Delighted to see that ChatGPT considered my feedback and made the changes. I was beginning to doubt myself.

The book is written in an iambic tetrameter form. Iambic is a style of poetic verse where the second syllable is stressed (da-DUM). Each of these iambs (da-DUM) is referred to as a metrical foot. Iambic tetrameter contains four iambs per line containing four feet.

The challenge is how do you know if a one syllable word is stressed. I can use the dictionary for two syllable words but one syllable word will depend on the context. Some basic rules that help:

1. Nouns are usually stressed (“test”, “poems”, “stress”).
2. Action verbs are usually stressed (“test”, “stress”).
3. Less “important” words such as linking verbs (“do” in “how do you determine”, “was”, “is”), conjunctions (“and”, “or”, “but”), prepositions (“on”, “by”) are usually not stressed.
4. Pronouns may or may not be depending on context. Usually you can argue either way.

source

ChatGPT has been all over the news. It’s a AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. I thought I could utilize this to check my consistency – in the meter of verse. But I am not getting what I expected.

example: I thought contractions act as a single word. I assume the below would be an iambic trimeter; it has three iambs. ChatGPT differs.

“Let’s go/, we must/ be quick/”

ChatGPT reasons:

**Sigh… I provided feedback. I will check back in a few days.

During this wet and cold season, I like curling up with a spicy bowl of Tom Kha soup. However, I don’t like paying $10-$17 for a bowl. While perusing in our local Asian market, I ran across palm sugar.

Palm sugar is made from the sap/nectar in coconut palm trees. It undergoes minimal processing so it is rich in vitamins and has a low glycemic index. But the process is labor-intensive and sometimes what you see at the super market is not 100% palm sugar. This brand is actually not bad. I prefer this brand over the others because it doesn’t taste gritty like granulated sugar and you can taste the caramel flavor.

I made my own Tom Kha soup with tofu (I don’t like chewing on meat when sipping soup) and mushrooms along with the other necessities (galangal, lemongrass, lime juice, fish sauce, coconut milk, chicken broth, etc) . Oooh, now I can make some Pad Thai, too.

Haven’t figured out how to get fresh kaffir lime leaves.

This never fails to impress on a first date. Balancing a bottle of wine, iPhone, or even a guitar with a pinch of salt.

Blame it on the rain…. I’ve been feeling nostalgia for old records. This Bluetooth enabled built-in phono pre-amp turntable from Audio-Technica makes playing old records easy. The challenging part is finding my favorite oldies. We have two record stores in town but looks like I might have to go record shopping whilst in NYC for more rare finds.

I found a 45 RPM vinyl of “True Blue” from Madonna and it reminded me of my first unrequited crush (P.F.) in Highschool and the folded notes I used to pass back and forth with my girlfriends. I showed Naomi how to fold these. Ahh… before texting!!

My recent favorite stroll down memory lane was this tweet from Tommy Lee

I love origami and Haruki Nakamura is an astonishing mechanical origamist. I usually stuff my daughter’s Christmas stocking with Lego pieces but these origami craft kit from Nakamura (as tweeted by Massimo) will be a delight to have.

Neuralink is hiring and the Software Engineer, BCI Web Apps position sounds very interesting. I have some experience in the front and back end technologies and preferred qualifications listed but I don’t consider myself an expert. More of a jack of all trades but master of none.

Multiple studies have found that a higher percentage of women and BIPOC candidates won’t apply if they don’t meet every listed qualification. Neuralink values candidates of all backgrounds. If you find yourself excited by our mission but you don’t check every box in the description, we encourage you to apply anyway!

–Neuralink

Went to an amazing birthday party today for one of Naomi’s good friend. What a great experience put on by Reptile Family…. (except for the Madascar cockroaches)

My friend’s dad’s home has the most amazing library with a secret access to an office. If this was my library, I’d never leave my home.

I am the female version of Henry Bemis, who just wants time to read. I’d want this library in a Queen Anne:

Escondido, CA 92025

Nacogdoches, TX 75964

Greeneville, TN 37745

Mooresville, NC 28115

Or a dreamy Italian town that will pay you €30,000 to relocate there:

I don’t recall joining Twitter. Apparently, I joined back in 2011. With Elon Musk’s acquisition, I thought I’d check Twitter out. I signed on right during the implosion of FTX …. in real time. I don’t think I slept a wink.

Recently, I saw this “opinion” piece regarding FTX by a WSJ writer.

From someone who has been following this story for the last several days, I neither agreed with the opinion nor understood how one came to that conclusion — nor how it relates to Donald Trump.

Earlier in the week, I had read a tweet from @carjackmiller regarding a feature (Birdwatch) that allows users to add missing context to viral tweets and/or rate if the missing context was helpful or not. I really liked this fact checking model (Elon renamed it to “Community Notes”). What caught my eye was that this approach was inspired by a platform called Polis. Polis was used in Taiwan to crowdsource creation of new laws.

As the debate began, Polis drew a map showing all the different knots of agreement and dissent as they emerged. As people expressed their views, rather than serving up the comments that were the most divisive, it gave the most visibility to those finding consensus – consensus across not just their own little huddle of ideological fellow-travellers, but the other huddles, too. Divisive statements, trolling, provocation – you simply couldn’t see these

Taiwan? I just bought stocks in TSM – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (on a rumor that they were opening a plant in Arizona and that Apple will buy US-made chips from TSMC). Baader-Meinhof (frequency illusion) – when the thing you recently discovered is suddenly everywhere.

Back to original thought – when I came across the WSJ opinion piece and clicked on the tweet, guess what I saw?

My first example of community notes! Of course it was helpful!

Mental note to read up on later:

BRICS want to replace the USD. What does that mean? How does it work?

The BRICS “de-dollarization coalition” countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, represent 41% of the global population. They have started to use currency swaps to bypass dollar system.

He (Putin) intends to organize the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and others) into a unified economic bloc rooted in asset-backed currencies such as metals-backed crypto tokens, with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a bridge.

Last week, Algeria officially submitted its application to join BRICS. Could BRICS de-dollarize the world financial system?

If accepted, the new proposed BRICS members would create an entity with a GDP 30% larger than the United States, over 50% of the global population and in control of 60% of global gas reserves.