It's been a month since I've been working for Amazon as a delivery driver. Most of my routes have been around my local area. While delivering, I have noticed a significant number of new subdivisions either recently built or in the process of being built. And I'm thinking to myself: where around town are people making this kind of money to buy a house in this market? Especially considering how nice some of these houses look -- two story houses with a double-wide garage. The consistency of the houses makes me think the subdivision is run by an HOA, which also means additional HOA fees on top of the monthly mortgage payment. For the past seven years, I've struggled to find a decent paying job around this town -- most of my income was doing things like DoorDash just to get by. Prior to DoorDash, I worked at a Library making 14 bucks and some change per hour for ten years. Maybe I missed the boat on something. Crypto and meme-stocks involved? Beats me.

I'll admit that reading threads on Reddit has been has been a guilty pleasure of mine. It's almost like people go there to discuss the very subject matter they despise instead of trying to find productive ways to solve their problem. Sure, you might find those who request for help or provide a brilliant resource of information, but I feel like it doesn't happen often. Instead, you'll have moderators who have this very deranged view of their immediate circle and attempt to rule their communities like tyrants. A special kind of influencer, I suppose -- one that doesn't run a YouTube or TikTok channel full of short-form content. I should stop reading Reddit. The stuff that happens there can get very weird and borderline dystopian.

“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?” ― Richard Dawkins Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

I'm not much of a Tekken person, but I like Reina. I think she might be exciting to watch in City of the Wolves. Though I feel like she might make even more appearances outside of Tekken. Would be interesting to see how far she's pushed.

I feel like the word "slop" has sort of lost it's meaning. Like I get hating AI in whatever aspects, but slop has always existed long before AI was a thing. Like what is slop anyway? If AI touches something, no matter how much human effort is in it, is it automatically slop? If that's true, then can you de-slopify something if an AI already touched it? Can you undo something that's basically the shittier version of Midas Touch? So computers and technology has always been a passion-interest of mine. I'm usually pretty fascinated by advancements in this field, despite all the annoying "tech-bro" culture that can come from it. If I can use a machine to make my life easier, then why the freak not? Why do I need to almost-injure myself just to produce the tasks that a machine can do without effort? I mean sure, it's nice doing stuff the old fashion way. Personally, I like to know how something was done "the hard way" so I can get a better understanding why a machine is doing that same work today. In some way, this information can come in handy in case the machine breaks and I have to do stuff by hand. In some ways, it's like driving a manual or an automatic. I know how to drive a manual. It can be engaging and fun, but if I'm driving around for eight to ten hours for work, my wrist can get rather sore just by jerking a stick around. So an automatic makes more sense here. At the very least, paddle-shifters can at least provide a happy medium if I still want to have the thrill of a manual but the convenience of an automatic. Though the more I think about AI in the creative fields, the more I wonder if it's all about the journey to produce the artwork, or the just final product. From a commercial standpoint, it kind of makes sense to use AI because of how crazy-efficient it can be. Newer models have been hallucinating a lot less, so the troubleshooting part is less annoying. However, when it comes to creative ventures, like producing art or writing stories, I find that if you let AI takeover on the creative direction without oversight, then things just get very weird, very fast. But if I'm sketching or writing for the love of the game, I'd just take my time with it. I guess in some ways, it's just like going the park and touching some grass. Appreciate the creative flow and see what your hands might come up with. It's not perfect, but from a creative standpoint, I don't think you can achieve peak perfection. Opinions and tastes are way too subjective for perfection to exist in this field. To claim an AI made something because the artwork looks too perfect or has too many imperfections can be a bit disingenuous. Instead, what I would look for would be inconsistencies in a progression of artwork. At the end of the day, I like to see quality work, regardless of how it's made. Knowing that something was made by AI is not going to change my initial opinion of a piece of work. It just means that I have to put you in a much different standard because creating anything with AI easy, whether it's slop or not -- but creating something interesting and engaging with AI is the challenging part.

Ryu's favorite things are: * Jumping into light fierce * Stale bread * Water without any ice * The newest season of The Simpsons * Dirt AND THIS FUCKING SONG!

The Street Fighter movie was the interesting. Some of the directions taken seemed odd but I need some time to collect my thoughts on it. But overall, I enjoyed it for what it was. Also, I almost threw this away. It came with the Guile bucket. This is pretty cool!

This clown decided to go out and watch the Street Fighter movie. 40 bucks for the Guile hat with free large popcorn.

Claude can't generate raster images. However, give it access to APIs, MCPs, and computer usage and it can produce one. You can tell it: "Claude, please use the Krita and Inkscape MCPs to paint me a picture of a dummy-thicc cat" and it can make a daring attempt to draw it.

I'm stopping by the theatre tomorrow to watch the Street Fighter movie. I'm going in there with some lower expectations in an attempt to enjoy it for what it is instead of being overtly critical of how it (dis?)respects the source material. If they still have any more Guile buckets, I'll get one of those too.

Hey, this is kind of neat!

I bought some new work shoes from @Orthofeet orthofeet.com/products/onyx-… These are most comfortable work shoes I have ever worn. My old work shoes felt like Rock Lee weights -- these new shoes make my delivery job much more bearable.

If I'm being real with myself, I feel like the "one-shot" style vibe coders give the AI-assisted coders a bad name. Sure, you might get something fabulous and usable after one well-crafted prompt -- but how stable and secure is it? My take is that once it interacts as a web interface, then there's going to be some bored AF individual who just pen-tests stuff for fun, just to see if they can break into it. Depending on the color of the hat they wear, they will either give you a heads-up about the vulnerability with some suggestions on how to fix it, or they will leak any personal shit they can find. You better hope the color of that hat is white.

I have a wireless Razer Naga which, admittedly, is in decent condition, I do not like the fact that it uses a AA battery to make it work instead of a built-in battery. I also have a cheap Redragon MMO mouse I bought a long time ago but used rarely because the software is shit. Construction-wise, it's a great mouse, but the app is buggy and hardly works. Tried Customer Support long ago but nothing fruitful came out of it, which resulted in me going back to my Razer Naga. Then I said to myself: "Bitch! You've been using Claude Code for like a whole-ass year! Just vibe-code some new software." Eventually, I'll get to it, but using AI to solve problems is wonderful.

Paid off my car yesterday. Great to have that out of the way. Once I pay off a few things, I want to save up for CEO next year.

Dang, Yujiro is hideous as fuck! No wonder he's call the Strongest "Creature" on Earth. Can't wait to see how cracked this character will be. Could be fun to watch!