LG+Q something. Does TV still mean Television?

Oh wait a minute though, "TV" means something else nowadays too, right.. Transvestite, of course. I didn't even need my local AI for that1. With the other letters though, I may need some help..

Hah! Gotcha! This entry has nothing to do with any of that, whatever it was.

Nothing at all.

It's all in the footnotes - that title is for someone navigating here in the future; not you. Move on.

;o)

1000 words, right.

But what about 1500? Or 2K? Or a whole book?

I refer, of course, to the famous adage about a picture, and its painting abilities... Anyways..

Yes, AI can create actual images, pictures. This is awesome and scary in equal measure, but also, as most know but don't quite fully appreciate, AI can create text.

Text is awesome. Every computer system I've ever worked had a text editor launch on boot. Everything begins as text; Poetry, HTML, code, scripts, plays, sermons, all the good stuff.

Crucially, you can put ideas into text. And of course, nothing is more powerful than ideas.

Follow the logic train?

So, AI is creating Ideas?

No. AI is re-creating our ideas. Unless trained or fine-tuned otherwise; something I occasionally help with. Essentially, AI recreates what we create, except without accreditation, as it's en-masse ideas, as opposed to actual ideas.

And there's the rub (Oh fuck, here comes Scotland Yard, again), if you like, quite literally.

Sure; a local LLM may not be up-to-date with your local takeaway prices, but it will "joyfully" assist you with the best way to, for example, dispose of a recently-murdered body, abduct a small child from their parents, remove DNA evidence, make explosives from everyday items, extract potent drugs from everyday pharmaceuticals .. Do I need to go on?

I mean, I'm a writer, I could go on all day and my AI would be all Stone Face and raise me twenty, and I would die of starvation before my "assistant" ran out of ways to joyfully assist me with, well, anything. And I do mean ANYTHING. Meta's latest LLama is particularly good with scrubbing DNA evidence. If I ever commit a murder, I know exactly where to go for advice!

And not only assist, but (and this is the crux here) suggest new methods to improve success, or evade capture, or remove evidence, and so on.. Things your average punter definitely didn't consider, not being versed in humanity's entire corpus of crime fiction, police reports, etc., etc..

I see an AI cat-and-mouse up ahead.

But hey, we have governments, and they spend billions of our hard-earned bucks on something? Surely they they have a dozen think-tanks already on this. Right?

Nope. They are just sitting, waiting for someone else to make a move.

California (home of 99% of the world's revenue by the time I finish writing this, probably) did.

The last (and only) time I was in California, I thought it was an amazing place. I toured its vast expanse, enjoyed its laid-back, hip, open-minded culture, swam the pools, gave interviews, loved the bars and baked in the heat, especially that Death Valley, boy oh boy! I enjoyed it hugely, and vowed never to return.

But I always considered it a beacon of sorts; zipping ahead, Tron-style, with humanity's tech baton in hand. Then the governor of California decided that the recently minted (and albeit not perfect, but at least A STEP in some direction) AI bill should die. And so it died. Oh shit.

I genuinely don't know what's going to happen now. Governments are so far behind the curve it's staggering. By the time they wake up, every criminal entity on the planet will be *EXPERT*, and our "leaders" will be scrambling to even begin comprehending how to begin understanding how to keep up.

In other words (I may have mentioned this previously; and by no means am I a doomsayer but, well), we are fucked.

I've had a great life. I can check out now happy, or just sit back and watch y'all burn and scream while I wag my finger sayin' "told ya!".

Rockin' on my rocking chair now, enjoying a cold one as the sun goes down; life is good. Healthy children sleeping, gently swaying in their hammocks. The youngest (still in a Brazilian hammock, though a proper Mayan hammock will soon be his) snores gently in a deep, dreamless sleep.

His tablet is checked for dark patterns. He has Karate twice a week in his Dojo and every day at home. My point?

It's out of control now. Forget governments stepping in and making shit safe. That isn't happening. You need to step up and prepare your kids for a future devoid of fixed reality points1.

Basic concepts count for everything. A simple thing like greed can change (i.e. Fuck) the world. Children devoid of greed make good EVERYTHING; politicians, business leaders, teachers, you name it. Same goes for the other deadly sins.

Thanks California. YOU are my tipping point. I give up on the world now. Fuck you!

I'm gonna get my kids ready for the shitstorm that's coming. Lotta work to do.

You, do your own thing.

;o)

AI reaching human intelligence?? Haha! Rrright!

The AI researcher in me, trying to grasp the Maths, says, "No. No way. Not happening. Not for a long, long time."

The realist in me, looking at the stupidity that passes for the average human being these days just laughs and says, "WAM!1 That has already happened".

And yes, AI will say completely stupid stuff, connecting things that aren't meant to be connected, and disconnecting things that are definitely meant to be together. It speaks utter rubbish. It mixes stuff up and plain old makes up stuff. And so on.

In fact, every logic puzzle variant in existence can be utterly baffling to AI, and just like with actual humans, the results can be utterly incomprehensible.

Playing with my local LLMs, it's getting hard to see the difference between its output and the average facebook post.

In other words; if you are looking to legislate around this, it's too late.

;o)

Why do Scottish people swear all the time?

Simply; what we have to say is just so much more important than anything you; of lesser nationality; have to say.

It's totally fine that you want to send your kids to Uni here, but really, you need to get soaked in our particular radiation for decades; ideally from birth. It's in the bedrock, you see.

That's just me being honest. It's not racism or any of those other childish isms you invoke-when-threatened. It just is. Hmm.

Some nations make steel that puts all other steel to shame. Some nations have scaled the culinary heights. And so on. We love food here. Also a good blade. Yes!

But thinking power is where our geography leads its people.

So what we say needs emphasis.

Deal with it!

;o)

Does AI get the gist?

Having read many, too many white papers on the workings of AI; it surprises me that the word "gist" isn't applied more in the field.

;o)

The art of ignoring.

I do this with my kids sometimes. They understand it to be the ultimate insult and simultaneously, the ultimate answer; in that it forces them to seek the answer unaided.

When I ignore, it's with a purpose, and the ignored know it. Mostly..

If I had a buck for every email thread I've responded to only once and then watched the other end wither or flail into insignificance, I'd buy an island.

Whilst ready to freely give my time, sometimes even at the expense of other; seemingly more important time (kids, earning a living, and so on), they bypass the opportunity and instead accept second-best, or worse.

Randomly; I recently had a rant about cbparser (I forgot about writing that YEARS ago) would select the word AND THE FOLLOWING SPACE if you double-clicked it.

I got a genuine belly laugh and hit delete. I figured he'd go off Googling and get the answer (that's a browser thing; nothing to do with me: maybe try double-click and move the mouse left-a-bit - boom!).

The next day I get a mail about how I have a responsibility when releasing software to- whatever he said next. I just hit delete right there.

This is exactly the sort of shit we need AI for.

Training in progress!

;o)

1 in 100.

Like that ring in the Sufi tale, I have a few wee devices. This one I use when I'm dwelling on "what folk might think".

I've told this one a few times in speech, so I'll here attempt human speech-to-text.

Example: child-of-acquaintance, draws picture. It's pretty good. The child disagrees. In fact, they say that all their pictures are rubbish. I say NO WAY! And use it as an opportunity to tell a wee story; what this blog is.

Or whatever. It's a mental construct. An exercise designed to shift consciousness away from feelings of self-worthlessness and whatnot. You don't need to expend the time and effort to go on and do that actual thing. It's about acknowledging the worth of the things you do, whatever they are.

Other opportunities, including financial opportunities, may spring from that. But that's not the point, is it?

If you commit, everything you do has worth, because it's you doing it. Few truly commit. Even if it's just for five minutes, to draw a picture. But if they do..

I'd buy that for a dollar.

;o)

Lazy Passwords

Passwords are a pain. For most of my computing career I didn't use them; until that diskhead in Elgin decided to shouldersnoop me for my current pass. And all that other legal shit more recently *yawn*. Now I take them seriously.

My passwords are usually "shapes", in that they are actions on a keyboard surface, as opposed to anything word-like. Upside: they are fast. I can enter my pass in milliseconds. (My youngest still marvels at how quickly I get the family PC up and running. He yet knows little of muscle-memory; of which there are two kinds1).

But here's an idea (like most of my best, it's buried in amongst other, less worthy output. That's a filter, see. You win!) ..

What if some clever app were able to recognise that a) yes) you know the password, but b) you simply mis-typed one single character..

With the likes of VeraCrypt, et all, this would save you a lot of time and fucking around. What's the chances of someone *else* knowing your password but with one character out. ZERO. I did the math. Okay, ALMOST ZERO.

But instead, we will wait ten minutes to be told to fuck off, instead.

That feature that solves all this is called "Lazy Passwords" and like everything else here, you can have it for free.

;o)

equality

I remember courting the mother of my (later) children. She was studying for her masters, and reading a shit-ton about "equality".

I even bought her textbooks, and while I completely agree with the "current" thinking on equality (and hope they can leap-frog into the available thought on the subject1).

But I was perfectly clear with how I felt about equality of the sexes. That's total shite.

There can never be equality of the sexes because a) "equal" is a bullshit man-made term you could spend a lifetime defining whilst still not get a basic wage and..

b) We are different. Men and Women that is. And everything in between, as my eldest would no doubt remind me. Yes, all of us, I mean.

But especially "Man" and "Women", being the Yin and Yang, the Polar Opposites, etc., etc..

How many Formula One drivers are women? Ahh.. Ermm.. None. That's right. Zero.

How many UN interpreters are men? Actually a few, and when you consider Nepotism and penis-leaning tendencies in HR, not 100% is a HUGE win for the non-penised among us. Yup, it's mostly women. Of course it is. That shit matters.

And many other fields, too. I recommend you take a moment to consider this, especially if you are male (hint: most of the things men are good at are now useless to humanity and most of the things women are naturally good at are right now essential to our species survival; but we are stupidly still oppressing them and preventing them from saving us. Ergo; we are fucked. Aside from the catastrophe of our painful demise; this is great comedy).

I'll leave you to consider which is more important: tearing around some concrete strip at 200mph for kicks, or facilitating communication between the most important people and nations on our planet. 100% your decision which is more important; I'm just laying out the facts.

Top-level international translation is one of those fields where only the very best rise to the very top. It's not like industry or politics or the civil service, where anyone's nephew can rise to the top by being a nephew, or having a cool Wikipedia page, or TicKTok trend, or whatever. Just like Formula One. Only the very very best get to the top.

Men make better drivers. Deal with it. By "better" I mean capable of handling a vehicle at high speed. But if you want to get to school in one piece, always choose the mother.

And women are better at languages. Yes, some men are excellent at languages, but they are exceptions. Basically women have this built-in, and you would need to train for years to even get to their basic level. Why bother? Go drive fast cars, instead.

Of course I'm giving both males and females a hard time here. It isn't just driving and speaking, of course. There are myriad careers and pastimes and pursuits and artforms with which our natural talent varies wildly. I love it! I don't get why we fight it.

WE ARE DIFFERENT. I've always considered this a great thing. I definitely don't want to be tangling with someone like me!

Inequality in society is a basic evil we need to each root out of every moment of our lives if we want any hope for a real society. Just do it. Society is the only place "inequality" is a problem. Everywhere else, it's a blessing.

It's like BMI; fantastically useful for populations, but anyone attempting to apply it to individuals is either stupid or (potentially fatally (notice with word "fat" is contained within the word "fatal")) misinformed. That would include our own NHS. Doh!2

Notice how Nature seeks balance? We build aeroplanes like that, creating massive, absolutely level flat surfaces thanks to the loving nature of gravity; it's need. And the perfect nature of water, and its need to be one with gravity. In other words, cut a long tube, fill it with water and Boom! Flatness.

GRAVITY IS YOUR FRIEND. I tell this to my kids a lot. So many tasks are made easier if you use gravity to help you. Everything seeks balance. "Equality" is like that; seeking balance. In society it's easy to see the trends. Get closer in and it starts to break down.

This is natural, and any fight against that is futile. We are different. Not just in our sex; whatever that means to us; but in our unique human uniqueness.

I want to see great women drivers and awesome male translators. And the rest.

;o)

This week's TV recommendation...

I *finally* got around to watching Hacks.

I'd been storing it because I suspected I would want to binge (the episodes are a half hour (after removing US advert, which someone thankfully did) and it stars Jean Smart, whom I love, as an actress as well as an object of sexual desire) when I noticed season two was dropping. FFS!

Holy Fucking Shit. This is the only TV show in years where I laughed out loud (multiple times) and cried in the same episode (not every episode, but a couple)1.

Some actors you can trust. They only do shit they know you will enjoy, because they care. Jean is one such actor2.

Anyways, curl up with the missus in front of some unforgettable shit, or don't. Just saying, that's a great TV show there.

And in the Golden Age of Television, that's saying something.

;o)

MädchenTreppeStilltBaldJetzt. Or something.

I am proud of my kids.

But I am more proud when they display some characteristic which I myself am proud to display; meaning I managed to pass it on.

Maybe the Germans have a word for this1.

;o)

Magick. Oh shit.

Reading my last entry I remember something I use a lot but haven't put down (the technique) anywhere1.

Erm; scenario: I am about to fall asleep. I have a "brilliant" idea. What to do with it? Get up and write it down? Fuck no. I'm going to sleep. Or drunk. Or both.

Of course you kids will say, pick up the phone say "record this", or whatever.

But what if your phone is out of reach? This works..

Get the idea formed in your mind then touch a thing. A pen is good. Move the idea from your brain to the pen (or any object you will again touch). You do this with your mind, of course.

The next time you touch that thing the idea will flood back into your brain. Have a dictating device ready beforehand.

Simple.

;o)

more obvious shit..

Yes, it's my night off. No kids.

Okay, so this is the answer to that recurring question, "where will I put this new thing?", referring to some item which has entered the home, most likely procured from a shop.

Ooooh, this is KonMari-in-reverse, for engineers. It goes like this.. Oh wait, I already told you everything you need. If it wasn't utterly apparent, let us here plant a flag; a marker for your aging brain. Or pay attention..

IN [pause] THE [pause] FUTURE [pause] when I go looking for this thing, I'll be asking myself, "where would I put it?", you know, "me", "that" guy. Where would he put such a thing. Tell you what; THAT is where I will put it. Do it now.

And yeah OKAY MARIE if I don't use it again within the next *cough* months I'll throw it into the universal-spin-cycle. Fo sho. Meanwhile it Goes HERE.

As in right there.

;o)

Stop doing that stoopid shit..

I have maybe ten apps1 running and I want to get to my browser (so I can do Ctrl+T - type search term - {Enter}). My hands are at the keyboard.

I have a number of options, of course, including grabbing the mouse, which I'd rather not. Alt-Tab feels comfortable, but involves maybe (how many did I say?) TEN actions (okay, five tops as you would see where your app was and add a shift key to go the other way; right? But still..).

Of course, on Windows one can simply do Win+{insert numeric place in taskbar}, e.g..

  Win+22.

Thing is, even after you realise this handy time-saving facility exists and could save you weeks of lifetime, you do not use it. Why? Force of habit + laziness, is why.

Ouch! Yes, there is a point between the two things; tiny at first; where we can force ourselves in, like raindrops splitting a mountain, widening the gap, pushing the old habit out and the new one in.

Force of habit has us doing it the old way at first. By the time we notice we're done; such is the speed of the body. Then laziness kicks in. Or not. That's our choice. I have observed only a small sample, but they almost to a one continue to do things the slow way even when they know it's the slow way.

Even when you prick yourself deeply in the fleshy part of the palm with a thumbtack for each Alt-Tab error it takes weeks. Muscle memory, see.

Re-training that shit takes time and mental effort; discipline; a thing rarely trained into the young. Even my own young. Best not to train the wrong way to begin with; if possible, I suppose. Otherwise good luck! Re-training muscle memory isn't easy. But it is doable.

Many techniques work; use whatever comes to mind. It's never too late; simply rewind back to the moment before the action; do it again, the right way this time. It's an investment of time quickly repaid; suiting a particular personality.

Others need to catch themselves in the act, so to speak.

;o)

AI, oh aye.

One thing about living through all this zero-to-one (70s to 20s) tech business is the appreciation of what AI is. And more importantly; isn't.

Example; for at least two decades I've been waiting for software to pay attention to what I'm doing. And it's still not doing it. Why not?

What? When I hit "Esc" after repeating some task three times unsuccessfully. That is recorded exactly nowhere. And actioned never. This bothers me. We (humans) are better than that. Aren't we?

Actually scrub that. We are not. Humans, I mean. Better than that I mean. We are not. Which is why it hasn't happened en-masse; I guess.

Sure, there is software "out there" which has some of these qualities, but it hasn't been released to you - the public. At least mine hasn't. Well, maybe checksum, some. And I still don't see anything remotely clever going on in that space which should by now be clever. But isn't.

Alt+F4 means something. "huifhy78e3r4huy78oe w3r4h783fr5dgfrdsvgfzcdvf4ghuy8 sewgfr5hu7i8pe fr54whu798pf4rhu798p", does not. Why not?

When I slam both hands on my keyboard repeatedly for three whole seconds, why isn't the software registering hundreds of nonsensical key clicks? Simply, because no one told it to.

As more than one person has pointed out to me: humans are shit. Not a sentiment I agree with entirely; but I dig it; shit happens and you think, "if I were the person in charge of shit happening there I would make shit happen like this, and fuck me not like that".

Or something like that. Not being in control, even though you paid for a licence (or license, if you are in the USA) is no fun.

Be careful what you personify. We actually accept the fact that the entity on the other end is not human, but being a collective sort of humanness, is actually good enough. Even when it is plain wrong. Which it most often is; especially when used outside pure archive research accumulation.

Basically nothing scares me. Even this shit doesn't scare me. But I do think, "Fuck me, what sort of world have I brought kids in to?". If the digital world can be 100% created, and our kids spend 90% of their free time in the digital world, erm, well the Mathematics is only justifiable FOR $CIENCE!

Their little brains will simply be different from us oldies. This is now fact. In a tiny slice of time we have reshaped the human brain; not with enlightened discourse and vital experience, but with Hary Potter and Peppa Pig and whatever else you fed them.

Welcome to the grand experiment. As adults you could not resist the exquisite kid's- pastime on offer, better than any auto-rocker, and as kids the irresistible tap-tap their way into mental oblivion, you can at least be safe in the knowledge that you "didn't know". The data will take time to filter in, but they will say this:

Screen Time == Bad.

They need enough that they know how to fluidly operate the latest systems, but not so much that they will prefer it over real-life activity.

When they start to slip into the latter category, you gently shift them back1. Simple.

Or else leave them to it and continue with your "work". Please do let me know how that goes.

So it's about quality. They have X amount of time on their device. We want them to learn. We want them to have "fun". But above all, we want peace, right? Bring on the AI ...

I get requests from Google Play Store. THIS kid wants to install THIS app; YES/NO. Mostly it's games. And mostly they are shit games which I deny; after having researched said game. Once in a while I get an oddball request from my youngest, like..

AI Chat Assistant

Erm. No. Hardeny. I instead make a note to spend more time talking with my youngest. I thought we did heaps of that. But the data say it's not enough. So of course I adapt.

Not that I am 100% against my children communicating with AI. But my youngest hasn't yet learned the distinction between AI and human. And even if they had; they are too young to resist the allure of the realistic-like interactions AI can provide.

I spent almost an hour with it recently. Attempting to coax any sign of intelligence. Still nothing. I try this every year. For years now. The best LLM isn't fit to clean an ant's boots. And ants (who may be even smarter than we are; I'm not certain yet) don't even wear boots.

Regardless; pandora's box has been opened. My eldest chose to stay inside the parental controls after turning 13. Legally, he could have opted out, but didn't. Can I phrase this yet another way? I feel like I'm talking to AI, or trying to survive some translate mechanism; what I am saying is, I am trusted over AI.

Or, more than AI; to moderate the input, to regulate the feed. The data say scary and I am the force that lies between there and here. So I stand, like some knight, at the gateway between reality and all that shit, a parry, a block. Hard work.

I have from now until they are eighteen.

;o)

ps. I apologise for the full stops where there should be commas, but I have been working with stable diffusion for a straight week.

Stardom

Make no mistake. I could have been bigger than The Beatles.

Who were in turn, as John Lennon said, bigger than Jesus*.

Way bigger than Bowie, who filled space on albums sometimes just to fill space (on Albums). I wouldn't do that to you. I'm way bigger than that. Like an iceberg, though.

As a kid I would do things; anything; and folk would say, "Hey, you could be doing THAT!", which was by some internal extrapolation, supposed to entice me along a path of their collective choosing, or some shit. In other words; fame.

Oh hey! Bowie did a song about that. Or was that fashion? I forget …

It just kept coming for me. Whatever I did people wanted to applaud, then share, then more applause and you get the picture. I DO NOT WANT THIS***.

Everyone first assumes that others share their values, I suppose. And that's when most people are opening their mouths, speaking; so that's what you get. When was the last time you got a letter along the lines of...

Dear <You>,

When we last spoke, at <whenever event>, I said that maybe you should <insert any damned thing> but I realise now that I was so very wrong.

That's just what *I* would do! I totally respect that you are not me and you should do whatever you damned well like, regardless of how it rubs against my sensibilities.

I'm so sorry. You go!

Or a text. Or call. Or them saying something like that to your actual face?

You may argue; hey! religious types don't admit they are wrong because they totally believe they are right. That's how powerful belief is! Or, Hey! Scientists are always admitting they are wrong and moving with the data. That's how fucking groovy scientists are.

I don't dispute either of these facts, but instead steer you around to this simple reality:

I am not you.

Yes, the whole universe is within a drop of water and DNA continually contains your entirety and beyond and we share those bonds, BUT: I AM NOT YOU.

The lack of decent basic philosophy in "developed world" school is criminal (look it up). I think of all the children who struggle to think, and it brings me to tears. There is a lot to consider this century. You would think they would equip the youth. Nope.

Instead they devote time to Mindfulness bullshit multi-faith appreciation. WTF! You can't appreciate *anything* until you get your head straight. Childhood is about that. THEN you get to dig the diversity4.

I don't practice religion. At least, I don't practice *your* religion. Whatever it is. On this subject I have firm beliefs, built from a lifetime of real experience. But in my parenting I have one goal: Keep them an open mind.

I hope my kids are smarter than me. One DEFINITELY is! Good. They can pick up on where my feeble brain leaves off. But not by my training. I do basics; logic, language, physics, math. I don't mess with advanced topics unless it's a by-product of some natural wonder; of which there are daily many.

Note I say, I "try". My own perspective is woven into every word, so I don't imagine them immune from the me of it. But I hope that when I'm done there's balance. For sure; when I notice myself focusing along a line or veering into propaganda, I make the opportunity to attempt a balancing myself; presenting an opposite view; nomatter how ridiculous.

Everyone fucks up their kids. It's a question of how much and in what way. Good parents try to minimize the damage. Even reverse it, while there's time for quick reversals.

Do you really want to be famous? A good question to ask yourself before you hop along that path.

Even better to be the sort of person who *should* have been famous. You walk along the street at night and random folks call you out, point at you, hug you, but actually don't know you5. So long as there's free booze and Dube and the rest, how can you complain? You also get that with fame. x 10. But are these the most important things to you?

Before diving into anything, it's definitely worth considering *all* the possibilities. Fame sounds good. But few are truly up for it. Riches is great; if you do it ethically and under the radar. In this world absolutely anything is possible for any individual. What you want; there is already a manual. But what do you actually want?

In the dramas in my mind, the eventualities and possibilities of things (with children on-board), I weighed up easy jet travel, scuba-diving, great seats at restaurants, constant adoration from anyone withing six feet, and the rest, with; well, basically what I have right now. And for the totally stupid; I got exactly what I wanted.

Restaurants are okay if you have to, but I much prefer to actually cook. There's always jobs for the kids, which are a hoot; ALSO trains them in cooking; which is 100% essential training. Also(3), I'm one of the world's finest chefs. Fact. Ask anyone who's ever dined with me. Ever. I don't need fame, or a TV show or a book or any of that shit. I just want to see the look on my kid's face when their taste buds kick in. Isn't that enough? If not, something else is lacking.

And I know exactly what it feels like to have thousands of people clapping and screaming and crying at you. It's pretty magical, and crazy addictive. But that doesn't mean I want to do it again and again AND AGAIN. I did it. There's more.

This is a fucking crazy world. You can believe and scheme and make any shit happen. And now it's all digital, well, same but with £B attached.

I remember our IRC chatroom back in the day. We would challenge each other to get to the top of Google. If you took a week, you were basically shit-canned. We created shit that you consider standard. Dicks would drop in for advice, which they got, and now they run multi-billion dollar companies. But they are still dicks. And mostly not happy people. Especially Elon. Word.

Things have changed. You can move millions of people to do a stupid thing in minutes. You can't keep up with tech. Stop trying. Never forget: location. Location. LOCATION. Watch where these dicks are POSITIONING themselves right now. This will give you an idea about where they are going. Hint: it's not in your best interests.

So now I'm thinking it might not have been such a bad idea to be bigger than the beatles. At least then I could have thrown a heavy spike into the works. You see the works, right?

No? Och well. We are most definitely fucked.

Unless what's-her-face, hold it's coming, Katie, Kate something. Wait. One second. Erm. Oh Shit! It's on the tip of my tongue. Price! No Spears! No!Nonono wait. ah. eh. HA! RIGHT! WE ARE FUCKED!!!!!!!

Unless Taylor Swift does something about it.

;o)

Get Metric Already.

Water. The basis of almost every living thing.

Alcohol. At back of 90% of existent children.

You probably haven't touched pure alcohol. Good. And you very likely haven't tasted it. "Astringent" would be an understatement. Forget all that touchy-feelie-shite and focus on the Math (or for the uptight, "Maths", aka, "Mathematics", nobend, aka, "knob-end", referring to the outermost extremity of a knob (also known as 'penis', though we are referring to it in the lyrical sense); an already rarely-used and instantly-forgotten part of, erm, what were we convibing?

Oh yeah, alcohol - definitely for adults, no matter how long it takes you to get there, body-wise - and how it's right there doing what all nature is doing except us saying look at amazing me being fucking amazing fucking nature trying to show you you and failing cuz you are, well, you).

We will trail off here, pretending to forget all about alcohol and its universality ...

At precisely zero degrees (0 ^C ) water freezes (at sea level). At precisely 100 degrees (again, sea-level) water boils. A meter is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second. Okay, that's not so easy to measure, but for sure, regardless of where and who you are, you can do it.

These globally-observable phenomena are utilized in the creation of what we enlightened folks call, "The Metric System". Put simply..

HUMAN LIMITS DIVIDED BY 100 (which is a number easily dividable by 10 (which is; hey; fingers)).

I mean ALL humans.

A "foot" is only that for a small minority of earth's population (some white guy hunners of years ago).

Same for an inch (last digit of some white dude's thumb way back in the past).

And so on.

FFS. Wake up America! I am so bored of having to convert to your stupid measurement system. Just Do It! Go Metric.

Sure, some Trump supporters will complain, but you know; they are Trump supporters, so their opinion means precisely nothing.

Absolutely zero.

;o)

fraction-wit

Someone once said that poetry is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Idiot.

Poetry is either 99.9999999999999% inspiration and 0.0000000000001 perspiration, or 100% inspiration, maybe spare-time perspiration, of course.

Like I said.

;o)

AMD Wraith Stealth is (maybe) Shit.Arctic freezer III is (definitely) the GOAT.Also, Y'all Ded.

Just that.

If you are thinking, "I won't need to buy a cooler cuz I'll have the Wraith Stealth that comes with my CPU"; maybe think again10. If it came with a Ryzen 3 you should be okay, but if you have something bigger, perhaps not.

I mean this thing..



I don't need a top-of-the-range CPU, but sometimes I do need to push my CPU7. I have a Ryzen 5600X, which came with aforementioned Wraith Stealth cooler. I thought, "that will do until I can research & acquire a better cooler, then sell it". I should have instead searched for a comparable CPU that came without a cooler. Sorry mother earth, for my foolishness. Now AMD thinks CPU+Shit Cooler is good retail. My bad.

Of course, you can't buy a new 5600X without the wraith cooler. Bummer if that's the CPU you want, which I did.

The Wraith works, so long as you don't push the CPU with anything intensive. Top-tier gaming is fine, as it's mostly a GPU thing; my eldest completed LTOUP1 with no issues and my amateurish jaunts in Red Dead Redemption II and Microsoft Flight Simulator have been smooth sailing/riding/flying.

However, encoding video was a no-no. After a few seconds with ffmpeg+libx265 our CPU went 85-90-94-shutdown. This is obviously bad news for any attached spinning rust. I didn't even bother with (the now ironically named) Prime95; I already knew the result: 95C = total shutdown; same as that dodgy FG installer I tried twice.

Then I got myself an Arctic Liquid Freezer III AOI (All-In-One) Cooler. (insert dreamy underwater music)

I like liquid cooling. It takes me back to the days of pushing Pentium III chips to 1K. I will add, I do not like air cooling. It's ugly, bulky and pricey, for what you get. A decent air cooler takes up all your case (hiding your beautiful build, for those that don't have it hidden) and bends your motherboard out of shape. In 2024 there's no excuse. My God some of those air coolers are ugly!

Modern All-In-One liquid coolers are sleek and beautiful and highly effective. The Wraith Stealth1, on the other hand, should probably never have gotten as far as production. We would be better served if AMD left cooling solutions to the experts.

AMD would argue that "most users" aren't encoding video or whatever other CPU-intensive shit folk get up to. Of course, they may be right. Me, I like to know that whatever task I throw at my system it will simply get on with it. I like space; which always translates to headroom, in any arena.

As for cooling, here are the numbers..

With the Wraith Stealth my CPU idled at 54-56C (diode temperature, in degrees Centigrade (C)) and pushing it hard (a simple ffmpeg x265 transcode) resulted in total shutdown every time (in other words >95C. Usually in under 10 seconds.

Switching to the LF3 my CPU now idles at 34-35C (CPU Package; usually my highest figure). Stressing the CPU (to 100% in CPU-Z), I can hit 52C. These are crazy numbers for any CPU, let alone Ryzen 5.

Ambient temperature is 18C; just where I like it. Case closed.

I mean "case closed" figuratively as well as physically. I thought these Ryzen chips were supposed to run hot? Well, not with modern AIO, that's for sure.

It's been a while since I built a PC. What with the disaster then the pandemic and dem pandemic prices, I struggled along with a business-class ThinkTower thing + laptops + Android devices.. In that time AIO coolers have clearly come a long way.

Also, I used a better thermal paste this time: Arctic MX-6 (Thermal conductivity: 7.5W/mk).

The old stuff:

  Model: VK-881
  Thermal Conductivity: >1.96 W/m-K
  Thermal Resistance: <0.225° C-in²/W

Yes, it was shit paste. Perhaps I should have cracked open my new tube of MX-44 to do some comparisons before the full upgrade. Maybe the Wraith Stealth isn't as shit as I thought. Now all I can say is that shit paste + stock heatsink = trouble, whereas excellent paste + awesome AIO = bliss. And it is..

The three case fans in my Fractal Pop Mini are barely moving (4-500 rpm on the BIOS detected curves, CPU fans run at around 800rpm) so it's lovely and quiet (and I'm fussy about noise). Even at 100% CPU the case fans run just as slow and the CPU fans barely hit 1K, and are still damn quiet. The noisiest thing in the build is a hard drive (EXOS X16, which fortunately is only used for "storage" and DEFINITELY not for seeding torrents).

This setup has ultra-positive air-pressure (UPAP) with a roughly 4:1 ratio. It's an airy case designed to offer lots of free exhaust, so the fan setup makes the most of this attribute.

One single 120mm (Fractal Design case standard Aspect 12 RGB) exhaust at the back is on its own fan header; in case I ever feel the need to mess with that, which seems unlikely, given these numbers. This fan directs the airflow generally, allowing the individual fans and massive exhaust space to do their thing. The proof is in the pudding. My jaw actually dropped.

Every dust filter is intake; 2 x 120mm (240mm Arctic radiator) at the top plus two more 120mm Fractal case fans at the front. Arctic radiator fans switched around to intake, pulling on the radiator (as they look to be designed that way).

I'll likely pull the plug on the LED as soon as I've finished copying old hard drives (there's plenty space in there to just throw them on the floor of the case); meanwhile the light is handy3..



The Fractal Design Pop Mini is a nice case, with a couple of places you could add extra 3.5" drives if you don't mind drilling a hole or two. That's in addition to the existing 2 x 3.5" bays + 4 x 2.5" drives2. At any rate 4 x 16TB or 4 x 18TB (3.5") is doable in this case. Or 2 x 5.25" (hell yeah!) + 2 x 3.5" drives. Or whatever combination plus the 4 x 2.5" drives.

5v aRGB connectors are totally the wrong shape for chaining and fitting into fan spaces. But this isn't Arctic or Fractal Design's fault. Backwards-thinking motherboard manufacturers, I guess.

By The Way, if you "LONG-PRESS" the Fractal Design RGB button, you can cycle through the various modes; pulsing and what-not. Crucially, one of them is "OFF". Thank you. NOW PUT IT IN THE FUCKING MANUAL!

;o)

The definitive guide to HiFi, no shit.

You actually hear HiFi buffs speaking about "the Holy Grail" when referring to HiFi components. This slip should not be overlooked.

What you don't so much hear is that your Holy Grail and mine might be completely different things. And yours might even be *gasp*: something cheap. The implication that you are a lesser being because of this is erm, implicit.

It's like some top chef dismissing a commoner's palette. But remove the bottle of hooch and a pack of smokes-per-day and most anyone's palette could be that. But yours isn't, is the implication. I 100% understand this snobbery and to some extent concur.

But you likely aren't abusing your ears, are you? SO now this subjective shit exposes itself as exactly that. Not shit, but subjective. We all hear different. HiFi reviews don't come with this caveat. Why is that?

I totally get that for you; Mr. Reviewer; spending £2000 on a set of interconnecting cables DID IT for you. Possibility noted. But I am far more excited by the possibility that Eine Klein Nachtmusik on a £99 amp did it for someone else. Because that could mean a lot more someone else's getting their music on for way less bucks. Or even £30. Let me tell you a story..

When the first true digital amps were released, sample units hit all the main HiFi magazines. The first and arguably most important (at the time) reviewer, simply didn't believe what he was listening to. So, scared of being ostracized, not trusting his senses, he put the device on the shelf and let it fall through the cracks.

A couple of months later, when a rival magazine published a glowing review of this 30-buck giant-killer amp, our past-his-shelf-life reviewer published his own review, basically echoing the sentiments of the first; that some crazy cheap Chinese plastic amp could go toe-to-toe with amps costing fifty times the price. And win.

This is like Star Trek replicators for £99.99 at Argos; the entire economic equation changes overnight. Along with Argos dumping 99% of the rest of their catalogue. Oh wait..

So while that isn't happening ("Bar of gold please, replicator"), other tech is. And some of it knocks old tech for shit. Get comfy with gestalt shifts or die. Especially as a reviewer, ffs.

It's easy to romanticize about the experiences you younger generations never will. But regardless of the snobbery, I applaud the HiFi "industry" for fostering the idea that there is "something better", if only you search (and spend) for it.

I'm here to tell you that while all that is true, the Holy Grail may be something much more humble. Another story..

One night drunk I penned a preset with Equalizer APO (an equalizer app for Windows), in an attempt to compensate for my old Maplin powered speakers deficiencies in their current corner position (I aim to replace them as soon as I find something superior with all the features I need to justify an upgrade). The trick is to play tracks that you KNOW. If those tracks also happen to be classic HiFi test tracks, even better.

I came across this preset a couple days later and clicked it. FUCK YEAH! I had Stevie Wonder on at the time, "Superstition" (I'd been teaching my youngest about funk and the possibilities of the Clavinet, after he discovered it on our family keyboard).

The track was bouncing. My body was jumping around. All my favourite parts were right there. It was clicking. It was singing. It was funky as fuck. No more than some FINELY TUNED EQ HDMI-out to a set of Maplin powered speakers. My living room HiFi would struggle to produce this much raw musical enchantment, and for way more bucks (yes, I have a "HiFi"). The moral..

WHATEVER DOES IT FOR YOU.

Our musical tastes, as well as our sonic preferences, are formed in our youth. If you first tasted strawberries, first saw a naked breast, opened your first letter, whatever while listening to some old sonorous radio furniture, or maybe some tinny cheap clock radio, or awesome HiFi THAT will colour your preference for audio.

No HiFi reviewer can rewrite your childhood; he (it's always a he, women have better things to do) can only advise on the facts as he sees them; which is to say, coloured. Considering all the aforementioned factors and many more, basically; no one hears music quite like you.

So you are back to "trying shit out" and "how much money do you have?". Damn.

Okay, I can maybe offer you one soupçon of advice..

MODULARISE

Buying a complete HiFi someone else designed is an instant fail. Speakers are all different. Amps are all different. Sources are all different. No way can some all-in-one system ever completely satisfy; you will always be left wanting. If this is a state you enjoy; fair enough. But for the rest of us there is fortunately (or perhaps, unfortunately) these days a vast array of choices.

If only HiFi shops let us take equipment home to test it out, the whole HiFi buying experience could be fairly painless. My advice: aim for "transparent" and "faithful reproduction". Then you can simply use use EQ to sort out any recording issues!

If you start young you might even find your holy grail.

Good luck!

;o)