#'i could have done better - _____ reflects on _____ and shares plans for improvement'

[asexualglimmer]

There's something to be said about the public performance of discussing concepts like "how one's year went" and "plans for the next year" publically, but there's something nice about sharing these thoughts with the world - even if they are mostly melancholy this year.

This year has been... mixed, to say the least. On a personal level, I don't have much to comment on. I had a paid month off of work in May, which I spent traveling to a few places to see people I haven't seen in a long time (as well as visit family). This time off was really nice. Really, really nice. I wish this wasn't a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. I found such regularity in being around other people.

Beyond the personal, work has been much improved. A very long & tedious project finally finished. (Mostly. It has been over half a year and I am still helping to clean things up. I don't mind it, though; it can be interesting work at times, and when it isn't, it helps to pass the time.) Now that this monster of a project is done, work has mostly been steady & consistent - which is a boon considering Everything Else Going On.

Oh, the medical stuff. It started slowly this year, with a diagnostic colonoscopy + endoscopy revealing nothing regarding my energy levels, and has since spiraled into 5 months of endless appointments and tedious "following-up-on-people-who-should-have-done-things-independently". My PCP sucks (2 months to go until I get a new one) and treated me like shit. I got off of continuous iron supplementation, finally, after over 5 years. I tapered down my SSRIs. (I could not come off them completely, because apparently Lexapro enhances the affects of Adderall, and changing my Adderall dose during the ongoing DEA-manufactured "shortage" is, in my opinion, a non-starter.) I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea & have been working to adjust to sleeping with a CPAP machine, which is still an ongoing process. I finally got into physical therapy, struggled immensely with it, and was then referred to aquatic physical therapy, which has gone really well - perhaps the only medical thing that really has gone well this year. I'm still seeing eating disorder specialists, even if I haven't made much headway there. (There's too much going on.) I still have many problems, and many which I believe to still be undiagnosed & untreated. I'm better than I was 2 years ago, but I don't think I'm better than I was last year.

I do think I've improved with keeping up with chores. I've hammered down quite a few to keep up with on a weekly basis. (Laundry, dishwasher, trash, recycling, mail, and groceries.) It is... mixed at times, but I do what I am able to. I overhauled a lot of what was in my bathroom this year too. I replaced my shower curtains. I finally had maintenance replace my shower head, after owning the thing for over 2 years. I got new bath mats. I cleaned out much of the old medicines & supplies. (The supplies are still waiting to be donated. That's for another day.)

That's about all I have for a reflection on the previous year. I don't fully remember what my resolve was for this year - if I had to hazard a guess, I wanted to keep a focus on medical things (which I definitely did, for better or for worse) and maintain some structure with chores (which is much improved over the past year - I am, at the very least, basically never backlogged on anything I consider to be in a maintenance state).

As for next year... the medical focus is self-explanatory (and necessary). I actually might even join a gym??? (It's really terrible that there's no way to access a warm water pool without paying for it in some capacity. Medical care is gate kept by money! Unsurprising.) I'll keep tweaking my CPAP settings in pursuit of better sleep. I would, eventually, like to get off of Lexapro entirely. A new PCP will hopefully mean a new set of eyes on all of my symptoms. And, energy permitting, I'd like to get back into cooking - which I think will help my eating disorder a bit. (I'm not sure if I will be able to do it without the support of a meal kit service. I'd like to be able to do that, but I'm really not sure where I stand there.)

Beyond the medical, I want work to remain mostly stable. I'll keep advocating to be paid more, but I'm not expecting much. At this point, the health insurance is so worthwhile that I'm not particularly interested in moving jobs (or moving period). And in my personal life, I want to keep working to make my apartment somewhere I am happy to be in - somewhere I am proud to have decorated and am proud to maintain.

That's about it. I hope 2024 is a better year. (At the very least, I hope it is okay.)

#my life the universe and everything

[haztobegood]

⭐️ Annual Writing Self-Evaluation 2022 ⭐️

Thank you to @larrysballetslippers @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed @daggerandrose @jaerie @louandhazaf @loveislarryislove @beelou @jacaranda-bloom for tagging me! I’ve done this for the past few years and I love seeing how much I’ve grown as a writer each year! (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021)

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 14

2. Word count posted for the year: 52,141

3. Fandoms I wrote for: One Direction, Music RPF (Lil Nas X, Orville Peck), Ted Lasso

4. Pairings: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, girl!Harry Styles/girl!Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles/Ted Lasso, Harry Styles/Lil Nas X, Louis Tomlinson/Orville Peck, Niall Horan & Harry Styles

5. Story with the most: Kudos: Not Another Lonely Christmas Bookmarks: Not Another Lonely Christmas Comments: More Than a Mic Drop

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why): We're Getting Better With Time, I feel like this fic showcases how much I've grown since I've started writing. I learned a lot about pacing and adding relevant details while writing this one, and I've received so many wonderful comments on it.

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why): Good Dogs Don’t Bark, it was fun in the moment to share something inspired by Harry barking on tour, but it isn't something I put a lot of time and effort into, so it isn't very memorable to me compared to other things I posted this year.

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received: There were so many lovely comments all around this year, but one of the funniest was a tweet of someone complaining about my Harry/Ted Lasso fic Premier Fantasies that started off with "MY EYES MY EYES MY EYES OH GOOD LORD MY TIME HERE ON EARTH IS DONE." I feel like I've finally made it to a new tier of fic writer by writing something so unhinged that someone broke into all caps.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: I don't remember a particularly hard time this year, but November and December were difficult just from the number of deadlines I had. I was luckily able to finish everything by their posting dates, but it was very stressful. I posted the Louis Rare Pair, 1D Christmas Fest, art for Reverse Bang, and a secret santa fic all in December.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: The entire plot of That's What I Want. I wanted to write a rare pair that hadn't been done before. I picked Harry/Lil Nas X and thought it would be fun to do an Mpreg fic. I couldn’t decide which one in the pair should be pregnant. I laughed so hard when I finally figured out a plot with both of them pregnant.

More under the cut.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: From We're Getting Better With Time

He turns out the light, leaving his tired reflection behind as he return to the bedroom to finish unpacking. It’s strange, trying to put back pieces of his life into this room that they’ve never fit into. Everything reminds him how little this house feels like a home. The half-filled closet, the dresser without any knickknacks on top, the bare walls. Even the bedding he’d bought was a boring striped pattern.

He was never meant to stay at this rental house long term. But it’s been eight months since his wife asked for a separation, eight months since he signed the lease on the first available furnished rental unit he could afford. The rental has standard beige walls, beige carpet, beige everything. It is a beige purgatory where he’d planned to wait out the final judgement on his thirty-three years of marriage.

The ink on the divorce papers has been dry for six weeks now, and yet he hasn’t thought about buying a house of his own once.

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: My descriptions and details have improved a lot. While writing We're Getting Better With Time, I had sort of an ah-ha moment. I got frustrated because I kept thinking that the story would be told better if I could write a long slowburn fic, but I didn't have time for that because it was for a fest. Instead, I thought about all the elements I'd want if I were writing the long fic, like Harry's relationships with his ex-wife and children, or to show the difference between the home his ex-wife kept and the house Harry was renting temporarily. I got creative and found new ways to slip those details into the story without adding chapters of backstory or filler.

13. How do you hope to grow next year: My goal last year was to finish some of my longer wips. I definitely didn't do that this year, and the longest fic I posted was under 8k. Longer works are a bit intimidating for me, but I still want to finish the bigger ideas I have in my wip folder.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): The 1D Rare Pair group chat is always so encouraging for trying out new pairings! I branched out with some brand new pairs this year, with Harry/Ted Lasso in Premier Fantasies, Harry/Lil Nas X in That's What I Want, and Louis/Orville Peck in It's All Come and Go.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: Oddly, I wrote three fics this year that mention pancakes/waffles, and they were never eaten at breakfast. This was completely unintentional, but makes a lot of sense, as pancakes at dinnertime is one of my favorite meals.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: Stop editing your first draft. It is a lot harder to edit properly when you don't have the full picture. Try getting your idea onto the page first, then perfect it later.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: I have a the start of a prequel for Hex Appeal that I'm hoping to post for @wankersday. I also want to work on my Girl Direction Covid Island fic and my Zouis spy fic.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read. @zanniscaramouche @kingsofeverything @quelsentiment @ladyaj-13 @littleroverlouis @uhoh-but-yeah-alright @beelou @allwaswell16 @fallinglikethis @reminiscingintherain @lululawrence @disgruntledkittenface @justanothershadeofblue

#fics and wips

[catscratching]

[ Apologies for being quiet, I've been struggling with health issues for the past couple of months. Hoping to start writing again soon! ]

•───────────────────⋅☾ ☽⋅───────────────────•

Seda had not grown up celebrating Starlight.  Her mother had not been observant, and Bocquet had not felt strongly about it one way or another.  So she didn’t make big plans for celebrations at the Meyhane, beyond hanging stockings for the children and small gifts of appreciation for the staff.

Stepping off the airship in Ishgard, however, was a delight for the senses; decorations and festive greenery were everywhere, music played, and the scents of apples and cinnamon and evergreen filled her lungs.   She and Fakhri took their time provisioning for the trip out to the cabin, and she suspected she wasn’t the only one sliding a few unplanned purchases into her pack.

The isolated, desolate beauty of the Coerthas mountains embraced her, and she often wondered if this was what Halone’s devout felt when they stepped into one of her cathedrals;  peace, grace – a place for reflection, for spiritual rejuvenation.

Celebrating Jól with Fakhri was another memory to tuck away for later; warmth and laughter as they wove fresh garlands, fingers sticky with sap.  She never really needed an excuse to snuggle in front of the fire with him, but watching the yule log burn through the night and quietly talking about the future had felt like a religious service; she’d never experienced anything quite like it.

She had brought a few small gifts for him for the season – a bundle of beautiful goose feathers she had dyed various shades of green and gold, so he could use them for fletchings, a new bowstring, a hand-knit pouch for Arak stuffed with down from the same geese.   It was important that their four-legged family member be sufficiently warm while they spent time in the wilds.

Secretly, she had hoped to give him an additional gift, but her cycle had arrived four days before they left, and… it was foolish to expect results so quickly after they began trying, but her heart had yearned anyway.

The holiday passed and Heavensturn arrived, and then it was Seda’s turn to share a family observance.   She didn’t know if it was something her mother’s people had done, or if it was more widespread over Eorzea, but for her, the holiday had always been a night of remembrance and reflection. She pulled the cushions off the sofa and piled them in front of the window with the best view of the clearing around the cabin, then further padded the nest with pillows and cushions.  It was not required to make a comfortable lounging nook – normally she just used a comfortable chair, but this year felt special.

“We place a candle in a window and sit vigil through the night while it burns,”  She explained in a quiet voice.  “The intention is to reflect on the turn just passed; express gratitude for the good things, and reflect on the things you have learned.  In… my family, we also used the holiday to remember loved ones that aren’t with us – either in another geographic space or passed on.” 

She couldn’t see his eyes, the fire was left burning because they would need the heat, but all other lighting had extinguished.  “In the morning, you extinguish the candle and think of two things you want to learn or improve on.  They’re not… hard-fast rules, just a goal to work toward through the year.”

She set a large, fat candle on the sill, then two smaller ones on either side, looking down at them for a long moment.  “Normally I just light one candle – for my mother.  But this year has given me a great deal to reflect on, and I thought perhaps we could light a candle for your boys, as well.” 

Striking a match, she lit the big centre candle before shifting out of the way, leaving the other two for her beloved.

Seda had never thought she’d find someone to love – not after Rucio, not after everything she’d gone through.  Casual, temporary relationships had suited her lifestyle much better than permanent connections. 

Fakhri and Arak had changed that, and as the candle’s light bathed their bed for the evening in a soft, golden light, she blinked tears away as emotion swelled in her chest.  She never would have imagined, a year ago, the life she led now – employment that she not only loved, but could feel very good about doing, a wonderful partner that supported and cherished her, and perhaps motherhood on the horizon.

The thin golden thread that stretched between them was sometimes difficult for her to sense; but in that moment she could see it in her mind’s eye, strong and bright, shining like the sun.   Settling into the cushions, she smiled to herself.  It had been a good year.  And she had many, many more to look forward to.

@gray-morality

#Seda Ballard #Fakhri Man'tik #Heavensturn 2023

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Writing Tips

Here’s some writing tips I’ve found helpful for anyone who is struggling and may need them! I can’t promise my tips are any good, but here we go:

Don’t post for notes, post to make yourself more confident and a better writer. It is hard to get passed the lack of interactions, trust me I still get bummed a lot. But posting my writing has actually made me a more confident person (on and off this site) and a better writer. I’ve read parts of my first fic, LEGACY, lately and I cringe so bad because it’s really not that good (I’m now doing a major edit to it) but then I read some of my other fics and realize that the only reason those are good is because of LEGACY. Posting my work has improved my work.

Write your ideas done before you forget them! This happens to me all the time and I hate myself for it. I’m trying to get more in the habit of jotting down ideas in my notes. You never know even when the smallest bit of inspiration will strike!

Before you start writing, even just your first draft, right an outline. An outline can be formatted in many ways. I’ve used many different outlines depending on how I’m feeling and how much of the story I already have planned in my head. Sometimes I create a table, other times it’s bullet points, or (because I’m an elementary teacher) I find a graphic organizer I want to use. Write down as much as you can about the story you’re starting. Characters (relationships, backstories, personalities, etc), certain scenes and lines you already know you want to happen, settings, important plot points, where you want the story to end. Refer back to it as you write and feel free to add and edit it.

(This one can work with the outline.) Write a summary of the chapters before you actually write them. This way you know what you want to happen in the chapter or what needs to happen in the chapter. You can do a few at a time and work on them as you go along or map all the chapters out before you actually write it.

Don’t be afraid to do research before writing a scene! Or if you are even interesting in writing a scene. Do research, take notes!

Edit! (I’m still working on this and sometimes I’m better than others.) Find a system for editing that works for you. Could be you rereading it over and over in your head and out loud to yourself. It could be a friend or a follow reading it before you post it. Or a site like Grammarly.

Find a system of writing that works for you. Don’t be afraid to try new things! But also don’t be afraid to stay in your comfort zone if it’s working for you.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. Share personal stories, you’d be surprised how many people have gone through the experience or something similar. My most vulnerable fics are some of my best and most popular.

Write what you want and feel comfortable with. No need to open/take requests if you don’t want to. And if you do, you don’t have write every single request or do it exactly the way it was asked. You are the author, you decide how it’s written.

Give yourself some slack. No one is perfect. No one’s writing it perfect. Even the paid professionals make mistakes (trust me, I know famous authors and they make plenty of writing mistakes). Not all stories, fics, chapters, etc, are going to be a hit. Some will flop. But it’s not a reflection on you as a person or a writer. You are an amazing person and writer, no matter the amount of notes or what negative people have to say.

#Writing #writers #tips #helpful #writing help #writing tips #writing struggles #writing strategies #writing resources #writers helping writers

[sophocused]

I started actively trying with my mental health recovery journey in my first year of uni, in 2018, and since then as I went through the transition of going from 19 to 23. (No therapist or counselor yet because I don't got that time or money)

this year, and it's may right now, I feel like it's the longest I've ever gone of being in a decent state that, even though all the bad thoughts, self doubt, etc. are still there, I've developed some pretty effective systems that the worse days seem more like "just bad days".

1. Not spending energy pretending I'm more upbeat or engaged or enthusiastic than I actually I am for the comfort of others. I feel like a lot of my high school life and early uni life was spent trying to "fit in" with people who didn't understand what it's like to live with a mental illness or severe anxiety, depression, etc. I've noticed that due to my 2 year relationship being very vulnerable and my partner influencing me that I can just be the me I naturally am with anyone, it put me in the habit of forgetting to pretend. It's saved me a lot of energy, and in a way feels more like an act of self-love and self-compassion by not making myself endure for the sake of others. For example, I speak in a relaxed flat tone because I'm no longer worried that I don't sound engaged enough. Sometimes it could even sound tired to people. What's important is I know it's just me respecting how I'm currently feeling.

2. Expressing that I like being invited, but also choosing myself if I notice my social battery is out. I used to think that rejecting invites would cause eventually for people to stop inviting me to anything. I reflected on why I felt that way, and decided that if I'm not a reliable source for enough quality time for people, that is their right to also care for themselves. But I will also care for myself, and notice my cues and limits.

3. To combat the gnawing feeling that my mode of productivity will only last for a little because I'm manic, I told myself, "Even if it is because of mania, at least I got things done and did my future self a favour." By not internalizing guilt about my stints and dips in my mental stability, I actually don't get too extreme anymore. For example, instead of pulling an all-nighter to clean out and re-organize every square inch of my room, I do it from 6pm-12am, and actually get sleepy by 11pm.

4. I don't share out loud to other people too often what I plan to do or aim to do to improve myself in many areas of my life because I've noticed that my brain accidentally gets tricked into thinking that I've gotten them done already. Like, the dopamine from talking about what I'm going to do is high enough to make me tired because thinking and dreaming out loud was tiring and felt like an accomplishment in itself.

5. I learned that I've reached a point that my self-esteem is not tied to my insecurities. I could be insecure that I'm not the weight I want to be or that my hair is getting brassy, but it does not mean I see myself as worth any less of the way I believe I deserve to be treated. With my partner, I am never afraid to state my needs or dispute an issue in fear of them leaving for someone more attractive or active or something.

6. My split shift for the past 3 months tricked me into becoming a morning person. After spending most of 2021 struggling to sleep until 4am and waking up at 2pm, getting out of bed around 4pm... This year is a shock. I'm sleepy by 10:30pm, I wake up without an alarm around 6:30am or 7:30am, and I have developed a habit of getting straight out of bed instead of spending hours on my phone. This was thanks to my Routinery app I used from January to February that helped me with visual aid and timer to get moving and what I'm supposed to be doing.

And yeah that's about it that I've noticed about myself because of how contrasting it is from who and how I was 2-3 years ago.

Also, I don't care if I'm getting along better with my mom now, I'm still moving out with my friends or partner as soon as I get my savings to $10k, and am making at least $30k a year (potentially, march 2023 because I'm graduating in February 2023).

I'm excited to live by my values that show a great love and altruistic approach to people and community. I'm excited to not have to hear abelist comments, heteronormative comments, and just blatantly negative and offensive comments from my gen X parents. I love them but in loving them, I've grown to accept that if it's 2022, and they still repel or evade the signs of progressiveness and inclusivity, there's nothing I can do now except protect my peace and live by my truth on my own and with people who share the same.

My last thought to say is:

It feels good to be tired from doing things, instead of just being tired after having done nothing all day. I'm very tired right now. Because I'm home from my 3rd split shift of the week. I work at 6:30am and finish at 6pm. Open and close. It has been grey skies and drizzle all week. I'm tired. However, I apply myself still at work because it does make me happy to feel that I'm bringing happiness to other people, and also ofc money lol. There's something about work I like because it forces me to be offline and off my phone or any device for 6 hours in the day. Next week, I'm even going to start biking to work in the morning and afternoon, with some jams, bc it's only 10 min away and is a straight line. This could open up a whole new area of consistent/mandatory self care for me.

I can feel the mentally unwell me fighting, biting, kicking, scratching, to go back to when it was "easy" to just suffer in silence and anhedonia. I just place my hand gently on her head, carefully brushing her hair out of her face, and say, "I know, I understand it would be nice. But you deserve to feel something now. You deserve to keep feeling more and more, and to always choose yourself."

#nina rambles #mental health #recovery

[missprotestalot]

38

Today I’m 38. Don’t know the last time I wrote a reflection, or something resembling a reflection (that wasn’t also a To Do list). I struggle to even know how to spend my birthday because it feels like a day that’s supposed to be about me, and I don’t even know what that means.

My kids have become the center point of everything, and that has been wonderful and sacrificial and challenging. Becoming a mother has totally transformed me as a person, to the point that when I look in the mirror I have to really squint to *see* the self I was even ten years ago, at 28, someone who said she was content to wake up at 4 am to work a kitchen job that barely paid the rent for my elevator-sized bedroom in a city that swallowed me up. I left New York at 29 looking for something more, not knowing what was in store for me yet. Children! Marriage! No one tells you (because how can they?) how hard and breathtaking and impossibly ecstatic these things can be.

Since lists are easiest for me these days, here are a few things I can manage to say I have learned as I reflect on 38 years. I think this list is for my children, who might, I hope, read it:

1.       Always shoo your ego away so you can be the one to say sorry, even if you’re first every time and the only one to do it.

2.       Impatience has never served you, and never will. Rushing is never worth it. Can’t think of a single time when I rushed, or acted out of impatience, and it worked out to be something I was glad about.

3.       Material items are harmful. Acquiring them, searching for the “best”, paying for them, caring for them. So much precious time is wasted on possessing “stuff”. The world revolves around capitalism and making you think you need things - more, better things -  to be happy. I wonder how many years I could get back, how much valuable time...

4.       Children deserve your full attention, whenever they ask for it. Always be willing to drop what you’re doing to look into their little faces and listen to what they want to tell you.

5.       Mistakes are the best way to learn. Make them instead of being afraid to try.

6.       Get more rest. Allow yourself to have no plans. Don’t worry that you will miss out on something. That’s a given – you will. But that’s OK. Learn to enjoy and experience the slice of life you’ve got right in your present moment.

7.       Let go of expectations, and see how much happier you can be with what you already have in your life.

8.       Be generous. Give people whatever you can. Do not spend a fraction of a moment thinking about what you are “getting” back from them. Focus on giving without receiving.

9.       We are a community of humans. We must help each other instead of find reasons to divide ourselves from one another. Look for similarities rather than differences in other people you come across, and learn to work with others instead of isolate and work alone.

10.   Be empathetic. Judgments are often made very quickly without enough information. Every day, remind yourself to think of this question about other people, “What are you going through?” and remember everyone is going through something, and you have no idea.

11.   Learn to love your house. It’s got a roof and it’s warm and even If the kitchen isn’t done and the walls are cracking, it’s home. You didn’t want perfect, anyway.

12.    Choose to be optimistic, even when it seems like optimism is ignorance. I still think that we can choose how we perceive our own lives. Which means we can steer ourselves in totally different directions along the way. I have learned that even dark and sad moments have new, important meaning for me related to growth rather than giving up. I would say learn to take your dark moments and your sad days and understand they are an important part of your whole life, that they should be acknowledged and thought of as pushing off points for experiencing joy, self-care and self-improvement, generosity, community, and sharing.

[jcmarchi]

The Sequence Chat: Yohei Nakajima on Creating BabyAGI, Autonomous Agents and Investing in Generative AI

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-sequence-chat-yohei-nakajima-on-creating-babyagi-autonomous-agents-and-investing-in-generative-ai/

The Sequence Chat: Yohei Nakajima on Creating BabyAGI, Autonomous Agents and Investing in Generative AI

The creator of one of the most popular open source generative AI projects shares his views about AI tech, investing and the future.

Quick bio

Please tell us a bit about yourself. Your background, current role and how did you get started in AI?  

My name is Yohei, I was born in Japan, raised in Seattle, and went to college in California. I’ve been working with startups my whole career, initially on the community side (in LA), and on the investing side for over a decade, started with helping launch the Disney Accelerator. I became the first Director of Pipeline for Techstars before joining Scrum Ventures. This led me to starting my own VC firm Untapped Capital. Specific to AI, I’d played with a few APIs back when I was at Techstars, but this recent deep dive started in August of ‘22 a few months before ChatGPT. I’ve always been a build-to-learn kind of guy, and have done this across no code, web3, and more. Doing this publicly (build-in-public) is how I accelerate my learning, while also connecting and collaborating with founders.

🛠 AI Work  

You are widely recognized in the generative AI community as the creator of BabyAGI. Could you share the vision and inspiration behind the project?

BabyAGI was project number 70 or so in a series of experiments and prototypes I’ve built with AI. The inspiration for this project was HustleGPT where people were using ChatGPT as a cofounder and doing whatever it told them to do. I wanted to experiment with taking the human element out of this and embarked on a weekend challenge to prototype and autonomous startup founder. When I shared a demo video online, people were quick to identify that this framework could be used for more – where it got the nickname BabyAGI (from my friend Jenny).

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Planning and reasoning are among the most fascinating capabilities of BabyAGI. Similar to how reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) laid the groundwork for GPT-3.5/ChatGPT, planning and reasoning have the potential to advance the next generation of Large Language Models (LLMs). Could you share some of the best practices you’ve adopted to enhance reasoning within LLMs, as well as any new research in this area that you find particularly compelling?

I’ve tried a couple of things, but what’s stood out to me in my experiments is the ability to learn over time. In the most recent modification of BabyAGI, every tasklist is analyzed alongside the output of the task list to generate a “reflection” of sorts that we store alongside the objective and tasklist. Anytime we run a new objective, we do a vector search to find the most similar past objectives, pull in the reflection notes, and write a pre-reflection note based on this that gets fed into the task list generator. On a small scale, this has worked in giving BabyAGI the ability to create better tasklist over time, even with the same objective. What I like is that this mimics our ability to improve through repetition, and the same approach could be utilized to generating code, which is more on the execution side.

Autonomous agents are seen as the cornerstone of automation in the generative AI era. Despite significant advancements, they remain a challenging problem. What do you consider the biggest challenges and obstacles to achieving widespread adoption of autonomous agents?

Autonomous agents, especially general ones, are best suited for edge cases. For organizations, the most valuable workflows to automate are workflows that happen repeatedly, meaning there is no need for an agent to generate the task list. The reality today is that there is a ton of value organizations can gain from automation tools like Zapier, even without the use of AI. Reflecting on what I’ve seen here, I suspect the biggest obstacle to achieving widespread adoption is change in human behavior, which compounds in a complex organization with multiple stakeholders with varying incentives.

Action execution stands out as a critical capability of BabyAGI and autonomous agents at large, made particularly complex by the stochastic nature of LLMs. How do you view the development of trends such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or large action models in relation to task execution in autonomous agents?

RAG is a great way to get context, but simply looking at documents is just scratching the surface. Ultimately, we’ll want our agents to be able to RAG against all human knowledge, against its previous runs, its own code, etc. More challenging today, is giving AI access to the tools it needs to execute tasks (calendar, message, etc), as it requires managing and storing authentication methods from the user, understanding how the tool is used, how the AI can use the tool (API or browsers), and in some cases adapting RAG techniques to match the data structure. One approach is building these integrations one at a time, which is more stable which means can get to market quicker – but the goal I believe should be building a system that can teach itself how to use new tools.

A somewhat controversial question: How do you view the boundaries between the internal and augmented capabilities of LLMs? In other words, should capabilities such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or tool integration remain external, or become integrated into LLMs themselves?

Candidly, this is far outside my area of expertise, but based on my observations, it does seems like the rapid experimentation on the orchestration side is slowly being embedded into the models themselves. You can almost imagine an MOE approach of three experts in a loop like BabyAGI. That being said, unsure if things like RAG or tool usage (engaging with things outside the model) can be done from the model natively… unless the model has a code sandbox within it…? Unsure. Regardless, it does feel like the effort in building better orchestration will help models improve, so I think it’s not wasted effort to experiment and explore newer and better orchestration methods.

Besides your contributions to BabyAGI, you also work as a venture capitalist. Apart from well-known areas like LLMs or GPU providers, what generative AI trends do you believe will capture significant value in the coming years?

(1) AI everywhere – we’ll see bits and pieces of AI across all apps and businesses, regardless of whether they are an AI company – similar to how most companies store data in the cloud without being a “cloud company”, (2) Passive AI – with cost going down, we’ll see increasing amount of AI just running in the background, structuring and summarizing data, generating insights, etc, and (3) AI workers – so many people around the world are spending a lot of time doing tasks that don’t require people. We’ll see lots of workflows being automated over the next decade. (4) Smaller/local/fine-tuned models – it’s still early days, but much like we went from general to personalized ads on the web, I suspect we’ll slowly start engaging with various models that are fine tuned for us specifically, and running on our phones, etc.

You’ve recently been involved in another open-source project, Instagraph, which focuses on implementing knowledge graphs. What defines a high-quality knowledge graph, and why is it crucial for applications involving autonomous agents?

Candidly, I’m new to knowledge graphs so can’t speak to “high quality” knowledge graphs. I’ve had plenty of feedback that deduping is hard (it is), but in early RAG experiments on knowledge graphs, I’ve found that it can still work with non-perfect deduping. I’m curious about this approach because the data structure feels closer to how our brain is wired, so it intuitively feels like the right way to do RAG. As we (humans) experience life, we’re constantly processing and restructuring information in our minds, for more efficient recalls and storage, so it seems to make sense to me that AI would benefit from the same type of activity. I think RAG techniques against knowledge graphs, while there are some early examples, is still underexplored.

💥 Miscellaneous – a set of rapid-fire questions 

Looking three to five years into the future, how do you envision the role of autonomous agents in enhancing the productivity of knowledge workers?

I suspect we’ll see lots of workflows that have been replaced with AI, new problems that arise from this, and new roles to solve these problems. That being said, roll out won’t be immediate, as we’ll see early adopters implement the this, run into challenges, and solve them before late adopters start experimenting. This happens in stages with experiments/replacements starting small and getting larger, and then in varying speeds across different industries. In 3-5 years, I’d suspect a good number of forward thinking organizations to have a handful of AI workers who are capable of handling some tasks/workflows being done by humans today.

Do you think transformers combined with massive computing power are sufficient to pave the way to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or do you believe new architectures are necessary?

This one is also outside of my area of expertise but for true AGI (depending on your definition here), it seems like we’d want a model that can process multiple inputs in different modalities in parallel (audio, visual, etc) and also stream parallel outputs across modalities (audio, text, movement) at the same time. My guess is this requires some new architecture beyond what we have today.

How do you view the balance between open-source and proprietary foundational models?

Human beings intrinsically have both self-serving and altruistic motivations, both from an evolutionary history of survival that includes wars and tribes. In my view, the balance of open source and proprietary models reflects this duality within us, and we’ll continue to see this balance ebb and flow based on a multitude of factors from culture to economic results.

Who is your favorite mathematician or computer scientist, and why?

Davinci, cuz he understood the benefit of exploring the same idea through various modalities (image, text, math, etc)

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#AGI #ai #API #APIs #applications #approach #apps #architecture #artificial #Artificial General Intelligence #audio #authentication #automation #background #Behavior #Born #Brain #Building #Calendar #Capture #career #challenge #change #chatGPT #Cloud #code #college #Community #Companies #computer

[reki-of-the-valley]

I don't do this often, and I don't plan on often doing this, but I've been thinking about it today so here's a few reflections I will share with yall about writing and creation. Just like a little "talking without knowing if I truly make sense" moment for me. My little Older Sibling moment for any little creative bug out there who's willing to listen to me for just a moment

I'm pretty sure the bulk of y'all know I've been writing and creating stories since before I was even conscious of my existence. Like, to the point where my parents would get fed up with having to watching my little stage plays that I'd put on with my stuffed animals and still remind me of how annoying I was to this day (long story short of that is picture a 4-5 year old putting on a 45 minute production that came with scribbled "instructions" only I could understand. And no, my parents were not allowed to leave until I was done, otherwise I cried.) But that means I've been here for a hot minute. I've been on this wild rollercoaster for YEARS. Which means I picked up a few things, noticed a few little things about it. And a lot of you also know that I have a whole ass degree in literature, which means I've also read a few things, studied styles and the effect of those styles on the reader. And like yeah, I'm not the most well read person out there, I know so many people who have read so much more than me, but this isn't a competition. I just know I've read enough for me to be able to reflect on my own writing. Which brings me to the writer that stands (sits?) here today

Y'all creating is a fucking bitch. It's a painful process, holy shit. Like it's emotionally draining, physically and mentally demanding, it's a fucking bitch. But I also wouldn't trade my ability to create stories for anything in this world. It's a bitch, but it's my bitch. And it's not always a bitch. Like it's never easy per se, but there are things that work better than others. There are some stories that take less time to be put onto a page than others, maybe because they're simpler or I have more of a vision, but they still take up time and energy. Everything takes energy, energy I don't always have, but I'm always willing to try to find. Which might be why I burnt out for two whole years, but that's besides the point. What I'm trying to say is that even if it's hard, creation is rewarding and I love it. And there's no easy path when it comes to creation. It's uncertain, rocky terrain, that's for sure. But it's rewarding.

It's rewarding, but it doesn't mean I like everything I write. And sometimes it's right when I write it, I hate it, but whatever, I still created it so that's worth something? And then maybe I come to love it. And maybe I like something, but then revisit it and hate it. I don't like everything I've made, I know, it's a shocker. And yet, I'm still proud of what I've created. Because it comes from me, from the energy I was able to scrape by. So here's my first thing I want people to remember: Even if you don't love it, even if you don't even like it, you can and should still be proud of what you've made. It wouldn't exist if it weren't for your efforts, no matter how great or little those efforts were.

Another thing is that you will improve. I know we're usually our own harshest judges, I know it's so easy to look at what we've created and go "someone would have done a better job than me" but fuck that shit. No one else can do it the way you did. No one can do your vision justice if you don't do it yourself. Because you're the only person who knows the exact colors you want there, the exact word that will tie it all together. And sometimes it's difficult to express that little thing you're trying to express, but trust yourself. Trust that you know what you're doing, even when you don't have the slightest clue. It'll work out, my dear. I promise it will. And if it doesn't, walk away and try again later. That might be what you need. Or maybe you need to ask for help. You can do that too.

Asking for help isn't proof of your failure. You're not a failure because you can't do a thing all on your own. And I know it's scary to ask for help, or admit that you can't pull everything out of your head, know every secret of the universe, but you can do it. And look, I've been at this writing and creating thing for like 20 years. And I've been at this writing "real stories" (which isn't a real thing, btw. Everything is a real story, but what I mean here is not being 8 years old and writing the many adventures I thought my pets went on while I was at school) for over 10 years. (because yes, I was that teenager that wasn't paying attention in class because I was too busy writing stories and fanfiction in my notebooks. Math? No thanks, I have to write this story about my favorite characters going on adventures and learning about the power of friendship!) I've gone through so much stuff, tried out so much stuff, that I think I can talk about. And I'm still not perfect. I still don't have beta readers for my fics. I'm the only person who edits my work because I'm still so scared of criticism. I've been writing for over 10 years, sharing my stories for just as long, and I'm still terrified of asking for help. But there have been slow steps towards asking for help, little baby steps, and I know they've helped me become a better writer.

Asking for help can come in many forms. This is going to sound stupid, but my first step towards asking for help was getting myself a dictionary. And you might be thinking "Lils, what the fuck does that mean?" and it simply means that I was so scared of correcting my writing, of having any sort of criticism, that I didn't even consult a dictionary. Because the dictionary had the ability to tell me that the word I was using wasn't correct. And I had to be correct. I had to be the best. (Spoiler alert, I was not the best and I still am not, though I do believe I am a lot better than I used to be.) Now, even if I don't have anyone but myself to edit, I at least have someone who can freely point out my typos or when a sentence doesn't make sense. There's no correction on the content itself, I can't bring myself to accept that directed criticism quite yet, but it's a step closer towards that. Learning to ask for help is a slow process, but it's a rewarding, I promise.

Now back to the improvement thing. I've been doing this for so long that I don't remember a life without writing. Writing has been a constant in my life, but I wasn't always "good" at it. If I reread the things I wrote at 13, I would want to burn those pages. Trust me, that writing style was atrocious. Just reading things I wrote maybe 2 years ago, things I know I was so proud because it was the best I'd ever written, I now reread them with almost an air of disgust. Because I'm always improving. Practice makes you better. And this goes for everything. It sucks to hear it over and over again, but fuck, it's so true. If you don't practice, you'll never improve. Because how are you supposed to get better if you never did it in the first place. So forget about that lousy "but what if it sucks?" voice in your head and just go for it. Because maybe it will suck. Or maybe it'll be amazing. And maybe it'll be amazing the moment you finish it, and then you'll revisit it years from now and go "oh shit, that sucked man." But you know what that means? It means you got better. And even if you look back at it and go "well that looks terrible," you can still be proud of it. You can be proud of that moment, because you created a thing no one else was able to make. You did that. All on your own. Like the amazing person you are.

Here's another fun fact about myself: I like telling people I don't know how to read. "But Lils, you have a whole ass degree in reading." You're correct. And you'd also be correct to day that I do know how to read, how to analyze, and all that good shit. So I do actually know how to read. But the reason I stuck to that whole "I don't know how to read" thing is because reading kinda makes me feel like shit. Or at least, it did. It sometimes still does. Because other authors write these masterpieces and I feel like I can never write something that beautiful. I'll never be as good as some of these writers. I'll never come up with a line that makes you close the book and stare at your ceiling for a solid minute, contemplating your life. I'll never write something that will appear in a "top 100 most beautiful quotes from books" list. But also, maybe I am just as good a writer as those authors.

I used to be so afraid to pick up a book and read because I would compare myself to someone who's had years and years of practice. Like, imagine being 14 and thinking you're a shit writer because your writing isn't as gorgeous as, I don't know, let's say Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I guess I'll never be able to have a character as witty as Elizabeth or a man as lovable as grumpy Darcy, so why even try writing? But I love writing, so instead I swore off reading. I didn't read a book unless I had a book report to do on it until I was... fuck, 20? I think the last book I had read voluntarily during my teenage years was The Fault in Our Stars. All because it was too scary to have the ability to compare myself to literal adults who spent their life writing. So I told myself that I would become an amazing writer without ever reading, even if the number one advice all authors gave was "read books." It's not the best advice I'd give anyone who wants to improve their writing, but it is good to read. It helps you learn how words work. But also, there's so much bad stuff (in my opinion, I've become incredibly picky in my reading) that some books are just not what you should be using to improve your own writing. I'd say they're more like bad teachers for people trying to learn how to write, but that might just be my opinion. Not that that's the point of this.

My point here is that you're not born an expert. And I hate failure as much as the next person, and if you know me, maybe I hate failure even more than everyone on this planet combined, but you have to try something to get better at it. You have to try the colors on your page, you have to make them clash to learn how to make them beautiful together. You have to be 17 writing "But when a man is in love, you can't a snap him out of it." to be 22 writing "All she knows is that Claude is beautiful; all she knows is that maybe she too is beautiful." You have to be 13 starting a story with "HEY! My name is Emma Oak, the grand-daughter of Professor Oak!" to be 22, writing broken love letters between lovers who just never had a chance. You have to be 19 and be proud of "Anyways, it was difficult to continue ignoring him when he was kneeling in front of her, his chocolate brown locked onto her face." to be almost 23, knowing the best you can write right now is "Byleth’s damp cheek rested against Claude’s hand, her beautiful green eyes falling shut as he wiped her tears away." You have to be 21 writing "For Reki, he was ready to do anything. For Reki, he was even willing to put his heart on the line. For Reki, maybe he would be brave enough to confess all the feelings that had been overwhelming him." to be 22 writing "For Byleth, he was ready to be on his knees. For Byleth, he was ready to bring the heavens down to her. For Byleth, he was ready to go mad. For Byleth, he was ready for anything. For Byleth, he was ready to end this war." And you might not notice the difference between some of these lines, but to me, they're jarring. Maybe you don't see the difference a year has made on my writing, but I can see it. I can see my own improvement.

So yeah, my conclusion here is that no one is born knowing all the secrets about a good creation. At 13, I was too afraid of people better than me, so I just pretended they didn't exist. I refused to read books. But now, at 22, I know there are writers who are better than me, and I admire their talent. But I also know that my writing, my unprofessional, unedited, unpeer-reviewed work can change people at their core. I'm not out here writing The Song of Achilles, writing "He is half of my soul, as the poets say," but I am here writing "How could he help the pounding in his chest as fair green eyes stared at him, green eyes that were just off from his entire world?" I know I have the ability to write lines that will stick with my readers, but that's only because I was daring enough to put myself out there. It's only because I was daring enough to suck ass at first. It's only because I was daring enough to think I was the shit, that my writing was groundbreaking even if it was corny and terrible. If I hadn't written those silly little stories filled with inconsistencies, I wouldn't be where I am now. And I know in a year, in two years, in ten years, I'll look back at what I'm currently writing, and I'm going to laugh because my writing will have gotten better by then. But for now, this is the best I can do, and I'm proud of it. I'm proud of how far I've come. Any artist should be proud of how far they've gotten.

So keep creating your art. Keep writing, keep painting, keep drawing, keep dancing, keep creating. I promise, you're amazing at what you do, and you'll only get better as time goes on. Improvement is a bitch to spot, but you'll see it. And be proud of what you've created. Because only you can create that. It's yours. It's all yours, and you should be so fucking proud of that.

#I got sappy but hey #I've just been thinking a lot about creative processes #A professor asked the general question of ''what is inspiration? What does it look like? Where does it come from?'' and I had no answer #and I've been thinking about that question for the last week or so and everything that comes with creativity #I still have no conclusion other than creations are truly personal and you should be proud of yourself for creating #i love you artists <3 all of you <3 #even if you don't share what you do. Even if you don't do it often. I love you <3 #Maybe one day I'll write a journal entry type post about what it was like being terrified but also cocky about writing when I was a teenage #Give me a moment to feel like an older sibling talking about what it was like to be young and naive. The mistakes I've made #the lessons I've learned. Things I wish someone had told me growing up. #It's weird being queer and having a hobby no one really recognizes or respected much. #Maybe I'll write about that some day. but for now I'll end this here #hush lils

[hm-chan]

Week 9 reflection

What

I had been focusing on work on the background page on Figma and getting started with writing Whare Tapa Whaa. Following my chosen design style, the background page has graphics related to each content text with irregular patterns, the colour selected by my mood board. The background page content comes from the research I summarised in the 300 proposals and the secondary research in the inspiration phase. I want to make the content not too long but contain the central insight I want to tell the user because I know some people hate extended reading; less is better than taking care of everyone’s experience.

My biggest challenge in building a background page is how I can get the structure right. I need to get the text, pattern and content order straight. And make them work together in a consistent style. A share button on the down-right side allows the user to share the information with others. This button also allows more students to know KiwiNibble through other social media. I was disappointed that I could only finish the background page on week 9.

In addition to creating the background, I made some detailed changes to the logo colour and added more irregular patterns to the sign-in page. The user page is now done with the foundation part. It's looking pretty sketchy so far. I still need to work on many graphics to make the user page achieve my standards.

Before getting actual writing Whare Tapa Whaa, I need something to help me mark the evaluation performance in these four areas (Taha whaanau, Taha hinengaro, Taha tinana and Taha wairua). Therefore, I made a template in my Miro board and thought about how KiwiNibble’s performance goes in these four areas. My project has greatly impacted Taha whaanau and Taha tinana in my expectation. Unfortunately, my aim isn’t to have a close relationship between Taha Hinengaro and Taha Wairua. I still have two parts to finish for my writing. The idea of making another logo of the KiwiNibble or only using the Kiwi bird design, I think seeing my progress and the work I have to finish, I have to give up making another logo of the KiwiNibble.

So what?

I thought I could finish the background and user pages this week. I realised that I hadn’t finished my original plan properly. I was disappointed that I only completed half of what I thought I could do in a week. 

This situation reflects two possible facts: I don't have a clear idea of how fast I'm going to finish, which leads to mis-scheduling and time allocation problems. I often work on weekends, compressing the time available to me. This type of time allocation requires high-intensity work on weekends, which makes it very easy to get tired. If I distribute my time more evenly, I can meet my new work schedule and complete my original schedule each day.

What now?

I think I need to revisit my plan and schedule. I will ask my instructor for suggestions that could help me modify my current program. A new schedule that breaks down what I want to do each day instead of a full week's worth of generalised to-do items. Avoid compressing the week's work into one or two days. 

I'm hoping that a new schedule will improve my time management skills and creative speed.

Reference:

Gloria. Chan. (2023). DES 301. https://www.figma.com/file/8rZQILNUwspy1Nts5nNaYF/DES-301?type=design&node-id=0%3A1&mode=design&t=98rn8AGvNHFV7dx0-1

Gloria. Chan. (2023). DES 301 Hei Man Chan. https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVMwcVIwQ=/?share_link_id=729403324553

#design302(uoa) #30/09/2023

[cas-patryk-wojtysiak]

CAS Project

A commonly reappearing activity here on my blog is the work I do for the Ronald McDonald Foundation. For the past year (and a bit more) I continously visited the foundation which specialises in supporting sick children who are bedridden in hospitals. It does so mainly by improving the comfort of hospital rooms with families in mind, for example by introducing sofas that turn into beds so that the parents who stay by their childrens side during these troubling times may also stay with them in the hospitals for prolonged periods of time. Furthermore, the foundation also manages play rooms and kitchen for the said families. The volounteers (including me) have the option of either doing some administrative work (load carrying, cleaning, organising) or playing with the children. I tend to do a bit of both. In general, any activity done there is extremely rewarding, as the way it helps othersis very clear and noticable, and what better feeling is there than to see other peoples smiling faces in response to your work?

Alongside a few other students, we decided to organise an event for the children under the Ronald McDonald Foundation, as part of our CAS Project. First, we talked to the main directors behind the foundation in order to establish whether such an idea was even viable. Thankfully, it turned out that it was. Then, after the project was also approved by our CAS administrator at school, we begun the planning stage...

We had a few online meetings where each of us shared their own ideas and ambitions for the project.

[Above screenshot from our group chat where we exchanged our ideas]

We decided that the event would be somewhat of a science fair, with experiments and "crazy" science facts. We divided into pairs and begun preparing the experiments, however, soon after I learned that I wouldn't be able to be there with my team on the day of the fair (2nd of June). As that was the case, I decided to help as much as I could during the preparations.

[Above a few photos of the preparation stages including some of my work]

From simple decorations and paper baloons to signs and even gates I aimed at helping wherever I could. It was amazing to see my hard work be put to use during the event itself (I received photos from it afterwards). It really brought me a lot of joy and pride, to see that what I did had meaning and made the children smile.

After the event we also received a message of thanks from the members of the Ronald McDonald Foundation (as seen below):

Reflection:

In general, the event was a huge success, greatly appreciated by not only the kids, but also their parents and the foundation. It gave me the opprotunity to develop myself creatively, as the majority of my work (aside from organising, developing ideas, etc.) was focused on manual "artistic" tasks. I usually prefer to stay away from such roles as I was never the artistic type, but after the event such things begun to become more attractive to me. Also, the CAS Project incorporated the Service strand, which as always pushed me to reflect upon myself, how necessary it is to help others, work as a team and always be positive!

[catullansparrowlet]

I just had a realisation on my daily walk through the city, as I was pondering the presentation I'm going to have to give in a few days and the reflection of the lights in the water resembled something Van Gogh could have painted and it's that the unseen thing I've been struggling with lately is that for little under two decades now I've always been defined by what happened to me.

When I was a child and too young to know better I was introduced to this idea by my teachers, who knew about my home situation and told me that it made me strong, and that me being smart and mature was a result of that. And over the course of growing up, the adjectives might have changed, but the message was often the same: "You do well, despite your circumstances" or "of course they're playing at being depressed and having issues, they don't get attention at home" (which helped my PTSD, depression and anxiety go unnoticed for over a decade and I'm totally not frustrated by). Everyone, from peers to adults, othered me on the basis of how I differed from them based on the abuse I was going through at the time.

But the blame is not theirs alone. Over time I grew to wrap myself in this darkness, the numbness and the suicidality. It's a comfortable blanket if you don't know what it is, and it takes away the stress and pain of having to put yourself out there, because nothing you do would matter anyway. I spent my teenage years on tumblr, arguably the last place someone like me should have been but at the same time the only place I could have existed in relative peace.

Now I'm older, or "old" as people like to remind me, but fuck them for trying to make 23 sound like my whole life is behind me, and I'm finally getting to a place mentally where I can exist and learn to live in hopes of learning to thrive somewhere down the line too. But I'm not a particularly interesting person, having spent my whole teenage years wallowing in the comfort of the void, and that is holding me back. I have to pick a topic for a presentation of which the contents do not matter, since only its form will be checked and graded, and I can't think of a subject that I want to share with the group: most of my knowledge lies in suffering and is directly tied to my suffering. Almost every tale I can tell that spans five minutes is in some kind of way tied to suffering: I could talk about Van Gogh, whose biography I picked to read based on the fact he was Going Through It; or about the intricacies of the social system back home; or how to plan a funeral; or I could tell them more than they'd ever want to know about the suicide rates of Europe and what the best ways to off you (based on %) are. The least controversial thing I could talk about is being queer, or one of my particular flavours of it, but I don't want to be That Guy in front of ten people I barely know (and a prof who is also queer).

Realising I've been defining myself by my suffering made some things click in my mind, but it also gave me a clear direction to work on self-improvement in: I'm done defining myself by hurt but that means I'll need other things to define myself by. Looking for what those things are is the next step. I'm excited for what I'll find and come up with.

And that presentation? I'm going to talk about coffee. Make that hyperfixation serve some purpose too.

#personal #personal growth #cw mental health #cw ptsd #cw depression #cw suicidality (mention) #cw suicide #cw anxiety #Let's see what the future holds

[humanlifehereandnow]

Mastering Metacognitive Questioning: Strategies for Improving Learning and Problem-Solving with AI

Welcome to see this video! In this video, we'll explore the power of metacognition and how it can help you become a more effective learner, problem-solver, and decision-maker. We'll provide practical tips and examples for incorporating metacognitive questioning into your daily life, so you can cultivate your thinking processes and develop strategies for improvement with AI. Let's start!

Cultivating metacognitive skills in individuals is an essential step toward preparing them for the future. Individuals with high metacognitive skills likely have an advantage with artificial intelligence, as metacognition involves reflecting on one's thinking processes and adapting to new situations. The ability to share what I can do and what I can get help from artificial intelligence is essential. If you figure out what you don't know or lack, artificial intelligence will help you. But if you don't know what you don't know, even artificial intelligence like Chatgpt can't help you.

Here are some strategies that individuals can use to cultivate their metacognitive skills:

Set Goals and Make Plans: Set goals for what you want to learn or achieve and plan how to accomplish them. Use metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating to help you stay on track.

Reflect on Your Learning: Reflect on your learning process and identify what strategies are practical for you. Ask yourself questions such as "What did I learn from this experience?" and "What could I have done differently to achieve better results?"

Seek Feedback: Ask for feedback from others, such as peers or mentors, on your thinking processes and strategies. Use the feedback to improve your metacognitive skills and develop new strategies for learning and problem-solving.

Solve Problems: Challenge yourself to solve problems in real-world contexts. Use metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, and evaluating to help you reflect on your thinking processes and develop effective problem-solving strategies.

Embrace a Growth Mindset: Adopt a growth mindset and believe that your abilities can be developed through hard work and dedication. Use challenges as opportunities for growth and learning, and celebrate your progress.

Individuals can become more effective learners, problem-solvers, decision-makers, and personal growth by using these strategies to cultivate their own metacognitive skills. Developing metacognitive skills is essential for preparing individuals for the future and providing them with an advantage with artificial intelligence.

Metacognition is out-of-the-box thinking. Therefore, Problems that could not be seen before metacognition developed can be seen, which widens the area of thought. This also means that asking questions based on meta-cognition in reverse cultivates meta-cognition. Metacognitive questioning refers to the process of thinking about one's thinking. This type of questioning is often used in education and learning contexts to help individuals reflect on their learning processes and improve their metacognitive skills. Here are some examples of types of metacognitive questioning:

Planning Questions: These questions help individuals think about strategies to accomplish a task or goal. Examples of planning questions include "What are the steps I need to take to complete this task?" or "What resources do I need to accomplish my goal?"

Monitoring Questions: These questions help individuals to reflect on their progress towards a goal or completion of a task. Examples of monitoring questions include "Am I on track to complete this task on time?" or "Am I making progress towards my goal?"

Evaluating Questions: These questions help individuals to assess the effectiveness of their learning or problem-solving strategies. Examples of evaluating questions include "Did the strategy I used work well?" or "What could I have done differently to achieve better results?"

Reflective Questions: These questions help individuals to think about their learning experiences and how they can apply what they have learned in other contexts. Reflective questions include "What did I learn from this experience?" or "How can I use what I learned in this situation in the future?"

Structure Analysis Questions: These questions help individuals to analyze the structure of a problem or concept and identify the relationships between different parts. By asking structure analysis questions, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of complex problems and concepts and identify patterns that can be applied to other situations. Examples of structure analysis questions include "What are the key components of this problem?" or "How does this concept relate to other concepts that I have learned?"

Defining and Describing Questions: These questions help individuals to better understand a problem or concept by asking questions that clarify information. Examples of clarifying questions include "Can you explain that in more detail?", "What do you mean by that?" or "Can you describe into an image?"

Reasoning Questions: These questions help individuals analyze and evaluate their thinking processes and identify biases or assumptions. Examples of reasoning questions include "What evidence supports my thinking?" or "How did I come to this conclusion?" By asking reasoning questions, individuals can develop critical thinking skills and become more aware of their thinking processes, improving their problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

Metacognitive questioning can be applied in various aspects of life, including learning, problem-solving, decision-making, and personal growth. Here are some examples of how to use metacognitive questioning in real life:

Learning: When learning a new subject or skill, ask yourself questions such as "What do I already know about this topic?" "What do I need to learn?" "What strategies can I use to learn this material?" "How will I know if I have mastered this material?"

Problem-solving: When faced with a problem, ask yourself questions such as "What problem am I trying to solve?" "What do I already know about this problem?" "What strategies can I use to solve this problem?" "How will I know if my solution is effective?"

Decision-making: When making a decision, ask yourself questions such as "What options do I have?" "What are the potential consequences of each option?" "What are my priorities and values?" "What information do I need to make an informed decision?"

Personal growth: When reflecting on your development, ask yourself questions such as "What are my strengths and weaknesses?" "What have I learned from past experiences?" "What do I want to achieve in the future?" "What strategies can I use to achieve my goals?"

In each of these situations, metacognitive questioning can help you reflect on your thinking processes and develop strategies for improvement. By asking yourself questions and actively engaging in metacognition, you can become a more effective learner, problem-solver, decision-maker, and personal growth.

John Flavell, Barry Zimmerman, and Ann Brown are prominent metacognition and cognitive psychology figures. Here is a brief overview of their contributions to the field:

John Flavell: John Flavell is considered one of the founders of the field of metacognition. He is known for his work on the distinction between metamemory (knowledge about memory) and metacognition (knowledge about thinking). Flavell has also proposed a model of metacognitive development, which suggests that children's metacognitive abilities develop hierarchically.

Barry Zimmerman: Barry Zimmerman is known for his research on self-regulated learning, taking control of one's knowledge. Zimmerman's work has shown that teaching students metacognitive strategies can improve their self-regulated learning skills. Zimmerman has proposed a model of self-regulated learning, which includes three phases: forethought, performance, and self-reflection.

Ann Brown: Ann Brown is known for her research on situated cognition, which suggests that learning occurs in specific contexts and knowledge is constructed through interactions with the environment. Brown has also proposed a theory of metacognition, which indicates that metacognitive processes are influenced by factors such as the nature of the task, the learner's prior knowledge, and the learning context.

These researchers have contributed significantly to our understanding of metacognition and its educational application. Their work has shown that metacognition is essential in learning and that teaching metacognitive strategies can improve students' learning outcomes.

Here are some books about metacognition that you might find helpful:

"Metacognition: A Guide to Teaching and Learning" by Nancy Chick and Rachel Winterbottom - This book introduces metacognition and offers practical strategies for teaching metacognitive skills to students.

"Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains: Metacognitive Strategies, Activities, and Lesson Ideas" by Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers - This book offers a range of metacognitive strategies and activities that can be used to help students develop self-regulation and learning skills.

"Metacognition in Educational Theory and Practice" by Douglas J. Hacker, John Dunlosky, and Arthur C. Graesser - This book overviews the latest research on metacognition and its applications in education.

"The Power of Metacognition: Helping Students Develop Strategic Learning Habits" by Saundra Yancy McGuire - This book offers practical advice and strategies for teaching metacognitive skills to students to improve their academic performance.

"Developing Self-regulated Learners: Beyond Achievement to Self-efficacy" by Linda B. Nilson - This book explores the relationship between self-regulated learning and metacognition and offers practical strategies for promoting self-regulated learning in students.

These books offer a range of insights and strategies for incorporating metacognitive questioning into education and learning contexts.

We hope you found this video helpful and that you're inspired to cultivate your metacognitive skills. By asking yourself reflective questions and actively engaging in metacognition, you can become a more effective learner, problem-solver, and decision-maker. The answer to the question will be solved by artificial intelligence such as ChatGpt. I am also using ChatGpt, Pictory, etc. Remember to subscribe to our channel for more educational content like this. See you next time!

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[y-u-u-u-u-u]

Week 13 - Assignment 3 postmortem

After completing this assignment, I must say that even developing a simple game project with a code-block-based engine isn’t easy or convenient. There were many aspects I think we did well and, of course, many that need improving.

Starting off, one of the good aspects was how passionate we were about creating Red Alert: Search and Destroy. Every team member worked on the game extensively, and I’m especially impressed by the sprites and animations our artists created. They looked super distinct and fluid and received quite a lot of praise from the playtesters. Another area we did well was communication. We were constantly discussing new ideas, assisting each other if any member ran into any problems, and sharing development progress on the part each of us was in charge of respectively. We also reasonably adjusted our ambition for the game according to our personal abilities, knowledge of GDevelop, and the amount of time left. For example, the team switched from creating multiple levels and bosses to a single one so that we could spend more effort in a more focused manner to make a better-polished game.

However, a major area we overlooked was planning and setting up milestones. I guess we all thought this game project would be relatively easy to develop, and as I said in the beginning, we were certainly wrong. Looking back to the past few weeks, our development process lacked structure, and that caused some delays. Some tasks just got dragged on for way too long, and some were not done until it was quite late. Such as platform tiles, background, and playtesting. These issues made the last few days close to the submission date quite hectic and stressful. This assignment really made me understand the importance of project planning and time management. If we had managed our development process better, we would’ve presented our game in a much more complete and polished state.

Next up, some self-reflecting... As I said in the previous post, I’m pretty inexperienced regarding 2D platformer level design, which made some sections of our level frustrating and unclear to the players. What I should’ve done was to play some relevant (similar to our design) 2D platformers myself, perhaps watch related GDC talks so that I could have a better grasp on what makes a platformer fun and how to combine all the available gameplay elements to create more meaningful challenges for the players to tackle. Rather than just analyzing level maps, reading through level design tutorials, and figuring out the rest on my own. I certainly will start doing this with every future project I’m a part of, even if the game I’ll be developing is from a familiar genre.

[email protected] | Shenghua Gao 

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[just-dreaming-marvel]

Hi, I just want to say I love your writing! Not only with your story telling, but the way you write.

I was wondering if you have any writing tips? I been wanting to write for a while and post them, but I don’t think my writing is that good to be able to convey the stories that I want to tell.

Oh my gosh I like really needed to hear this today! Thank you so much!!!

And I do, but I can’t promise my tips are any good. Here’s some tips, but they aren’t an any particular order.

Don’t post for notes, post to make yourself more confident and a better writer. It is hard to get passed the lack of interactions, trust me I still get bummed a lot. But posting my writing has actually made me a more confident person (on and off this site) and a better writer. I’ve read parts of my first fic, LEGACY, lately and I cringe so bad because it’s really not that good (I’m now doing a major edit to it) but then I read some of my other fics and realize that the only reason those are good is because of LEGACY. Posting my work has improved my work.

Write your ideas done before you forget them! This happens to me all the time and I hate myself for it. I’m trying to get more in the habit of jotting down ideas in my notes. You never know even when the smallest bit of inspiration will strike!

Before you start writing, even just your first draft, right an outline. An outline can be formatted in many ways. I’ve used many different outlines depending on how I’m feeling and how much of the story I already have planned in my head. Sometimes I create a table, other times it’s bullet points, or (because I’m an elementary teacher) I find a graphic organizer I want to use. Write down as much as you can about the story you’re starting. Characters (relationships, backstories, personalities, etc), certain scenes and lines you already know you want to happen, settings, important plot points, where you want the story to end. Refer back to it as you write and feel free to add and edit it.

(This one can work with the outline.) Write a summary of the chapters before you actually write them. This way you know what you want to happen in the chapter or what needs to happen in the chapter. You can do a few at a time and work on them as you go along or map all the chapters out before you actually write it.

Don’t be afraid to do research before writing a scene! Or if you are even interesting in writing a scene. Do research, take notes!

Edit! (I’m still working on this and sometimes I’m better than others.) Find a system for editing that works for you. Could be you rereading it over and over in your head and out loud to yourself. It could be a friend or a follow reading it before you post it. Or a site like Grammarly.

Find a system of writing that works for you. Don’t be afraid to try new things! But also don’t be afraid to stay in your comfort zone if it’s working for you.

Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. Share personal stories, you’d be surprised how many people have gone through the experience or something similar. My most vulnerable fics are some of my best and most popular.

Write what you want and feel comfortable with. No need to open/take requests if you don’t want to. And if you do, you don’t have write every single request or do it exactly the way it was asked. You are the author, you decide how it’s written.

Give yourself some slack. No one is perfect. No one’s writing it perfect. Even the paid professionals make mistakes (trust me, I know famous authors and they make plenty of writing mistakes). Not all stories, fics, chapters, etc, are going to be a hit. Some will flop. But it’s not a reflection on you as a person or a writer. You are an amazing person and writer, no matter the amount of notes or what negative people have to say.

I hope that these tips can help some!

#Tips #writing #writers #writing tips #writing help #writing resources

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Download Windows 11 crack (serial key) latest version 31CC-

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Web Design Tips - How Unit Grids In Basic Web Design

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