I stand in the wind
Amidst flying autumn leaves
Still not light enough.
“Are you a human being or a chatbot?” “We are a chat agent”
This was an actual chat conversation snippet between me and a customer service .. entity! Did I just interact with chatbot or a human being who was constrained to following a strict script? Was I stupid enough that I failed a Turing test? I have so many questions! Maybe you, dear reader, can figure this one out?
“If you already know some programming language/framework X, what are effective ways to rapidly learn a possibly similar new language/framework?” I found myself pondering this question recently. Wouldn’t it be nice to discover a system to learn something new that optimally exploits what you already know?
Whilst dead, I yet live
A fool by his own lusts bound
Buried above ground
When no wind at all
ruffles the Kiri tree
leaves fall of their own will.
–Nozawa Bonchō (1640-1714), loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
A single pane of glass
protects me from icy winds
who is more fragile?
I protect the glass
In turn, the glass protects me
Perfect symbiosis!
I try in vain to stem the tide
To see in stillness beauty untold
I try in vain to slow the ride
Not knowing
Beauty lies in how things unfold!
Ever so fragile
These eggshells I’m walking on
With thundering feet.
Windshield wipers strain
to clear my view but the storm
is on the inside
Recently, I have become aware of a burden of thoughts weighing down upon me. Intrusive, endless, unstoppable, uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts. If I desire to sit quietly for five minutes, without fruitless thoughts buzzing constantly in my mind… I can not! Sometimes, I become aware of a new thought arising.. in a parallel thought, I even realize that the newly arising thought is pointless and unproductive.. that I should not be entertaining it.. but that realization is impotent. I watch helplessly as the unwanted thought blooms and grips my mind for the next N minutes, until it is swapped out by another chain of thinking, often equally unwanted.