people from all walks of life. They built and hosted their websites and networked with others to share their stuff, and it worked. Internet = interconnected. We learned from others, and we benefitted from other’s unique knowledge. Nowadays, there are advertisements everywhere, clickbait headlines as well as the tracking and selling of your private data and browsing habits. Where did all that good stuff go? To Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. etc.

Content creators, webmasters, and anyone with a hobby blog generally gave up and went the easy route of 180 character tweets and generic posts about what they ate and where on Facebook. Boring. People used to write, or photograph, or paint stuff that others would want to read. People used to write blogs, whether they were read or not, no one knew. Aficionados of every imaginable topic would research and post their findings for all to see.

When the tech conglomerates started to gather and consolidate web properties, the content was squeezed out. These platforms were nicknamed Web 2.0 as if version 1 needed upgrading. Version 2 was not an upgrade in my mind, in fact, it made the internet worse.

Ad-driven content became a thing. You had to pay to play. The more eyeballs and attention on your stuff can be monetized to the widest possible audience. The internet became deceptive and, oddly, less social. Users became mean and divisive because now there was perceived competition.

It is almost impossible to find good content on the WWW now. Type a topic of interest on a conglomerate-ran browser, and you’ll have to sort through at least two pages of the search to get to anything that isn’t ad-driven and would be relevant to your search.

When you do come across an interesting link, you are bombarded with sneaky and not so sneaky tactics to get your attention and your data. Web windows will pop up blocking the content, asking you to submit your personal info and subscribe. Pleas to purchase something that is offered. Advertisements litter the site with most, overwhelming the content you want to see. “Like me on Facebook”, Comment! Subscribe! Retweet! That is just what we see, but goes unseen is the amount of personal data that is collected and distributed to the tech conglomerates. Did you do a search on a medical symptom? Well now, the next website you visit will have a pop-up advertisement on a specific cream to help remedy that. It’s disgusting, invasive, and intolerable.

Where are people writing now instead of their own homegrown webpage? Social media. If you write on Facebook or post images to Instagram, the only people who can see it our the users on the platform. Have a business and your “website” is only a Facebook business page? Half of your potential customers cannot see it unless they are a Facebook user. No, thanks. Instead, people are writing out their limited thoughts on a limited platform that does nothing to further a conversation. That is, if you can actually see it on the FB platform. Facebook’s algorithm guarantees your content will be buried in favor of something they claim is more interesting (read that as attention-getting and therefore more potential ad revenue for them.)

I won’t continue on about how the political and social media outlets combined are divisive and spiteful. I stopped both after the 2016 election, and I am blissfully ignorant.

All this wasted time, effort, content, and energy spent on these proprietary platforms do nothing for the individual except to make themselves money.

What’s the fix?

Create your own website. WordPress has free (with ads) hosting options as a start. Or you can use WordPress on your own hosted site. Web hosts and your domain name makes it yours and on the cheap.

Write or post anything you’d like. It’s yours to do with as you please.

Network. Reach out to other like-minded people and build each other up.

If you must use social media, put your content on your site first, then distribute to those outlets. Add a link back to your website and point potential followers there instead. POSSE: “Post On Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.”

Send the website owner an encouraging email.

Comment on a post of theirs.

Subscribe to their RSS feed and don’t miss a thing.

Use ad-blockers, browsers that promote privacy and mean it, and a VPN.

And finally, make good content to share for anyone who may take an interest and be nice to others.

Analog Notes

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Following up on a previous post, I have too many unused paper journal notebooks in the form of Field Notes©. I need to frequently remind myself to use them, and this post intends to do just that. During the day, I’ll come to a point where I am exhausted sitting behind a computer screen and type. Then outcomes the pen and paper. Although some days lately I am getting more interested in paper rather than screens, but with both analog and digital, I can still create.

Digital notes are clean, minimal, and organized, whereas notebooks are scribbly, messy, and disorganized. That’s ok. They’re both aesthetically pleasing to me. Although I do realize that with doodles and strikethroughs that my paper journals are more mine than an app will be. Software note developers box you into a certain set of parameters, but in your notebook anything goes. You are in charge.

Notebooks don’t rely on batteries, an internet connection and no subscriptions. No forced upgrades and the format is time proof. It will still be there waiting on you to jot down your notes and doodles. If it is preserved properly, the journal will outlive you.

A paper journal will never require notification alerts and have a tactile feel that digital note-taking doesn’t. That feel of your writing implement against the uneven surface of the paper is more real than fingers string the keys on a screen.

Paper notebooks allow the ability to end and fold. You can chew it, set it on fire, cut snowflakes out of it or paper airplanes. Try that with any screen, and you’ll end up replacing the screen.

I’d rather draw marginalia faces, spirals, tacos, or flowers in the margins rather than rely on emoji in a straight line to express myself.

While I do find myself oscillating back and forth between analog and digital, the computers almost always wins out. But it is nice to know that if they fail, I have a wonderful backup device in my paper journal and typewriter.