A funny LLM thought

[jkon]

I just did a quick work in Inkscape and the result was greater than the effort. I was pleased, so when moving my mouse to close the program, I felt almost guilty for not thanking it.

[Dani]

Inkscape thanks you. However, Inkscape uses AI? I'm confused.

[jkon]

No, @Dani, it doesn't, and that's the point. Before LLMs, it wouldn't even cross my mind to thank a program. I would thank its creators, especially if it were open source, by donating a small amount, starring its repo, or suggesting it to others. Today, I caught myself feeling guilty for not thanking the program while I was moving the mouse pointer toward the 'X' close button.

[Dani]

Before LLMs, it wouldn't even cross my mind to thank a program.

Oh, haha! I guess I'm just one of those weird lil girlies who has always anthropomorphized all of her tech. Back when I was a high school kid, my network was called Putieville, and all the "puties" (computers) lived in Putieville with -putie names. There was Megaputie (With a whopping 700 Mhz), Gigaputie (My first 1ghz processor!), Codaputie (My linux workstation), Portaputie (My laptop), etc. My friends would come over with their computers and I refused to let them join my network unless they renamed their computer with a -putie name in order to enter Putieville. They would bring over their desktops in LAN party backpacks because none of them had laptops back then that I can remember, and I was the cool kid with a 10Mbps cable modem when everyone else still had dial-up. So sometimes when we would hang out, they would bring their computers with them so they could download pirated movies from the IRCs and such a whole lot quicker. I guess I was a bit of a teenager, so I refused to allow my mom to join my network, so she still was using AOL dial-up in the next room. (Note: I was, and I guess still am, the only person in my family who is computer literate.)

[Dani]

P.S. We're talking about 4 years before I started DaniWeb.

[Dani]

You paid for your own Internet as a teenager?

I didn’t, but I did have my parents’ credit card that, I presume, they saw as me buying random junk they didn’t understand but that they saw made me very happy and that I was extraordinarily passionate about. I didn’t spend money on clothes or makeup or pretty much anything else outside of Newegg, CDW, cable, hosting fees for my dog website at daniweb.com, etc.

After high school, my parents allowed me to get a computer science degree at a local school while I lived at home, despite believing there was no money at all in computers. I think they thought that a comp sci degree wouldn’t lead to any marketable skills so, when I was a college sophomore, my mom opened up a bowling alley called Dani’s Strike Zone with the goal of it giving me a job and providing for me after graduation. By the time I graduated, DaniWeb was the largest C++ community on the web (before Stack Overflow existed) and quite profitable. I began a career in SEO and selling advertising that lasted the next 20 years.

[SCBWV]

But not letting your mom on the network?

[Dani]

I was a straight A student. That was my version of being a rebellious teenager. She had AOL. She was fine :)

Also, keep in mind that she was completely computer illiterate and didn't even use email back then. She didn't know what a network was, and I wasn't all that keen on having an ethernet cable running along the floor from my desk in my bedroom, out the door, through the hall, and into her room.