Matigo dot See, eh?

This morning, I was jolted awake by an emergency notification on my phone, warning of an impending earthquake. As has happened so many times before, the warning amounted to nothing. Frustrated by the numerous false positives disrupting my sleep, I went into my phone’s settings and disabled emergency notifications.

Japan’s Early Earthquake Warning System is an incredibly sophisticated mechanism, originally launched in 2007 and significantly upgraded after the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. It’s lauded as the most thorough and responsive warning system worldwide, a testament to the immense effort and expertise invested. The system collects data from over 4,000 seismometers across the country and on the ocean floor. When two or more stations detect seismic activity, algorithms assess the quake’s intensity and potential. If it exceeds a certain threshold in populated areas, notifications are sent out via cell towers, warning residents to brace for shaking.

The first round of upgrades around 2012 was groundbreaking; receiving a notification up to 10 seconds before feeling the tremors seemed like science fiction come to life. However, over time, the majority of notifications I’ve received have been false positives—earthquakes that turned out to be far less severe than the warnings suggested. My home has generally shaken more from passing trucks than from the quakes the EEW has alerted me to. While this doesn’t render the system useless, it does mean people might start taking these warnings with a growing dose of skepticism.

The adage "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," and the tale of The Boy Who Cried Wolf come to mind. People tend to heed warnings until they notice a clear pattern of exaggeration.

We see a similar issue with storm warnings. Recently, it feels like every storm is trumpeted as “the worst X in Y years!” only for it to be no more intense than typical seasonal weather. Thanks to advances in engineering and building standards, Japan’s infrastructure is incredibly resilient. Houses withstand severe weather, riverbanks rarely overflow, highways flex to absorb shocks, and the power grid seldom fails. By many measures, Japan is arguably the safest and most prepared country in the world.

So why all the dire warnings?

I’ve pondered this for a while, and the most realistic theory I can come up with is that our safety has led to a paradox: the very experts who have made us so secure now feel compelled to justify their roles by amplifying warnings. This isn’t to say we should ignore all warnings, but we should be wary of professionals overwhelmed by excess information, leading to greater inaccuracies than a decade ago. Too much of anything—information or caution—can be counterproductive.

Given the unlikely prospect of a retreat from constant warnings, I’ve decided to disconnect from these public service systems. I’ve disabled emergency notifications on my phone and scaled back my daily visits to news websites. If something truly important happens, I’ll find out eventually. Otherwise, it’s probably not something I need to know.

YouTube has been recommending a bunch of videos this week where people try to answer the question of blog readership. The question has crossed my mind every so often as it's very rare that I stumble across a personal blog anymore. They almost never appear in search engine results and most of the writers I used to read regularly have long since moved on to other platforms. When Twitter really picked up steam, blogging went by the wayside for a lot of people and the ease of YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram has all but eliminated most people's efforts in crafting long-form articles.

Or so it seemed. According to several of the people on YouTube, blogging is apparently bigger than ever with millions of new articles being published every day. Nobody could provide sources for this data, but a simple Google Search suggested the daily post count on WordPress.com alone was 2.33-million per day. If combined with Medium and other long-form sites, as well as the millions of self-hosted sites out there, it's probably safe to say that there are a lot of blog posts being written and shared on a daily basis. But are these "real" blog posts? Are they automated processes that publish from other sources? Are they blocks of text written by LLMs¹?

Does it even matter?

What's interesting about the discussion on blog reading is that most people seem to focus on the writing and not the reading. Just because there are millions of things put online every day does not mean that there is an audience for those words. Looking at my own blog, which I'll admit has gone through a number of changes and droughts since its current incarnation was released in 2006, there are fewer than 10 people visiting the site every day. There are thousands of automated systems every hour, though.

But, again, does it even matter?

The reason I have continued to write is because it often helps me organise my thoughts. Most articles are not published anymore, and a lot are never finished, but the process of putting words down allows me the opportunity to see the sentences that comprise incomplete ideas to see whether they make sense or not. This has become more important over the past few years as I explore new areas of academic study and try to make use of the new information.

Every so often, though, I do wonder if anyone still reads this stuff.

1. Large Language Models, otherwise known as "AI"

Last week, Ayumi and I embarked on a memorable journey to Sakura City in Chiba Prefecture. Our mission? To visit the monument of Kabosu, the most famous Shiba Inu on the internet. We planned to arrive shortly before sunset, hoping to capture the golden hour's glow with photos of Ayumi sitting next to the Kabosu statue on the stone sofa.

As we drove, the thick cloud cover broke, revealing a vibrant blue sky streaked with white bands that promised a spectacular sunset. The cool breeze made the drive even more enjoyable as we cruised with the top down.

When we arrived at the monument, a group of women stood in front, watching Ayumi with interest. Everywhere we go, Ayumi attracts attention. Whether it's because of her smile, her energy, her size, or the relative rarity of her fur colour, people cannot help but notice and comment on this wonderful canine companion.

The puppies had a chance to meet and sniff each other. Ayumi almost immediately started inviting them to play, jumping around and poking them with her nose, playfully growling and moving her head in the universal "come on!" manner. However, the other dogs, much older, were not particularly interested in playing.

As Ayumi continued her playful invitations, the women and I chatted about our dogs, as people usually do. One woman asked if I had come to the monument specifically because it was for Kabosu, and I said, "yes." She pointed to her dog, who was sleeping in a stroller, and responded, "Here she is."

The dog in the stroller was old. Really, really old. I didn't realise Kabosu was still alive, nor did I expect to meet the actual "Doge" while visiting this location. Meeting her in such an unexpected way felt surreal.

Ayumi was very calm around Kabosu, as though she understood that her elder was not interested in playing. She even stood still long enough to be in a photo next to the world-famous dog.

Ten minutes later, Kabosu was brought home, and Ayumi was able to explore more of the park while I took photos. Lots and lots of photos.

Later that night, as I went through the usual routine of organising photos and videos, the news of Kabosu's passing reached me. She was 18 years old. Releasing a video now feels inappropriate, as it could be seen as disrespectful to those who loved her. Instead, I choose to share this blog post, with its vivid images capturing our encounter.

Sleep well, Kabosu.

For some bizarre reason I have been unable to finish a single long-form post for weeks. It's not for lack of trying, as time is consistently set aside to pick up the pen and put words on paper, but the words that spill forth are incomplete and jumbled. It's as though there are warring ideas that are competing for the pen's attention, resulting in a loss of focus after just two or three paragraphs. Looking back at the half-finished articles, I wonder what it is that's causing this creative malaise.

Over the past six weeks, Ayumi and I have travelled more than five thousand kilometres. I've recorded several terabytes of video and taken thousands of pictures. Many of these have been turned into YouTube videos or shared on social platforms. Working with this visual medium is interesting and exciting. It reminds me of how I used to approach writing twenty years ago when blogging communities were being formed around shared hobbies and passions.

Having this new outlet has been both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because creativity is how the soul expresses itself. A curse because I don't do things in half-measures. Every evening, after stepping away from the computer and settling down for the night, I am busy studying how to make better videos, how to take better photos, how to see the unique in the everyday. When Ayumi and I go out, I am trying the techniques to see what works and what doesn't. The rule of thirds. The balance of light and shade. The focal length. The frame rate. The exposure time. The clarity of the subject despite motion ….

There's a lot more that goes into using a camera than one might think. What I hope to do in the near future is learn how to capture really beautiful photos; the sort that makes a person stop and smile for just a brief second before continuing on in their day. There is no financial goal associated with this. I simply want to take nice pictures. Given how many people walk around with cameras – and given how people generate images with AI – I would be a fool to think I could earn anything by taking photos. Even my efforts on YouTube are largely ignored given the lack of "pop" the videos have.

And maybe this is why I struggle with writing. I am thinking too much about creating with a different medium. One that is based on colourful images and sound rather than monochromatic characters on a page.

Perhaps I've just grown weary of words.

Perhaps I'm just boring … even to myself.

Fortunately there are other outlets that I can make use of while struggling with the drought of long-form articles that used to go out to the world on a regular basis. There is still a lot that I would like to write about and ideas that I would like to explore, but I do not want to force the words. Nothing good comes from compulsion. Creation is a form of play that is invitational at its core. As soon as there is any type of force, the fun goes away and the end result is not worth sharing.

When Ayumi and I go on adventures, there is always at least one memorable event during the journey that will outshine many aspects of the destination. This is one of the many things that I look forward to while on the road with the puppy dog. Today, however, was a first in terms of dread.

The day's journey started out well enough. We went for a walk in the park we had camped at around 7:30 in the morning and explored the green spaces with the help of sunlight. An hour later we were on the road to a coffee shop where I hoped to "borrow" a power outlet to recharge the Anker portable batteries, which had been depleted the day before. The coffee was plentiful, but the outlets were all in use by people who looked like they were avoiding their office. From there we enjoyed a meandering trek through the mountains and valleys of southern Kōchi Prefecture. Everywhere we looked there was green, green, and more green. Why does anyone move away from here?

After a short stop to stretch our legs, we continued towards Sukumo, a tiny fishing village with an Eneos gas station¹. As we travelled on a coastal road overlooking the ocean, I looked in the rearview mirror and spotted a police motorcycle passing the vehicles behind me with his lights on then matching my speed once behind me.

Uh oh.

The road was clearly marked as 50km/h and I was doing about sixty-five on account of not paying attention to the speedometer. There was no shoulder to pull over to, so I kept going to the first intersection, where I expected to be told some instructions about where to stop so the traffic behind could continue. Instead I heard this:

この道路は時速50キロゾーンです。 減速してください！²

The traffic cop had said this over his speaker so that every car behind me could hear it, too.

I apologised for driving too quickly and he turned his bike around to repeat the expectation to every car in earshot.

減速してください！

He drove off and a few seconds later we all started driving again … not exceeding 50 kilometres per hour.

This is the first time that I've been stopped by the police anywhere and it had me cursing my lack of attention given that I usually play a game called "Cops and Copens" while driving, where I keep my eyes open for any cops and any Copens³ and count them. Sure, I've been paying more attention to the natural beauty of Japan's southern prefectures these past few days, but it does not excuse the lack of attention. Not just with the lapse in playing the silly game, but in breaking my own rule of not exceeding the posted speed limit by 10kph. As this is the first year I've had a license in the country, I need to be extra careful to not get any speeding tickets, parking tickets, or worse. If my driving record does not appear spotless to the police for the first year, license renewals become much more complicated and tedious.

Attention is key.

After the traffic stop, Ayumi and I continued towards the gas station. We passed two more speed traps along the way without any complications and upset more than a handful of drivers behind us who did not know there were police on the roads ahead.

Hopefully there won't be any repeats of this in the near future. I don't speed excessively very often, but it's always the time when you're not paying attention that a cop – or one of those automated photo radar stations – will levy a fine to remind us that limits exist.

1. I only use Eneos if it's at all possible. Gasoline from the other places does not seem to be as effective as the regular stuff from Eneos.

2. This road is a 50km/h zone. Please slow down.

3. The model of Daihatsu car that I drive.

Ayumi and I woke up early this morning and climbed into the car to start our adventure to Kōchi Prefecture. The plan was to drive about 590km and reach a public campsite an hour or two before sunset so that we could set up the tent and enjoy a nice walk in the surrounding park. We did make it to the camp, but well after sunset. Setting up a tent in the darkness is not an impossible challenge, given the number of light-emitting devices I have available – including a proper flashlight – but I was surprised by the number of cats that were walking around and right up to people. These have clearly been fed and are not afraid. Unfortunately, this poses a bit of an unwelcome complication given Ayumi's propensity to seek new friends everywhere she goes. She does not yet understand that cats are not to be trusted and I would prefer that she does not learn the hard way when we're several hundred kilometres away from her vets.

That said, the trip has been incredibly enjoyable. Perfect blue skies were overhead while we made our way through the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. We stopped at a few places for some nice photos. We even had some ice cream for the first time in ages. Well … I had the ice cream. It was wakame¹ flavoured and awesome. Ayumi had her own snacks.

While driving through the island of Shikoku I was struck by the cleanliness of the air and emptiness of the land. The land itself is used quite well, with farms and trees as far as the eye can see at times. But the population here is much smaller than I would expect for such a beautiful part of the country. Why don't more people live here? Is it due to jobs or something else?

All in all, this long drive has been incredibly rewarding. I love seeing tree-covered mountains and fields of green. The trip has been well worth the effort.

Tomorrow we will head to the south-western end of Kōchi, across the water from Kashiwajima. The next campsite requires reservations and mine was just confirmed a few hours ago. A spot has been set aside for us and there shouldn't be too many surprises. We do have a hard check-in time to meet, so we won't be missing the sunset again. This should also give us plenty of time to arrange a camera or two to capture the sun, as many people have commented about how beautiful the evenings are at that particular camp.

1. a type of sea weed

Cherry blossoms are blooming across much of Japan and people are getting outdoors to take pictures, enjoy picnics, and otherwise enjoy the warmer temperatures that spring has to offer before the heat and humidity of summer forces us all indoors again. Over the past few weeks Ayumi and I have enjoyed visiting parks in Aichi, Shizuoka, Nagano, Chiba, Ibaraki, Fukushima, and even Miyagi. However, all of these trips have involved leaving in the morning and returning in the evening. Now that the weather is a bit warmer what I'd like us to do is explore some places that are a bit farther out, ideally spending the night away from home.

Day trips are certainly a good bit of fun, but often limit the amount of time that Ayumi and I can spend in a given location. When we travelled to Sendai in Miyagi, we were there for just two hours before turning around and driving back. Sure, we had spent some time exploring some of the parks and beaches in Fukushima along the way, but the time constraint certainly limited how much we could see in that interesting city. Given that one of my silly goals for the coming years is to visit every lighthouse in the country, Ayumi and I will need to get accustomed to sleeping away from home.

Over the past few years there have been a number of hotels that offer "pet-friendly" rooms. These are advertised to people who want to travel with their canine or feline companions and generally come with access to a dog park, a special meal, and a warm space to sleep in the hotel room. However, as these are clearly a "luxury item", the prices are a bit excessive. I like my dog a lot, but spending upwards of $150 per night to sleep somewhere is out of the question. What we need is a better alternative; and sleeping in the car is not an option¹.

A common scene that Ayumi and I find when visiting faraway parks is an open area with a number of tents. These are not "picnic tents" used by families enjoying an afternoon out, but temporary shelters put out generally by people who want to fish early in the morning or travellers touring the country on their motorbike. Not every park has a camping section, but this has been common enough for me to do a bit of research. Apparently, there are hundreds of parks across the country that allow overnight camping for free. There are many more that do not permit tents past 7:00pm, but the ones that do allow overnight stays can be found all over the country. When travelling to places that are well off the beaten track, it's also easy to find privately owned camp sites that charge as little as $20 for a single person with a dog to stay.

This may be the way to go.

To the best of my knowledge, Ayumi has never slept outside. I haven't gone camping in 35 years. We're both going to be bad at this at first but it makes sense to give this a try. If it's something we both enjoy, then we can plan trips from Hateruma in the south to Cape Sōya in the north and everywhere in between.

So where should we go first?

Last week, while taking a look at some maps and looking for interesting places to explore, an island caught my attention: 柏島 – Kashiwa Island.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about this piece of land jutting out of the ocean other than it shares the name – and kanji – of the city where Ayumi and I currently live just north of Tokyo. With the help of Google Street View, I took a virtual tour around the island, seeing the older houses of the small town and the elementary school that has long since been shut down for lack of students. The green that abounds is very welcoming, as are the pristine beaches and clear waters of the Pacific Ocean. Ayumi loves all of these things, and so do I.

Kashiwa Island is located on the south-westernmost tip of Shikoku, a relatively large island just off the main island of Japan. It's almost 1,000km from downtown Tokyo by car and requires a visitor to go through some gorgeous mountain roads that look as though they were paved to actively entice people away from the endless noise and distractions of the city.

I have never been to this part of Japan, though it's long been on my bucket list. Pictures and videos from the area are often filled with green fields, blue skies, and compelling mountains. People seem friendlier. Food appears fresher. What's not to like?

So, thanks to a last-minute time off request being granted at work, Ayumi and I will be making a trip down to this unexplored – by us – land this coming Wednesday. We're currently staying in Aichi, so the drive will not be a full day's length. Instead, we'll leave around six o'clock in the morning and arrive at our first camp shortly before sunset.

The drive will have us go through the cities of Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe before we reach our first planned stops in Awaji, the island that sits between Kobe and the island of Shikoku. From there we'll continue to Naruto, where we'll stop for a few more pictures and videos, and then on to Kōchi City where we'll set up camp for the first night less than 50 metres from the ocean.

The next day we'll head down to Takasago and Oshima. If we're lucky, Oshimasakura Park will still have a lot of cherry blossoms in full bloom. From there we'll follow highway 357 along the coast down to a paid campsite in Otsuki, which has a lovely view of Kashiwa Island. Because this is a paid campsite, we will need to check in no later than four o'clock. This will allow us to explore the nearby beach and, hopefully, enjoy a picturesque sunset.

On Friday we won't be travelling too far as we'll make our way over to Kashiwa Island to explore for a few hours before following highway 321, also known as "Sunny Road" to the final campsite in Matsuo, which is the southern-most tip of Shikoku. Given the number of places I've identified to stop and explore between the two campsites, I will be surprised if we get through half of them before sunset. The total distance is less than 30km. Hopefully there will be at least one camping spot available in Matsuo when we arrive, as the public sites do not have a reservation system. First-come first-served can be a bit of a challenge at this time of year when everyone wants to get out and enjoy as much of their weekend as possible.

Saturday's plan is pretty simple: drive back to Aichi prefecture. This is a nine-hour trek in and of itself, and we'll certainly be stopping at various places along the way. Sunday, despite being a day of rest, will see Ayumi and I return to our apartment in Kashiwa.

All in all, this will likely be a 2,500km trip from start to finish. It will require six full tanks of gas, about $80 in highway fees, $20 for one campsite, and who knows how many terabytes of storage … because I'll be using every camera and memory card I can get my hands on.

Hopefully, by this time next week, the first of many videos will hit YouTube. And, if this trip is successful, it will be the first of many camping adventures that Ayumi and I will embark upon this year.

1. While I like my car, it's not big enough to sleep in comfortably. I would have to put Ayumi on the floor so that I can sleep in the passenger seat, as we're not supposed to sleep in the driver's seat of a car; even a two-seater. Even doing this, I would likely wake up with sore muscles and a headache … which would spoil the fun of being out.

With the rise of TikTok and similar off-the-cuff services people have become more accustomed to watching videos with a portrait orientation. This has long struck me as odd as it removes a viewer's ability to explore the periphery to better understand a situation or context. However, given the incredible popularity of the format, there is clearly something that people find attractive. This is clearly something that makes sense to explore if I plan on doing anything with online video long term.

A couple of weeks ago I thought that it would make sense to start with videos of Ayumi doing silly puppy-dog things. I went through all of my videos of her, of which there are hundreds, and found none of them that would work in a portrait orientation. Just about every video had been recorded in the more traditional landscape orientation with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Converting this to a 9:16 simply did not work as it would rarely allow more than half of Ayumi's face to appear at any given time. New videos would need to be captured.

At the start of March, the puppy and I got in the car and drove out to Izumi on the Pacific coast of Chiba Prefecture. There we walked along a beach well known for all the driftwood that accumulates there and recorded about 25 minutes of video using a handheld camera as well as a drone using both 16:9 and 9:16 aspect ratios. A YouTube Short was published within a few hours of returning home and, to the surprise of nobody, it received almost zero views.

Given I am a complete unknown to just about everyone on Earth, this comes as no surprise. This video was also the first "short" and pretty much consists of me walking around on a beach, because Ayumi was moving in and out of focus with most of the footage that was collected. Sure, people watch these videos on their phone, but fuzzy images are no fun.

A week later I went out for an evening drive after a rather frustrating day at work. Rain was softly falling and it offered an opportunity to try and play with reflections and light. The pocket camera was mounted to its suction arm and moved around the interior of the car as I drove to Funabashi and back. Again, a video was uploaded to YouTube within an hour or so of getting home. However, this one was watched by four times as many people as the first video. Clearly something worked. But what?

From what I can tell, there are only two real differences between the videos:

• one focuses on a person while another focuses on an action
• one is labelled mostly with English while the other contains Japanese hashtags

Perhaps the problem is the language?

Today I posted a third Short. This one involved me driving home at night with the top down on the car. The descriptions were all in Japanese without a hint of English. Interestingly enough, the view count was more than double the previous video after just three hours. Are my videos being presented to people outside of Japan? Sure, I'm geographically inside the country, but the use of English was supposed to make the videos a little more international. According to the various metrics that YouTube shares, though, over 90% of all visitors for every video are in Japan, with over 80% of them being male. So, if I want to have videos that attract eyeballs, the English should be an afterthought.

Mind you, the point of creating a YouTube channel was not to attract a huge audience, but to learn new skills while also sharing the beauty of Japan with anyone who might watch. That said, investing hours into video recording and editing only to receive a few dozen views is disheartening. Having a bit of a balance would be nice.

So, with this in mind, I think the plan for the near future will be to continue making shorts while also focussing on some of the longer-form videos. They will be made primarily for a Japanese audience, which means I'll need to improve my pronunciation a bit if there will be any speaking, and subtitles will be made available for anyone who doesn't know the language. Let's see what patterns emerge over the next few months.

Large Language Models – or LLMs – have been in the news for well over a year now as people explore various ways these sorts of tools can be used in any number of situations. Like many people, I've dabbled with some of these as well. The locally-run models are interesting and terribly slow while the public services are rapid and most certainly not free¹.

Last year I was curious to see whether this technology could be used at the day job in order to provide a more complete description of student development in the written sections of progress reports. This is generally an area where specificity is useful, but the time needed to write a detailed analysis of someone's growth is often greater than the amount of time that teachers have available. The idea that I wanted to test was this: given we already know a person's attendance, participation, past progress scores, and material coverage, can a 400-word summary be provided to the teacher ahead of time? This would allow them to read through the feedback and make edits where appropriate, while ensuring the students have realistic, evidence-based feedback to help them with future studies.

After a couple of days worth of effort, it was clear that there were two LLMs capable of delivering the core of what I was looking for. One even had the added benefit of being able to translate across multiple languages, making it a clear winner. I delivered my findings to senior management at the day job who agreed that it was an interesting area of study, but they decided to not pursue any sort of automated feedback system just yet. The one or two vague sentences from the bulk of our over-worked teachers was clearly sufficient in their eyes, so I set my investigations of LLMs aside given that none of my personal computers really had the power to use them in a realistic fashion².

However, as LLMs, image generators, and video creation engines become more powerful, this isn't something that makes sense to completely ignore. There are a number of areas where these sorts of tools would be incredibly useful, particularly the Large Language Models which can be trained on the writings of an individual.

Jordan Peterson has mentioned on a few occasions how people he works with are doing things like putting the entirety of Christian texts into LLMs in order to ask the machine questions. Peterson Academy will do something similar, putting entire courses into an LLM so that students can "ask the course" a question. Dr. Peterson has even had all of his writings put into an LLM so that he could essentially ask himself a question. His glowing reviews of this budding technology has made me incredibly curious.

Could a Large Language Model be used to generate course material that is customised to an individual student? Could it take into account their strengths and weaknesses? Could it recommend further study on matters the student may require to successfully complete a course? This would be an incredibly interesting area of study, but it's a bit beyond my abilities at the moment. Before getting into something like this, it might be better to start testing LLMs with personalised data.

Dabbling with ChatGPT

Looking at the hardware requirements to run a Large Language Model system locally, I would need to invest about $3,500 at a minimum into a workstation. Several avenues were explored to reduce costs, including starting with a used system that could be upgraded in sections. Unfortunately, the cost always worked out to somewhere in the vicinity of $3,500 to $4,000 in the first year, not including the cost of electricity and network bandwidth. This is several thousand dollars more than I am willing to invest at this time, so a cheaper option was required.

Fortunately, OpenAI has a $20/month offering for a fully-featured ChatGPT account. Last night I created an account and started playing around by asking the machine questions, hoping it would provide answers that I already knew³. In each case the response was correct and, in one instance, the answer included information that I had never heard before. Within five minutes I discovered two other sources that corroborated the new information and was impressed because ChatGPT taught me something new while I was testing its ability to understand my words.

Next I wanted to see how well the DALL-E image generator worked. The first request was "Show me a paper airplane flying over the surface of Mars with the Curiosity rover in the distance". This is what I received back:

I then uploaded a picture of Ayumi and asked "Show me a picture of Ayumi playing a game of Go against a cat". This is how DALL-E responded:

Very interesting.

But could it write something the same way I might? Would it know to use an excessive number of commas, ellipses, and relative clauses?

Today I tested this out by uploading my entire public blogging archive dating from 2006 to today, as well as every public social post I have ever written to Twitter, App.Net, and Nice.social. This amounts to almost 4,000 blog posts and over a quarter-million social posts. Replies and any post shorter than 100 characters was excluded, as they would lack any context to work with.

To test, I kept the request vague: "Can you write a blog post using my writing style?"

What came back was interesting:

Embracing the Unfamiliar: My Journey with Ayumi and the Art of Coding

In the ever-evolving landscape of life, I find myself continually drawn to the unfamiliar, seeking growth at the crossroads of personal adventure and technological exploration. This journey, accompanied by my faithful Shiba Inu, Ayumi, mirrors the unpredictable nature of coding - a realm where each challenge is a step towards mastering the art.

Ayumi, with her spirited demeanor, teaches me the value of curiosity and resilience. Our travels across Japan, from the bustling streets of Tokyo to the serene landscapes of Kyoto, are more than mere physical movements; they are a metaphor for navigating the complexities of coding interfaces, databases, and APIs. Each destination, much like every coding challenge, presents its own set of puzzles, demanding adaptability, patience, and an eagerness to learn.

The philosophy of coding, much like life itself, is an endless loop of learning and unlearning. It's about embracing the bugs and errors as stepping stones, not stumbling blocks. Ayumi's unwavering spirit in the face of new territories and her joy in discovery remind me of the satisfaction found in solving a particularly stubborn bug or deploying a feature that perfectly serves its purpose.

Our adventures are more than just tales of a man and his dog; they are a narrative of the symbiosis between technology and human experience. As Ayumi explores new landscapes with fervor, I delve into the intricacies of coding, each of us on our own quest for understanding, yet together on a journey of mutual growth.

In this dance with the unknown, Ayumi and I find harmony. The challenges of the road and code, rather than daunting, become sources of inspiration. They remind us that at the heart of every adventure, whether it be through the forests of Japan or the virtual forests of code, lies the opportunity for discovery, learning, and, ultimately, a deeper connection with the world around us.

Screenshot of Request

Lots of commas. Relative clauses galore. Even a pair of semi-colons. The only thing missing was an ellipsis in the first or second paragraph. The intertwining of disparate ideas in a semi-unresolved manner also seems to capture some of my longer-form blog posts from years past where I tried – and failed – to hone the craft of writing thoughtful articles exploring a philosophy that I could not yet lay down in words.

Absolutely remarkable.

Bringing this whole thing back to the idea of using LLMs with personalised education, using a tool with this sort of perspicacity would make it possible to construct personalities for one or more "teachers" who could interact as realistic avatars with people studying a topic. While this would not eliminate the isolation a person feels when learning something on their own, it could drastically reduce the need to find secondary or tertiary sources for answers. An LLM with an entire library of materials on astrophysics, for example, could answer questions from students in the persona of the teacher leading the course or – if such things were permitted – through the voice and mannerisms of Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Edna Krabappel. This could drastically improve "engagement" in a learning environment; something that is often a challenge with students who are easily distracted or bored.

At the moment, no artificial teacher can replace a real human who is invested in teaching people a subject they are passionate about. We still have a long way to go before technology can completely replace the benefits of learning from physically present educators. However, a well-trained digital assistant could go a long way to reducing the workload of a teacher or professor, answering the simpler questions or repeating the same points for students who need the repetition. This would allow digital systems to be where skills and knowledge are acquired so that classrooms can be dedicated to the application of the skills and knowledge.

A pie in the sky dream? Perhaps. But we are a lot closer to this being a reality than a lot of people might realise.

1. Yes, there are free offerings out there, but these services generally offer the previous version of their software or an incredibly limited subset of functions. When exploring a tool with as much press coverage and potential as an LLM, it's generally better to invest some resources in order to build a better understanding of what potential may exist.

2. I do have a decent computer … I think. It's just not decent enough to run LLMs with any sort of velocity. A single question can take upwards of 30 ~ 45 minutes to answer. Maybe one day I'll invest in a dedicated machine for this purpose … but not for a long while.

3. Do not blindly believe anything found on the Internet.

One year ago today I took a detour on my way home to stop by a pet shop in Adachi to see a young puppy with white fur. Later that afternoon, after a bunch of paperwork, she came home with me.

Looking back at the early photos and videos, it's hard to believe that Ayumi used to be so small. We've been together for almost every hour of every day, unless I've been at church or out to a store, which makes it a little difficult to see her grow with time. Fortunately, cameras are incredibly ubiquitous now and we can very easily capture a moment to enjoy it at some point in the future. Will she continue to grow larger this year? I wonder ….

To celebrate this lovely occasion, Ayumi and I hopped in the car and drove to Noda to walk around the giant Shimizu Park that dominates the west side of the city. We crossed bridges, followed a river, walked through a bamboo forest, and met a bunch of people. After returning to the car, we drove over to Tsukuba to explore another park that is mostly known for its soccer fields and a very, very large grassy hill. Along the way we enjoyed a bit of food and we even shared some yogurt, which is one of her favourite treats.

As per usual, while we were on the road people would see us in our topless yellow car and smile. A number of people took pictures of Ayumi as she looked over the passenger-side window. Pedestrians on the sidewalk waved. A man on a scooter pulled up alongside us at a red light to say "hello".

So much has happened over this past year as a result of Ayumi and I being together that it sometimes seems unreal. How can so much take place in such a short period of time? A better question might be what does the future have in store?

At the tail end of 2022 I had made a list of things that I needed to do in order to position myself better for whatever might happen in the months and years to come. Ayumi was not on the list, but she provided a great deal of incentive to get to work on those objectives while also demanding some new ones. 2023 was remarkably productive, interesting, educational, and rewarding as a result. The first six weeks of 2024 has followed the trend with the added benefit of meeting new people just about everywhere we go.

Ayumi's name consists of two kanji: 歩 + 光. Progress and light. May our future together be long, interesting, and joyous.