One#
I saw a tweet from @BaibanbaoNet:
Recently, the development of AI has quieted down. OpenAI frequently bans accounts, and GPT-4 is unstable. Without the excitement of "industrial revolution every day, renaissance every night," people can calm down and think about what GPT can do for their own fields. There is no doubt that the roadmap is clear: AI + Python + professional know-how = your future.
This formula is interesting, $your future = AI + Python + professional know-how$.
With the release of ChatGPT, discussions about AI are endless. It can be foreseen that in the future, AI tools like ChatGPT will definitely become popular and will have a huge impact on human production methods and modes. Thinking back to the news a few days ago, Goldman Sachs' report states that 300 million jobs worldwide will be replaced by AI. If this prediction by Goldman Sachs is true, human society is likely to undergo tremendous changes.
I have doubts about the need for Python skills, but it is definitely better to have coding skills. Coding is essentially one of the concrete manifestations. Being able to write and write good prompts is a coding skill.
Professional know-how is necessary and crucial, it is the prerequisite for using AI well. If professional know-how is lacking, facing serious answers made up without any basis, one might be misled and mislead others. As I mentioned in a previous newsletter:
AI will not replace people, but it will replace those who do not know how to use AI, and it will also replace those who only know how to use AI.
It seems that "how" is becoming less important in the AI era. When you don't know what to do, just ask AI directly. However, will this bring about some kind of regression?
I think the formula might be better like this: $your future = AI + Coding + professional literacy - 1/2 practical ability$
Two#
The day before yesterday, when I was writing a script, C mentioned that the second trial of the Chongqing sibling falling case was being live-streamed. Yesterday at noon, I saw the news that the court announced the date for the verdict.
Shouldn't scum like this be punished on the spot? Even tigers do not eat their own cubs, so what reason does the man who killed his own children have to survive? And that mistress, within 5 months, there were over 17,000 chat records discussing how to kill, averaging 113 messages per day and 4.7 messages per hour, all discussing murder!!! Such madness, such disregard for humanity!!!
In the second trial of the Jiang Ge case last year, the verdict upheld the decision of the first trial, and there was a paragraph in the first trial verdict:
Helping the needy is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation, and honesty and friendliness are important contents of the core socialist values. Judicial judgments should guard the bottom line of social morality, promote virtuous deeds, and guide the whole society to respect virtues and do good deeds.
I hope that the verdict of the second trial of the Chongqing sibling falling case can continue to guard the bottom line of social morality through judicial judgments.
Three#
When it comes to knowledge management, it is easy to fall into two traps. One trap is wanting to build a perfect note-taking system from the beginning, and the other trap is constantly trying out note-taking software.
Everyone's note-taking system is different, just like no two leaves are exactly the same. Because note-taking systems are very personal, what to record, how to record, completely depends on the individual. And people are fickle, cycling between progress and regress. This also means that a perfect note-taking system simply does not exist. It can infinitely approach perfection, but it will never be perfect.
After falling into the misconception of building a perfect note-taking system, naturally one will constantly try out note-taking software, especially now there is a wide variety of note-taking software available. Although "sharpening the knife does not delay the cutting of firewood," just sharpening the knife without cutting firewood is useless.
In Why Take Notes, The Double-Edged Sword of Trying Out Note-Taking Software, and The Importance of Note-Taking in the AI Era, I have repeatedly emphasized that note-taking helps us grow, think, and progress. It provides support for our output. This is the essence. As for what the note-taking system looks like, what the note-taking software looks like, those are the details. The essence must be grasped in order to achieve the details.
Four#
Today, a colleague was using Duolingo, so I opened the long-unused Duolingo app and encountered something stupid. There was a question asking me to translate "How do you pronounce this word?" I answered with "How do you pronounce this word?" and it turned out to be wrong. It should have been written as "How do you say this word?" It's so dumb, I can't stand it anymore, I'm uninstalling it 🤬
I've been annoyed several times before by the stupid answers on Duolingo, so I basically haven't used it much. I don't understand why so many people praise it. Are they getting paid? Or are they just English beginners?
Speaking of learning English, I found that if I can watch two episodes of a TV show every day, about two hours in total, my language sense will be very good and my listening and speaking skills will improve. It may create a language atmosphere, and if my mind follows the plot while watching the TV show, it's easier to switch to English thinking.
Another way of learning English is summarized by @arui_kisi on Twitter, reading product documentation. He gives two reasons:
The product itself is being used and the documentation is accompanied by pictures. Sometimes, you can understand what is being described without even reading the text, making it easier to guess the meaning of the words.
The wording in the documentation is concise, without complex vocabulary, making it more suitable for learning.
Five#
I have been in Fuyang for over a week. These past two days, I went out and found that there are very few people in the shopping malls in Fuyang, and there are not many stores open. This makes me feel very strange. So I looked it up on Baidu Baike and found that Fuyang's GDP in 2022 exceeded 30 million, and I have been to many cities with a similar scale, but I didn't feel that there were few people and few stores. Could it be because the population distribution in Fuyang is uneven, with relatively low population density in many areas?
When taking a taxi, I chatted with the driver. According to the driver, Fuyang doesn't have much industry. Although there are many registered residents, there are few permanent residents, and most people work in Zhejiang and Guangdong, resulting in a serious population outflow. I'm not sure if what he said is true, but it's probably close to the truth. After all, besides the lack of people in the shopping malls, there really aren't many people on the streets.
In addition, I also found that there are really few restaurants in Fuyang. These days, when ordering takeout, I have tried several different restaurants, but it's always the same few dishes. Even in a food desert like Beijing, you can order takeout without repeating the same dish for a week. But here, it seems that no matter which restaurant you order from, it's always the same few dishes. Perhaps this is because the local people have relatively uniform tastes? Or maybe it's because the variety of dishes offered by the restaurants providing takeout is not rich enough?
Fortunately, there are only a few more days left. If I persist for another week, I will be able to go to Wuhan to eat the super delicious and special hot dry noodles.