Reduce AI hallucinations, a busy light for work-from-homers, an AI software engineering resource guide, and Bill Shatner in the 1980s
It's Advanced Geekery for the week ending October 14, 2023
I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. This is an exciting issue. Let’s dive in.
My articles
Let’s kick it off with a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET:
8 ways to reduce ChatGPT hallucinations: Here are eight proven strategies to reduce fabrication in ChatGPT responses and ensure you're getting trustworthy answers every time. Now if only this worked on people.
Red means don't bother me! How Alexa helped to create our work-from-home busy light: Working from home is great -- except for the distractions and interruptions. We solved that problem using nothing more than Alexa and a smart bulb. Meet our new, improved busy light.
Need to manage your Google Drive data? Google was no help, but this tool solved my storage mess: Unlock the secrets to managing terabytes of data on Google Drive with Filerev. Discover how one developer's helpful tool provides the analytics that Google doesn't.
We’re also launching two special features this week.
ZDNET Special Feature: The Intersection of Generative AI and Engineering
ZDNET is continuing its Special Feature, The Intersection of Generative AI and Engineering. Here’s another article I wrote on the topic:
Implementing AI into software engineering? Here's everything you need to know: In a journey rife with opportunity and risk, how can developers confidently navigate AI's inherent unpredictability? Our resource guide gives you tips and tools for a head start on your next AI-enhanced programming project.
Must-watch YouTube
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.
The Season 4 trailer for the incredibly cool alternate history series For All Mankind is out. It premiers on Apple TV+ on November 10. The first three seasons are on there now. The first few episodes start slowly, but wow! The pace picks up and it’s a really great series. I recommend you catch up before Season 4 drops.
A YouTuber did a really interesting set comparison of the various time periods in the Back To The Future movies.
From about the same time period, here’s a video from the early 1980s where William Shatner discusses the technology of the future. For example, someday we’ll be able to choose what we want to watch, when we want to watch it. Oooh.
Interesting reads
Here’s some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.
The New York Times is running an interesting editorial encouraging schools to bring back home ec and shop classes. I have to agree. I remember being in high school, knowing I was going away to college, and begging my school to put me in home ec so I could learn to cook. I was going to be away from home nine months of the year and I had no idea how to make food. They refused and I wound up living off the meal plan and the local pizza place. Shop, too, is important. I only just became familiar with power tools way into my middle age.
Speaking of pizza, did you know it’s the most addicting food? Science says so.
And, speaking of addiction, Study Finds has a piece on Internet addiction. While there certainly are aberrant behaviors related to too much screen time, the study focuses on younger folks vs. older folks time spent online. But it doesn’t take into account that work and school now requires far more online time than in years past. What do you think? Read it and let me know if you agree or it annoys you.
More clicky
I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:
House of the Head: home for my published music
ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects
Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!
Reader projects
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
Leave some comments
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!
1900 laptop. Sounds like a Raspberry Pi project. You can already get a totally tiny Pi Zero W 3-D printable design for what amounts to a 640x480 color Mac II. The Pi Zero has more RAM, disk, speed than any 68020 ever had, even with the 5x penalty for emulating a 68000. For the 1900 laptop, i might go with a very low power high resolution LCD screen, or maybe something from an Amazon Kindle.
About pizza being addictive: We were at Kroger earlier and in the dog food row. Guess what? Beggin Strips dog treats has a new flavor in their lineup.
Yeah, you guessed it. Pizza...