[FRIAM] Dead Stack?

[Steve Smith]

JZ -

I'm glad you asked, though I doubt I can do much to relight the flame 
myself...

I've been noticing this as well.  I happen to (also) be in the midst of 
doing lots of Springtime refresh (cleaning chimney, blacking stove, 
restarting Kombucha jar, re-starting a yogurt-batch method, pruning 
fruit trees, pre-preparing garden beds, etc.    This is not (just) 
virtue signalling for all my DIY projects, it is also to reflect the 
tone of engaging in lots of things as "living batches"...   and FriAM (+ 
the constellation) does feel like a living batch that has weakened and 
drifted (as did my Kombucha and Yogurt cultures).

I will admit to preferring (not exclusively) the company of LLMs over 
various social engagements, and especially those with more technical 
spine than not.  FriAM has been from time to time such for me.   I still 
appreciate the meso-tech discussions that arise here from time to time...

I assume some of our more active posters/innoculators here (yourself 
included) DO have greener forums for many/some purposes.  I do not.  I 
do *read* a lot to feed some of the same thirst.

I'm definitely distracted by "current events" and/but avoid thrashing 
those dead horses here very often.

I've never been an active in-person member of FriAM proper (though I 
made an effort 20 years ago to attend every month or three) nor of the 
vFriAM version...   really not my mode.   I am sad if/that there is not 
still a core in-person group, I have been assuming (e.g. my recent 
introduction of a new potential participant).  I've moslty been more 
available for WedTech or SimTable-adjacent activities or as you know 
Salon's at Jenny's when she is in town.

I don't find myself particularly adept at seeding interesting 
conversations here.   I think Glen has been the most effective at this.  
I'm assuming he is suffering/enjoying his own weighted vector in your 
1-N basis space of possible reasons for suppressed/depressed activity.

I've been feeling a general sense of decoherence across many aspects of 
my life which I will blame on A) MAGA 2.0; B) AI tech-topic 
acceleration; C) my own aging brain and body (69 next week).

I've pinged a couple of (semi)regulars here offList "recently" and got 
no response, so maybe that is another data point?



On 2/3/26 5:45 pm, Jon Zingale wrote:
> I know I came to this group in what appears to be its twilight. The 
> in-person meetups are weirdly sad. I feel pressed to ask if it is the 
> case that everyone is either:
>
> 1. on vacation/ too busy
> 2. too depressed / failing to find inspiration
> 3. moved on to greener forums
> 4. preferring the company of LLMs
> ...
> N. waiting for someone frail to post
>
> Sometimes I trawl reddit or whatever discord, but I cannot help but 
> feel like beacons of inspiration are becoming fewer and further 
> between. This group has managed to inspire me, keep my interest, for 
> over a decade. In that time, I pushed myself to understand 
> perspectives that I would never have dreamed existed. I hope there is 
> still something to talk about.
>
>
>
>
>
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