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--></style></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>When I was 18 or so, I became fixated on the idea of writing a program that would make the school 3B2 power light turn off, but without powering down the system. I wanted to show a teacher the trick because for some reason I thought he’d appreciate it. In retrospect I think it only would have scared him. (Perhaps rightly – my experiments were potentially dangerous!) This sounds like a trivial goal, but it wasn’t because the 3B2 ran SYSV Unix. To achieve this, first I had to acquire root access. I found a way to do that. That was easy, it turned out. I had to disassemble the kernel and its devices to find how the light and soft power switch worked. I had done things like that before with my Apple //, but that was a far less complex device. It didn’t have a privileged mode, for example.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>There was a fanfold greenbar dot matrix printer as was common in those days. I had hundreds of pages of disassembly of AT&T’s kernel that I would crawl on the floor to annotate the disassembly with a pencil. There was something very satisfying about hanging out in a lab where no one ever questioned why I would do such a thing. I thought it maybe was cool tech/academic cultural thing? In retrospect I think the fact was that no one cares what young people do. Kind of like no one cares about what old people do.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>There were aspects to that assembly code I understood very well, and other parts that were mysterious. I worked on it for days on end. I remember writing some tools to help me compress the information. Keep in mind this was before there was Linux. Today every aspect of how such hardware work is available in source form. It is just a grep away, and George could give such an answer instantaneously. <br><br>Many of work activities over the years I can’t remember much about. I’m not sure why this one sticks in my memory. I think it may be because I was engaged and motivated but also knew (even at the time) that I was about as socially useless as a person could be. Yet it seemed like a good state for people to be in? <br><br>I know some people of my generation that regard LLM use (such as for coding) as an indication of laziness. I don’t see it that way. When I was a kid, I had only rudimentary tools for satisfying my curiosity or advancing my dumb goals. I remember going to the library and reading CS/EE journals and texts and realizing that I had few original ideas and thinking that maybe I should just give up. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I think if I would have had ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini/Grok/Llama I would have learned many more interesting things much more rapidly and been able to hone-in on newish ideas. Being forced to work in a box on a trivial problem (even if self-identified) may be one way to learn how to think and manage complexity, but I expect it can also happen in an unconstrained environment too. <br><br>I was never a car person, but I suspect the ethic is the same for aspiring mechanics. The technology artifact they have access to is a car, so they study cars. If they could experiment with a fusion reactor, and get open-ended advice on physics, they’d do that, but they don’t have access to a fusion reactor nor access to the advice. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>From: </span></b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:black'>Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> on behalf of steve smith <sasmyth@swcp.com><br><b>Date: </b>Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 6:59 PM<br><b>To: </b>friam@redfish.com <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [FRIAM] chatbot friends and parasociality<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><br>Marcus wrote:<br>> It would be a good use case for agentic AI with Gemini. I tried it..no, gmail/gemini can't cooperate in this way yet.<br><br>In a few years (months?) I expect I will barely remember maintenance <br>tasks like this. Most of my software updates and backups and such are <br>so transparent I hardly think about them. My junk filters are already <br>(nearly...by choice) transparent to me... can't remember if that is 10 <br>or 15 years ago that happened?<br><br>I grew up adjusting points and timing and cleaning sparkplugs, and <br>rotating tires every few thousand miles until I woke up one day and <br>realized I hadn't lifted the hood on my car or touched a tire since I'd <br>checked it out at purchase... and I'm a DIY kinda guy, ready to do <br>anything not requiring a lift myself... but the guy I let do my oil <br>changes checks all the fluids, tops them of (rarely needed) and even <br>pro-actively replaces belts I would have let start slipping and rotate <br>tires I might have let let get wear patterns before such.<br><br>So is my service guy a MY agent or in some sense my vehicles' agent? if <br>it were new and dealer serviced and warranteed it would be (or the <br>dealer/s warranty organization's agent?)<br><br>I have been ideating on emancipating my '49 Ford Dump truck in the <br>context of the Axle Art mobile gallery. Creating a DAO tied to a trust <br>with Daniel and Jerry (and/or their board) contracted to the DAO to <br>provide curation and location/event coordination... some kind of <br>mechanic contracted for general maintenance (or subbed through Axle Art <br>Collective)... Would some kind of LLM-driven smart contract be involved <br>in promotion/event planning, etc?<br><br>This is not a practical thing, it would surely take more effort to setup <br>and "herd" than to just do the details more conventionally but it is an <br>exploration of the concept and perhaps making it into as much a <br>performance art piece as anything...<br><br>... interesting times ...<br><br><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>