#44 CYB: Joyful Curiosity--Lessons from a Toddler, AI Tools, and More

Pt. Molate/San Pablo Harbor, March 2024

In March, I spent a long weekend with my toddler grandson and the family dog, experiencing the kid’s energy while his parents went on a trip. His intense joy in every moment and equally intense distractibility reminded me how much wonder and exploration there is in the world—especially if you’re two. (It also reminded me how alike drunken adults with ADHD  and little kids are, a blend of “Yeah, let’s open all the cans of soda at once!!” and “Oh, look, an airplane!!”)

My grandson’s curiosity about the world around him and his hunger for experience were delightful. His going full tilt, 150%, inspired me. I left exhausted but wanting more of his intense curiosity and drive. 

Now that I am home, I think about his smile as he rode his scooter down the driveway, his grin at the top of the playground climbing wall, and his determination as he sliced an apple with his little wooden knife. That joy is here for me to find; I want it.

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Reading

Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter, by Zoe Schiffer, Penguin Random House,  2024. Schiffer’s meticulously researched account of Elon Musk’s acquisition and pillaging of Twitter is a page-turner. The New York Times called this book a “detailed look under the smoke-filled hood;” it is a great read. Highly recommend!

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, and Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, by Ashley Herring Blake, Penguin Random House. During COVID, my book club introduced me to Jasmine Guillory, which started me down the romance novel path. I’ve read dozens since then, with the Vera Kelly books being my favorite. I am now having fun reading this trilogy by Ashley Herring Blake. If you favor queer romance novels with easy-to-like characters and spicy sex scenes, these books could be your jam. (And there is a third one I still need to read.)

How Chain-of-Thought Reasoning Helps Neural Networks Compute, by Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 2024. This article is helpful if you’ve wanted more details about how LLMs score and evaluate choices when generating a response to a prompt. It shows how circuit complexity helped researchers understand how and why the train of thought prompting works.

“To train a language model to produce coherent outputs, researchers typically start with a neural network whose parameters all have random values and then feed it reams of data from around the internet. Each time the model sees a new block of text, it tries to predict each word in turn: It guesses the second word based on the first, the third based on the first two, and so on.”-Brubaker

FOCUS ON AI: AI Platforms I Use for Nonprofit Work: When and Why They Work for Me. Now that I’ve been using GenAI for over a year, I have acquired some fluency in directing an AI to help me get things done. Yet, AI platforms have upgraded and shifted to become different every few months. For this reason, I also put aside time to test and compare the dominant platforms so I’m not using something obsolete or missing out on critical new capabilities that could save me time.

If you are working with AI or looking to get started, this blog post, which discusses which AIs are my preferred platforms and what I use each of them for, will be helpful. 

Watching

Memory. My partner and I randomly streamed this film one night, and we were both blown away by the plot, acting, music, and cinematography. Actors Peter Skarsgard and Jessica Chastain are ably matched by the supporting cast in this story of a traumatized woman and a man with early-onset dementia, their families, and the connections that they create.

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 Mean Girls (2024): What a fun movie! Based on the musical, Mean Girls has a terrific score and a hilarious cast. Reneé Rapp and Auliʻi Cravalho are excellent, as are Jaquel Spivey and Avantika—escapism at its finest. 

The Paradise (2012). I’m two-thirds of the way through the 2012 show The Paradise and am so obsessed. This is a good one if you are a fan of period dramas! Set in England’s first department store in the 1870s, it stars my favorite, Sarah Lancashire, and a hottie leading man, Emun Elliott.

Thank you for joining me on this journey! I hope CYB#44 has sparked your curiosity and made you smile. If anything in this issue resonates with you or you have suggestions for future topics, please reply and let me know. Your feedback is a gift that helps me create engaging content. If you're new here and enjoyed this mix of reflections, reads, and watches, I invite you to subscribe so you don't miss out on future issues. 

Until next time, I wish you boundless energy and endless wonder.

Warmly, Susan