On AI, Existential Threat, and the Collapse

Good evening ladies and gents. Hope you all had a good Sunday. I wanted to write here a bit more about AI, existential threat, and the Collapse. 

    First, AI is the latest buzzword of the last couple years and it's really taken the world by storm. I've used a ton of AI art generators to generate art mostly for fun but also here for the blog so its got some pictures to go along with these giant blocks of text. A lot of media and news sources want to keep constantly making the claim that AI is here to take your jobs, that we're training AIs to replace us, that using AI for art isn't real art, that the best thing for humanity is to just not even use AI for anything at all and sort of boycott it by just not using it at all ever.

    But I don't think not using AI is going to do anything whatsoever. In fact, if you're not using AI to augment your skills, abilities, or even for personal fun, research, and learning, then, my God, you are going to become behind in life and your other associates around you are going to surpass you in the occupational, intellectual, and the Culture itself. What I mean to say is that if you are boycotting AI, not using it and haven't used it yet, or just think its the worst thing in the world, you are going to be behind in the future economy and Culture. Think of it like a person who doesn't use a smartphone, they're definitely at a disadvantage, or someone who doesn't use the Internet, well, that person is like a fossil at this point. 

    Moving on, I don't think AI is going to replace us and I'm not sure if I believe that its really such a shocking blackbox that news and media outlets keep saying that it is. I think it is imperative for news and media outlets and people around you to say that AI is bad and you should never use it and that its going to replace you, and I think the reason why is that because if they can get you to be stuck up on AI, get you scared, get you excited, all of it generates more media and attention, which is then used to pump up AI and get more revenue and sales from AI, especially because now all the biggest stocks are all tech/AI companies, actually mostly AI, all the big money is all on AI now, trillions. 

    So keep in mind, if you think AI is bad and stupid and shouldn't be used for the sake of humanity, that's probably what they want you to think, especially because even bad news is sensational for these AI companies, and not only that, but sometimes you can see it as good news for people who love bad news, as this also generates media, attention, and revenue. 

    Second, the existential threat of AI. Is AI an existential threat to the United States, China, Europe, and the globe? I'm not a genius but I would say no, not at this moment in time. I think the global threat of extreme heat, fires/earthquakes/storms, fascism, obesity, cancer, dementia, nuclear disaster, war, contagious diseases, and drone warfare are much more of a existential threat to this world than anything AI could inflict upon us, at least that is how I feel on the subject, at least at this current juncture, but that could change if suddenly AI becomes some sort of electronic God and takes over every city and town in America, but now we have entered the realm of science fiction? Who here has read Alfred Bester? Or, if you're even older, who here has read The Machine Stops? 

    Third, we are now in the age of the Collapse here in America. You don't have to think and wait for the Collapse, it's already here folks. You aren't going to wake up one morning and all the news media outlets are going to tell you straight out, 'this is it, this is the Collapse,' rather, America has declined more and more after only very small intervals of time. Now, it's gotten to the point where America has fallen so fast that as a normal human being, you just don't have enough time, energy, cash, attention, or resources to even to keep up with the fact that everyday America is declining faster and faster. 

    Lastly, if I was a boomer I would say that throughout my life the decline of America was slow and took place over successive stages. However, I'm a 40 year old guy and I found out for myself that the decline of America happened very fast, its almost as if it happened in the blink of an eye. 

    It's like the Romans when they had their decline. The Romans were so busy living luxurious lives, having orgies, and watching the fighters get eaten by lions at the coliseum, they were so busy doing that, that they didn't have time to realize that their entire civilization had fallen. 

    Which brings me to America. America is sort of like a baby Rome, short of the years required to truly be a longstanding civilization, but has had the military strength to subdue all her foes and take over through the sword of imperialism. Not bad for only 250 years, eh? 

    In conclusion, and I'll end it like this. I think most Americans just don't have the wherewithal to do anything to stop this and some of them might not even care and yet even some more know this and are using it to their advantage to scheme, loot, rob, disenfranchise, and take over things to keep control and turn things to their advantage at other peoples' detriment [Trump in a nutshell]. 

    There will always be bad actors but given these terrible circumstances of a failed state, a failed government, the cataclysmic collapse of the American Empire, that not only will there winners and losers but there will be more criminals and bad actors of any and all sorts, infinite in their form. 

    I'll end it like this, I might be the only person you read who's my age who will tell you this like this, other people won't be able to articulate it in quite the same way, and they don't have the free time to really talk about it, write about it, or articulate it. Leisure is the hobby of the intellectual class. 

7/10 On AI, AI Art, and the Culture

Good evening folks. I just wanted to jot down some thoughts I've been thinking about since the last post. 

    First, I think more and more people are becoming aware to the fact that AI isn't really as great as its been doing on the stock market. Sure, the American economy is betting a lot on AI and the fact that AI is going to save money and automate things so that workers will be able to do work that is more important, creative, and more meaningful. That's what the techno bro AI companies want you to think. But the reality is that the best thing we've done with AI is create chatbots that aren't really thinking or sentient, rather they spew out things they've been trained on, and they've mostly been trained on the internet. 

    Me personally, I've found a lot of fun and tinkered a lot with AI. In fact, I use AI at my job everyday to look up the prices or products and items that aren't always easily figured out by just regular google searches. The use of AI in a retail environment is great, but again, it's still in a limited position. 

    For years, I worked as a Self-Checkout Cashier Clerk, mostly using the crappy automated AI self-checkout machines, but the thing is, that those machines can only do so much, you have to actually interact with the customers yourself to really know what's going on. These things are limited and on top of that a lot of times late at nights when the store was busy, these self-checkout machines would freeze, automatically shutdown and not work, and it would take forever for them to get back running again. 

    Basically, these AIs aren't coming for your job, not quite yet. You really can't trust any type of AI with basically, anything important, serious, or critical. And yeah folks, that means you can't trust AI with most things that actually matter. I've personally found a lot of fun and utility in using AI to create images. I've been doing it for like two years and its been a blast but of course there's always the dilemma of 'you're doing AI art thats not real art, that's not art,' versus the people who don't know anything about art, and the artists in between who are smart enough to have already been utilizing AI art generators over the past 2-3 years. 

    Secondly, even if you can create stunning great AI art, there's always the issue, how can you get paid being an AI artist or utilizing AI in your handmade art? Well therein lies the rub. You can create AI art all day and be amazing at it but you will still have to work hard and put in the work in order to get paid and actually have a career making a money off your AI art. 

    Even regular artists have to put in a lot of hard labor in order to actually make a living off their art. So just because you can create good AI art doesn't mean you can get paid or make a career out of doing it. See what I'm saying? Even as amazing as AI art generators are, it's difficult to make a career out of using and making AI art, basically they're not going to actually replace real handmade, hand drawn, hand painted, hand sculpted artists. Not by a longshot. 

    Now, that doesn't mean that real artists should shun the AI art generators and throw a tantrum, rather they should use it to enhance their creative abilities and artistic potential. Those that don't learn the new softwares, AI art generators, and products won't be quite as successful as those who do. For example, a lot of Americans love Japanese cartoons anime and whatnot. A lot of Japanese art studios are using AI in anime and have already been doing so for years. 

    I wanted to rant a bit on AI because I keep seeing that people are thinking AI is really amazing and great, and yeah it is, but only up to a very limited point. For example, AI could write something like what this post has written in it, but it can't do it with my personal style, timbre, or swagger. It will always pale in comparison to the real human behind the AI, the ghost in the machine will never be as smart, creative, or innovative as the human in front of the screen. 

    Time after time, I keep seeing people using AI in a way that makes them look like they've never done any thinking for themselves, or if they do, they just haven't figured out the right way to calm down, clear their thoughts, and put themselves in order to actually organize what they want to accomplish, so using AI becomes like their crutch. That's not a surprise and I'm seeing that more and more with customers in the retail environment checking prices with AI, employees checking prices with AI, and my various friends and associates around me who use it for their various reasons. That being said, I'll post my various most recent AI art pictures below this post. 

    Third, the Culture we live within has changed a lot since the 2008 Financial Meltdown during the Obama Presidency, which, oddly enough, seemed like a very normal time period and it didn't really seem that crazy even though we had gone through September 11 and the Iraq War and whatnot. In comparison, the post-covid Trump years seem much worse and the culture has become debased, extremely right-wing, nationalistic, and the main problem imo, very dumbed down and stupid to the point where people don't even do basic things like read and write anymore. 

    That being said, I am the Culture too and I'm here to say to young people its okay to be smart, you don't have to pretend to be dumbed down around other people, you should read books, write, educate yourself to the best of your abilities, and who knows, maybe you're goodwill and influence will spread to others around you and they will become smarter just by having interacted with you even briefly. One can only hope.

    I fear that we're in such a dumbed down society that because people are very uneducated and unschooled and have less morals and standards, these qualities in a nation, in a state, in a city even, even in a job or workplace, this means that things are much more disorganized and it makes it easier for bad actors to wreck havoc in various forms. 

    One of the scariest things that has happened to me recently is that something bad or off happened [not particularly to me but near or around me] and pretty much everyone including those in charge and those who were subalterns were all basically so dumb that they didn't do the right things and things went south. I think for me the fact that I was surrounded by people who just wouldn't think it through for whatever reasons, people who just couldn't think at all very well, that for me, was absolutely terrifying.

    Lastly, I'll end it like this. I'm not exactly a stable genius like Trump says he is, [he's a dumbass lol] but I've gone through a lot of work to educate myself without even going to school or anything, and when I interact with other young people 20s, 30s, even my own age, there is a general vast difference in the amount of knowledge between those people and say people who are in their 40s-80s. 

    One of the things you'll find is that even older people could be a bit uneducated and set in their ways but overall, they have more common sense and smarts that those of us in our 20s, 30s. Respect your elders and learn from them, without them you would never really be able to become wise which is above being learned. 

    I'll end it like this, if you aren't very well studied, don't read or educate yourself in anyway whatsoever, you just can't really become successful in life or in your goals. How do I know this? I've learned this the hard way through the school of hard knocks. I struggled through my 20s and 30s and I didn't go to school, I never got a degree, I'm just a 40 year old black guy with a high school diploma, an imagination, and curiosity. Nowadays, most people are kind of coasting, trying to provide for their wives, their kids, its hard to actually free your mind and educate yourself. 

    If you ask me, this is the main reason why Trump came to power and the country is in decline. If you keep the Culture happy with futbol [special shoutout to the World Cup], football, basketball, videogames, porn, sex, drugs, alcohol, its no wonder that they would never really be able to think for themselves. Remember, knowledges makes a man unfit to be a slave. Watch this space.

New Year, New Me, [Not Really]

Hello Universe, 

How is it going out there in the free world? It's a new year, happy 2024! It's time for all those happy go lucky social media posts where people make their new years resolutions, like to get a better body and become more healthy and sexy and find their dream spouse, and get a lotta money, amiright? I'd like to jot down some thoughts on what's been happening with me, my personal activities, working in retail, and more. 

First, I moved into a new house recently. It was a hard move that was strenuous but now that it's done I can finally relax. At the end of the month I took time off from work just to get settled into the new place and unbox everything. The new house is in a better location to get around on foot or on the bus if needed. I've been waking up earlier, going out to lunches at nearby establishments, going to the library, and more. I'm still working at the grocery store and it's going well. Since the holidays are over, things have slowed down there, for now. Covid still lingers there from time to time, so I've still been wearing my facemask.  

I kept up playing piano and drums. Now, I'm finally making good progress on piano, at least trying to move from beginner to something like intermediate, although it will take a while. My dad decided to keep our late step-mom Maureen's Yamaha grand piano, so I've been playing that piano. Today, I recorded an eight minute grand piano solo, [which you can hear piano solo no. 1] With the piano, I'm trying to focus on playing jazz chords and improvising. I practice everyday, and actually have preferred practicing piano as of late, because my guitars and amp are all backed away and it's easier to just play the grand piano for now. 

Likewise, I've been keeping up with drums. I go to guitar center and just play the drums there. You can hear my most recent drum playing here.

Second, I'm still reading a lot and doing a lot of AI art. You can check out my Instagram page here. The picture featured at the top of this page is an AI art creation. At the end of last year I read a lot of science fiction novels by Iain M. Banks, who died early in his 50s. Terrific writer, but he writes terribly long science fiction space opera, albeit it's amazing writing and great space opera, but the some seven books I read of his were definitely time consuming and not easy reads. Space opera for the literati. Right now all my books are packed away so I just bought for a dollar, a paperbacks editions of Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. I'm keeping up with the western canon, now I've read about 300 works. But I feel like I've barely scraped the surface in terms of what can be learned within knowledge, within the realm of imagination, and the curiosity of man himself. 

At the end of last year, I kind of went into deep hibernation bear mode. The bear knows when to sleep but the bobcat knows when its time to hunt. I find getting up earlier and going out more has been better for me, being productive keeps me energetic, and I'm liking the atmosphere of the new house better and more easily able to adapt to this. Sometimes on Mondays I go to this open blues jam at the bar, and I sit in and play guitar. I go out to dinners with family on my days off work. 

Lastly, I've found that life is made up of thoughts, actions, and plans for the future. There's a lot to do. Work is still time consuming, but with a schedule for the day, the week, the month, the next three months, the next six months, the next year, things are much more manageable within a smaller timeline and with hard goals split and separated into smaller and more manageable goals.

I want to get better at piano and be able to play jazz standards on it, keep reading, write more short stories and perhaps a novel [I actually have written a novel, but nobody's seen it], keep blogging about everything, and keep up with my guitar and drums too. Work has been good, the hard work keeps me awake. 

That's it for now, see you later, space cats. 

In sylvan realms where twilight's whispers creep, The bear, a sagacious entity, seeks a somber keep. As autumnal regalia, the leaves cascade, He intuits the impending winter's serenade.

With fur of resplendent aureate hue, He embarks on a quest for a snug haven's view. A sanctuary, where crystalline brooks freeze, In dreams of honeyed combs and berries with ease.

Yet by the babbling stream, where moonbeams wink, The bobcat prowls, a phantom feline in sync. His eyes, aglint with nocturnal savoir-faire, In stealth, he traverses the tapestry of air.

For as the bear in dormant repose lies, The bobcat, vigilant, neath the celestial ties, Stalks in the silent hours of night's embrace, A sovereign of shadows, embodying grace.

In nature's ballet, a harmonious ballet, The bear succumbs to rest, the bobcat to ballet. One cradles dreams of vernal rebirth, The other, a custodian, prowls the moonlit earth. [AI generated]

How To Play PC Games On A Potato

Have you ever wanted to play pc games on a cheap, crappy, laptop? Is that all you have and a nice gaming desktop is too expensive? Well, look no further adieu, here's my guide for how to play pc games on a potato. 

Keep in mind that your potato has to be at least somewhat decent. I would say spend at least $400 [or more if you can spare, but my laptop is $400] and make sure you have a graphics card. My laptop is an Asus with a Radeon Graphics card. The computer isn't anything special but it boots up fast with Windows 10. 

To start, you must make sure you have your laptop's energy plan set to High Performance. This is a no brainer but you would be surprised that some people only always leave their laptop's energy plan set to save energy or energy planer because they use it periodically throughout the day and can't always have it plugged in. However, for gaming you'll always want this set to High Performance. 

Now for the in game settings. I'm going to give you my options that have me running three different games [Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Team Fortress 2-my favorite games] with smooth frame rate and relatively low [if any] input lag. The games won't look great, or that good, but it will be smooth. Always make sure to run the games in windowed mode, a smaller window, as fullscreen takes up more processing power on your CPU, making your potato cry more and lag incessantly.

Overwatch 

 

Display Mode: Windowed

Resolution: 1366x768 [60`] [you always want this set to whatever option your overwatch game has the ` key set to, as this is your native resolution, which will give you better fps]

Vsync: OFF

Triple Buffering: ON

Reduce Buffering: OFF

Limit FPS: Custom

Frame Rate Cap: 30

Graphics Quality: Low

Advanced then click Render Scale: Automatic 50% 

And everything else set to low and off. Make sure to run the game in windowed mode, about 70% fullscreen size.

Heroes of the Storm

 

For this one it's more tricky as this game can become super laggy sometimes. A trick I've learned is that whenever you disconnect from a game just repeatedly hit the ESC key [don't know why that works]. You're going to want to go into the game files folder and add your own custom options there. 

 

On my computer you start by clicking This PC then going to Documents then Heroes of the Storm, and there you will see a text document entitled Variables, click that and change as neccessary. Here are my settings. You can tweak these as needed but I have everything set to the lowest possible and low and behold! The game runs fine. 

 

accountCountry=USA
alternateclock=false
alternateLowTextures=true
ambientenvironmentmap=false
aolight=false
architecturePreference=2
autojoinchannel=true
camerafollow=true
camerasmartpan=false
chatpositionx=0.000000
chatpositiony=0.000000
cheapquadselection=true
creepnormalmap=false
creepQuality=0
creepselfshadow=false
creeptrans=false
creepUseGroundNormalTexture=false
cursorconfinemode=1
deff=false
deffspec=false
deffspecpow=false
depthDisp=false
displaymode=0
displayunitstatus=Damaged
dof=false
dragScrollMode=GripWorld
dragscrollspeed=28
extrapostprocessbuffer=false
fogvolume=false
foliagedensity=0.000000
foliagequality=0
frameratecap=60
frameratecapGlue=30
gamma=1.253306
globalhdr=false
glossmaps=false
GraphicsApi=Direct3D11
GraphicsOptionEffectsDetail=0
GraphicsOptionLightingQuality=0
GraphicsOptionModelQuality=0
GraphicsOptionMovies=0
GraphicsOptionOverallQualityVer7[21]=5
GraphicsOptionPhysicsQuality=0
GraphicsOptionPortraits=1
GraphicsOptionPostProcessing=0
GraphicsOptionShaderDetail=0
GraphicsOptionSSAO=0
GraphicsOptionTerrainQuality=0
GraphicsOptionTextureQuality[2]=0
halo=false
height=1080
highqualityframeblur=false
highqualityhaloblur=false
highqualityhaloblurgame=false
hotkeyprofile=0_Default
keyboardscrollspeed=31
lastDeviceId=39028
lastReplaySaveMode=0
lightingLevel=1
lightmap=true
lightmapcastshadows=false
linearDepth=false
localao=false
localeidassets=enUS
localeiddata=enUS
localeidinstall=enUS
localhdr=false
localight=false
localShadows=false
lowqualitymodels=true
lowQualityMovies=true
mastervolume=1.000000
mousescrollspeed=32
MoviesSeen[1]=1
music=true
MusicContinuous=false
MusicHeard=1
musicvolume=1.000000
normalmap=false
normalzieHalfVector=false
OptionRevision=5
OptionRevisionAccount=0
parallax=false
particlelod=0
particleobjects=0.000000
particleterrain=0.000000
physicsClothEnabled=false
physicsdensity=0
physicsMaxComplexRagdolls=0
physicsRagdollsEnabled=false
pixellight=false
portraits3d=false
preBlendedCreep=true
PreferredGameSite=
profanityfilter=true
reverb=false
ribbonlod=0
shadowmapsize=512
shadows=false
simplifiedCloaking=true
simplifiedShaders=true
soft=false
softshadows=false
sound=true
soundambience=true
soundambiencevolume=1.000000
SoundAutoDetectCPUCoreCount=4
soundchannels=32
soundeffects=true
soundeffectsvolume=1.000000
sounderrors=true
soundheadphonemode=false
soundoutput=Speakers (Conexant SmartAudio HD)
SoundQuality=0
soundready=true
soundreadyvolume=1.000000
SoundResampler=NOINTERP
soundresponses=true
SoundSampleRate=22050
soundui=true
sounduivolume=1.000000
soundvoices=true
soundvoicesvolume=1.000000
spec=false
splatlod=0
ssparticles=false
subtitles=false
targetinfopanelpositionx=0.000000
targetinfopanelpositiony=0.000000
targettexeldensity=0.150000
terrainHeightmapBlend=false
TerrainTextureLowResCacheSize=40
TerrainTextureSize=480
texQualityLevel=0
transparentshadows=false
treadlod=0
useLowqualitymodels=true
voicechatautojointeam=true
vsync=false
watercaustics=false
waterdeptheffects=false
waterflipbook=true
waterrendertargetformat=0
waterrendertargetsize=768
watershadow=false
width=1920
windowheight=697
windowstate=1
windowwidth=991
windowx=185
windowy=0
winkeydisabled=false
 

You can delete your files and copy and paste mine but I don't recommend that. I recommend looking at what your settings are and changing them to mine if you have a potato machine to game on. These settings will automatically change your in game graphics settings [it will say custom when you check it in graphics settings] so you don't need to mess around with the in game settings for HoTs except for the following. It helps to lower the sound quality, turn off headphones mode and reverb, turn off voicelines and subtitles, turn off Vsync, and run in windowed mode, about 60% to 70% fullscreen size.  

Team Fortress 2

Lastly, my favorite fps game, TF2. This one was a bit more tricky for me to get perfect but I finally nailed it. 

Resolution: 1280x720 [I've had problems with Native Resolution on this game]

Display Mode: Run in a Window

Click Advanced Graphics Settings 

Model Detail: Low

Texture Detail: Low

Shadow Detail: Low 

Shader Detail: Low

Color Correction: Disabled

Antialiasing Mod: None

Filtering Mode: Bilinear

Wait for Vertical Sync: Disabled

Motion Blur: Disabled 

Multicore Rendering: Disabbled 

High Dynamic Range: Full [if available]

Use Bloom effect: not toggled on

That should do it for these three games. What works for me might not be as great for others. Again, this is only options for people with a super low end laptop. Mines only cost $400 so its pretty much a potato. Also, keep in mind that you must run the games in windowed mode with these settings. For Hots I have to play it on a much smaller window for it to work, which caused me to learn how to play it with a smaller interface, which thankfully is easy with the grid movement button via mouse. But its also the same for Overwatch and Team Fortress 2, you must run the games in a smaller window, maybe not a totally small screen like I do for hots, but like 70%-75% of the screen you're used to if you always play games on fullscreen. 

Another important detail is that because you're going to be gaming in windowed mode for all this, you need to go into your Mouse Settings and where it says Roll the Mouse Wheel To Scroll, set it to One Screen At A Time. If you don't do that whenever you accidentally click outside of the window of any of the games, you'll run into problems.

I was really bored today because of the election so I decided to write this. I hope this helps somebody out there who like me, isn't very technical with computers but is willing to learn and test things out. And game on a potato.

Happy gaming!

Impressions & Feedback

Howdy, yall. I'd like to share a track from yesterday's jam session that I thought sounded pretty cool. I really like the ending here, as it's a Hendrix move, where I shove the guitar into the amp, producing sonic fury, distortion. It's a rather unorthodox way to end a typical straight-ahead jazz standard, Impressions, but it's nice to break out of ones' shell and try something different, more rock and roll. Enjoy Impressions. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/impressions-feedback 

Orlando Figueroa, guitar
Jason Thomas, alto saxophone