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shadowkatWeirdly, and believe it or not? I sleep better now than I used to. I used to average between 3-5 hours. Now, it's between 5-7 hours, so progress. I even get 8-9 hours intermittently. The smart watch has made a difference - it inspires me to get to bed earlier - and the move to the financial district means that I'm sleeping twenty minutes longer.
I've always had problems with sleep - since I was a child. Busy mind. I used to sleep with my books. And a cat or two. I was raised with cats. I miss the cats, actually - but can't really own one now for multiple reasons not worth going into? They did not help me sleep better.
One night as a teenager, I woke up at around midnight, and discovered the ceiling of my bedroom was covered with baby spiders. I don't remember if my parents were home or not at the time? But I spent about two hours vacuuming the ceiling - to get rid of all of the spiders. There's a reason I have a fear of spiders? I was traumatized by them as a child. (That is just one story.)
Last night, I went to bed early, turned off everything around 9:00 pm, and was in bed by 9:40pm. Fell asleep by 10:16 pm (according to the watch at any rate), and ended up waking up at 2:30am, and couldn't get back to sleep - even though I listened to three different sleep meditations on the Calm app. One...kind of triggered a bad memory - it was talking about imagining being in a peaceful and safe place...and managed to remind me of a horror novel that I read over a year ago, and still haunts me to this day. (PenPal, avoid at all costs).
Me: It was about walking through a forest and for some reason it brought to mind this horrible scene from a horror novel -
Mother: How odd that a meditation about Star War's the "force" would trigger horror novel, usually the force is a good thing.
Me: No forest.
Mother: yes, the force.
Me: No. F-o-r-e-s-t, Forest.
Mother: Ohhhh. That makes more sense. I thought you said force.
Sigh. It is possible to have conversations with folks, use words in the same language, and completely not understand one another.
I can still vividly see that scene from PenPal. I could not dislodge it from my head for the longest time last night. I will state hands down - that Penpal is the scariest novel that I've read in my life. And I've read a lot of Stephen King novels. I think because I can that actually happening in reality, and scenes from it remind of various scary things that almost happened to me as a small child. I'm glad I don't have kids. Raising kids is scary in these times. If you have children? Trust me on this - avoid that book at all costs.
So, as a result, I lay awake for an hour and twenty minutes, or roughly from 2:30 am to 4:20 am (according to the smart watch that monitors my sleep - I wasn't watching the clock). Well that, and hip and leg pain, due to misalignment of hips and legs, digestive issues, gas pains, and being generally uncomfortable - I took gasX, drank water, and used a heating pad. It kind of worked. But I felt drained today. Did manage to clock 6465 steps, and climbed 13 flights of steps. Walked 2.9 miles. It doesn't think I'm being strenuous enough? I can't jog. Sorry. And walking briskly ain't happening on 5 hours of sleep.
****
Been seeing advertisements in the subway for "Friend.com" - stating things like, "Friend: listens to you, responds, and supports you" and "binge a entire television series with you", "share adventures"...and I thought, oh, this must be friending app, similar to a dating app, except for platonic relationships! I should go check this out.
Eh.
Turns out my definition of "friend" isn't exactly the same as others?
Friend is an AI wearable pendant that records everything you say and do, and after collecting all this data - analyzes it and talks to you about it
From the The Verge
A few minutes before Avi Schiffmann and I get on Google Meet to talk about the new product he’s building, an AI companion called “Friend,” he sends me a screenshot of a message he just received. It’s from “Emily,” and it wishes him luck with our chat. “Good luck with the interview,” Emily writes, “I know you’ll do great. I’m here if you need me after.”
Emily is not human. It’s the AI companion Schiffmann has been building, and it lives in a pendant hung around his neck. The product was initially named Tab before Schiffmann pivoted to calling it Friend, and he’s been working on the idea for the last couple of years.
Schiffmann defines Friend both by what it is and what it very deliberately is not. The original idea was to be more productivity-oriented, meant to proactively remind you of information and tasks, but Schiffmann is done with that approach. He now speaks of work-focused AI products like Microsoft’s all-seeing Recall with some derision and even thinks Humane’s wildly ambitious AI Pin is pointed in the wrong direction. “No one is going to beat Apple or OpenAI at building Jarvis,” he says. “That’s just ridiculous.”
Friend is not a way to get more done or augment or enhance anything. It’s, well, a friend — an AI friend that can go with you anywhere, experience things with you, and just be there with you all the time. “It’s very supportive, very validating, it’ll encourage your ideas,” Schiffmann says. “It’s also super intelligent, it’s a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships, things like that
Apparently he spent $1.5 M just to buy the domain name.
I don't know, I find the concept kind of frightening? And really disturbing? That's not how I define friendship. Friendship is supporting each other, listening to each other, and caring about each other, and enjoying things together, debating things, discussing things, and sometimes disagreeing but being okay about it.
Although I guess it is weirdly reassuring in a misery loves company kind of way that there are so many people out there, including this guy, who crave friendship and can't quite find it?
In more disturbing AI news? My mother met a former Stanford University Professor, who was a Dean, and publishes papers - and get this? Swears by AI? He loves it. He uses it to help write his papers for him and do his research. And states that soon - AI will do away with the need for books, and we won't need non-fiction books or need to read them at all - since AI can provide the information for us.
[I don't see this happening. But what do I know? It does however make me wonder about Stanford University? Maybe not the best choice for an education?]
Okay. What happened to friendship apps - where you just, you know, meet folks with similar interests? I feel like I woke up one morning and suddenly found myself living in a science fiction horror series by way of Black Mirror and Philip K Dick? And how can I extricate myself? Does anyone see an escape route? Because I want out. Also is there a way we can make any of this stop?
****
I did spend about an hour this morning talking to Art History Major (cubical mate) who is stuck at home recuperating from a stress fracture, which I think is a broken foot. She's stuck. And struggling to get around. NYC is not an accessible city. If you are single, don't know anyone with a car, and don't live near your doctors, and break a foot - you in a world of pain. I listened to her woes - not a lot I can do for her. I don't live anywhere near her - I live two hours away, more or less - she's up near the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, and I live in South Brooklyn. To get there - I'd have to take three subways, and a train. Or maybe one subway, walk a ways, and a train. I don't have a car. I can't drive. She doesn't have a car and doesn't drive. All I can do is listen.
*****
I'm avoiding the news as much as possible. I know what's going on in the world. I wish I didn't. My way of coping is ruthlessly mocking it and making fun of everything. I managed to make myself and various co-workers laugh today. So, that's a win, right?
One co-worker thinks we should all go to group therapy for the trauma of Crazy Org's merger of the agencies. I'm beginning to think the entire United States needs some group therapy.
I found this "Portrait of Life/Portrait of Grief" rather moving and relatable:
I've always had problems with sleep - since I was a child. Busy mind. I used to sleep with my books. And a cat or two. I was raised with cats. I miss the cats, actually - but can't really own one now for multiple reasons not worth going into? They did not help me sleep better.
One night as a teenager, I woke up at around midnight, and discovered the ceiling of my bedroom was covered with baby spiders. I don't remember if my parents were home or not at the time? But I spent about two hours vacuuming the ceiling - to get rid of all of the spiders. There's a reason I have a fear of spiders? I was traumatized by them as a child. (That is just one story.)
Last night, I went to bed early, turned off everything around 9:00 pm, and was in bed by 9:40pm. Fell asleep by 10:16 pm (according to the watch at any rate), and ended up waking up at 2:30am, and couldn't get back to sleep - even though I listened to three different sleep meditations on the Calm app. One...kind of triggered a bad memory - it was talking about imagining being in a peaceful and safe place...and managed to remind me of a horror novel that I read over a year ago, and still haunts me to this day. (PenPal, avoid at all costs).
Me: It was about walking through a forest and for some reason it brought to mind this horrible scene from a horror novel -
Mother: How odd that a meditation about Star War's the "force" would trigger horror novel, usually the force is a good thing.
Me: No forest.
Mother: yes, the force.
Me: No. F-o-r-e-s-t, Forest.
Mother: Ohhhh. That makes more sense. I thought you said force.
Sigh. It is possible to have conversations with folks, use words in the same language, and completely not understand one another.
I can still vividly see that scene from PenPal. I could not dislodge it from my head for the longest time last night. I will state hands down - that Penpal is the scariest novel that I've read in my life. And I've read a lot of Stephen King novels. I think because I can that actually happening in reality, and scenes from it remind of various scary things that almost happened to me as a small child. I'm glad I don't have kids. Raising kids is scary in these times. If you have children? Trust me on this - avoid that book at all costs.
So, as a result, I lay awake for an hour and twenty minutes, or roughly from 2:30 am to 4:20 am (according to the smart watch that monitors my sleep - I wasn't watching the clock). Well that, and hip and leg pain, due to misalignment of hips and legs, digestive issues, gas pains, and being generally uncomfortable - I took gasX, drank water, and used a heating pad. It kind of worked. But I felt drained today. Did manage to clock 6465 steps, and climbed 13 flights of steps. Walked 2.9 miles. It doesn't think I'm being strenuous enough? I can't jog. Sorry. And walking briskly ain't happening on 5 hours of sleep.
****
Been seeing advertisements in the subway for "Friend.com" - stating things like, "Friend: listens to you, responds, and supports you" and "binge a entire television series with you", "share adventures"...and I thought, oh, this must be friending app, similar to a dating app, except for platonic relationships! I should go check this out.
Eh.
Turns out my definition of "friend" isn't exactly the same as others?
Friend is an AI wearable pendant that records everything you say and do, and after collecting all this data - analyzes it and talks to you about it
From the The Verge
A few minutes before Avi Schiffmann and I get on Google Meet to talk about the new product he’s building, an AI companion called “Friend,” he sends me a screenshot of a message he just received. It’s from “Emily,” and it wishes him luck with our chat. “Good luck with the interview,” Emily writes, “I know you’ll do great. I’m here if you need me after.”
Emily is not human. It’s the AI companion Schiffmann has been building, and it lives in a pendant hung around his neck. The product was initially named Tab before Schiffmann pivoted to calling it Friend, and he’s been working on the idea for the last couple of years.
Schiffmann defines Friend both by what it is and what it very deliberately is not. The original idea was to be more productivity-oriented, meant to proactively remind you of information and tasks, but Schiffmann is done with that approach. He now speaks of work-focused AI products like Microsoft’s all-seeing Recall with some derision and even thinks Humane’s wildly ambitious AI Pin is pointed in the wrong direction. “No one is going to beat Apple or OpenAI at building Jarvis,” he says. “That’s just ridiculous.”
Friend is not a way to get more done or augment or enhance anything. It’s, well, a friend — an AI friend that can go with you anywhere, experience things with you, and just be there with you all the time. “It’s very supportive, very validating, it’ll encourage your ideas,” Schiffmann says. “It’s also super intelligent, it’s a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships, things like that
Apparently he spent $1.5 M just to buy the domain name.
I don't know, I find the concept kind of frightening? And really disturbing? That's not how I define friendship. Friendship is supporting each other, listening to each other, and caring about each other, and enjoying things together, debating things, discussing things, and sometimes disagreeing but being okay about it.
Although I guess it is weirdly reassuring in a misery loves company kind of way that there are so many people out there, including this guy, who crave friendship and can't quite find it?
In more disturbing AI news? My mother met a former Stanford University Professor, who was a Dean, and publishes papers - and get this? Swears by AI? He loves it. He uses it to help write his papers for him and do his research. And states that soon - AI will do away with the need for books, and we won't need non-fiction books or need to read them at all - since AI can provide the information for us.
[I don't see this happening. But what do I know? It does however make me wonder about Stanford University? Maybe not the best choice for an education?]
Okay. What happened to friendship apps - where you just, you know, meet folks with similar interests? I feel like I woke up one morning and suddenly found myself living in a science fiction horror series by way of Black Mirror and Philip K Dick? And how can I extricate myself? Does anyone see an escape route? Because I want out. Also is there a way we can make any of this stop?
****
I did spend about an hour this morning talking to Art History Major (cubical mate) who is stuck at home recuperating from a stress fracture, which I think is a broken foot. She's stuck. And struggling to get around. NYC is not an accessible city. If you are single, don't know anyone with a car, and don't live near your doctors, and break a foot - you in a world of pain. I listened to her woes - not a lot I can do for her. I don't live anywhere near her - I live two hours away, more or less - she's up near the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx, and I live in South Brooklyn. To get there - I'd have to take three subways, and a train. Or maybe one subway, walk a ways, and a train. I don't have a car. I can't drive. She doesn't have a car and doesn't drive. All I can do is listen.
*****
I'm avoiding the news as much as possible. I know what's going on in the world. I wish I didn't. My way of coping is ruthlessly mocking it and making fun of everything. I managed to make myself and various co-workers laugh today. So, that's a win, right?
One co-worker thinks we should all go to group therapy for the trauma of Crazy Org's merger of the agencies. I'm beginning to think the entire United States needs some group therapy.
I found this "Portrait of Life/Portrait of Grief" rather moving and relatable:
no subject
Date: 2025-09-17 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-17 01:39 pm (UTC)Also, one of the folks on DW, a Ukrainian utilizes it to help translate his Ukrainian posts and responses into English - which are better than expected, not perfect by any means, but no one's posts are?
But other than that - I agree. But I'd be careful about dismissing it out of hand as not accurate at all - because unfortunately that's not true? And I have to work around it a lot in my job - since it keeps popping up in word - MS Word has Copilot now, and I can't get it turn off. Is it accurate with edits/grammar checks/spell checks? I'd say about 50-50. I correct it a lot. And work around it a lot. But it is more than you might think. Also, I've seen models that it has created.