A thing I've been doing lately is trying to come to the same conclusions others have without looking their the direct techniques and code. Last night I tried to figure out why people do vector based retrieval for RAG and ended up running these experiments: n0tls.com/โฆ/2026-09-03-i-think-โฆrag-with-grep.html
I'm still going to do an explore agent.
Any conversation
(Opinion) People donโt like generative AI because it made the {insert creativity} too easy. Saw the HN post on โAI music banned from top 40 chart in Australiaโ and people had very strong opinions in both directions.
The hot take: If youโre ok with someoneโs creativity being outsourced to others, then you should be ok with AI doing the same.
If โAI made this and I call it mineโ is bad but โsomeone overseas on fivver made this and I call it mineโ and itโs suddenly ok, time to self reflect.
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My hot take: from the moment you use technology, be it an instrument, a synthesizer, a DAW, and now AI, it is still your idea, your effort, your time spent, and that makes it yours. Others can do the same if they choose. The same way someone chooses a classic guitar over a synthesizer, one can choose an AI over (insert ancient way of doing things).
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Youโre rolling the dice whenever you are searching for a sample or a preset in a synthesizer. Eventually itโs what โsounds goodโ, so still the effort is your judgement and the time spent finding that โdice rollโ that sounded well.
I am not a musician, so I lack the jargon to properly explain what I mean.
I used AI for creative writing (nothing too fancy, TTRPG). There, the broader the dice roll, the more generic and uninteresting the results. Slop, if you will. It was surprisingly good to build up on ideas I had however.
I imagine muisic also has building blocks. Melodies, instruments, mixing, etc. AI can perhaps be used in a similar fashion there.
I heard a perspective I sort of like: if AI is a tool then acceptable AI use is, more or less, defined as "when my audience no longer notices or cares". It's dynamic like that. Bad photoshop is detectable and annoying, so are overusing presets. Your artistry needs to expand to meet the tool.
I don't know if I 100% like that or agree. At the same time, it's a pretty straightforward line, a practical take.
I started bloggingโฆ again
mataherry.bearblog.dev
one-point-five-shotted a local node app for creating social posts. drawing from static pages (hey this exists) or new blog posts (timely). with copy/paste to x, and one click post to bluesky and mastodon, tag manager and stale/archive/reject/refresh options. An idea and a solution in about 10 minutes. Madness.
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I'm a mouse! โฆโ แโ โฬคโ แโ แท