HOWL
'Who is this woman? What wild joy is she unable to contain that it escpaes in the form of animalistc manners?'
nikki.lol
Slow notes on tools, time, attention, and personal software.
Latest posts
Building with AI
These past few months have been a whirlwind of new experiences.
"Pain Don't Hurt": Road House as a Serious Stoic Text
Do you know Road House? Not the 2024 remake-without-a-soul version. No, I’m talking of the Patrick Swayze in his prime, Sam Elliot so gorgeous that time should be frozen, bare-b…
"Pain Don't Hurt": Road House as a Serious Stoic Text (Academic Version)
When I tell people that the 1989 film Road House is one of my top five films, there is a moment of quizzical amusement on their faces as they try to figure out why a mediocre fi…
Thoughts Make the Man: Dalton in Road House as a Modern-Day Stoic
The number of great films in the cultural canon is almost innumerable to count. The 1989 film Road House is one that probably doesn’t make the list for many people with a more r…
Engineers of the Soul: The Weaponization of the Public Humanities in The Lives of Others
The 2006 German film The Lives of Others tells the story of a couple and the Stasi officer tasked with surveilling them in 1984, six years before the fall of the German Democrat…
Universal Mentor & Coach Prompt
The below prompt is something I add to each conversation I have with LLMs/AIs that isn't a coding chat.
Another morning on the trail
One of the things I'm enjoying is watching the slow changes that occur when walking the same trail morning after morning. This is the first time I've seen the sun crest over thi…
Change requires consistency
In order to change, consistency is required in the form of rituals or systems.
AI Discipline
A lot has been written about the huge leap forward the different AI models went through in late 2025.
"We must be willing to be changed by what we see"
Eric Markowitz writes in his article "What brain surgery taught me about the fragile gift of consciousness" over at Big Think:
Morning on the trail
Snow beginning to melt and stream running clear.
This is a fascinating concept
This is a fascinating concept: Crime as a Service (CAAS).
First ride of the season
It was 20C today.
The Mona Lisa: Emotional Manipulation through Geometry
What is it about the Mona Lisa? Why do people find such a plain, small painting almost irresistible? Women nearing the end of their lives implore their daughters to view the pai…
Change your liking
Referenced in Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience by Matthieu Ricard and Wolf Singer
Predictability is banality
"It's when everyone thinks they know who you are, then you're trapped." — from Complete Unknown.
Simplicity is a prerequisite for reliability
See also AI Discipline and Predictability is banality.
Comets & habits
The meteor belt remains in its circular orbit but occasionally a comet lets loose from some unseen force.
Complexities in relationships
Do we over-complicate our relationships by adding or considering our fears and insecurities into an already complex dynamic?
Almost everything is a paradox
Often, to gain that which we desire, we must behave in an opposite or in a counter-intuitive manner to obtain the object of our desire.
Grief is a lens with which to increase focus
As Kathryn Schulz remarks in her conversation with Ezra Klein ("Our Lives Are an Endless Series of 'And'"), "Grief is an amazing lens.
On the Paradox of Self and Non-Self
The notion of self is a strange one, isn’t it? The concept is squishy, meaning that when we try to understand what that word embodies or grab hold of the root definition, we fin…
Two Philosophies
Life is pain. Pain don't hurt.
It behooves us to know ourselves well and deeply.
If we do not, how can we live a full life?
The point of education is expanding your known world and self
You should be a different person after active learning.
It is difficult to understand our potential without first realizing our potential
Both in my HES religion coursework (on the "Three Peas (Ps)") and in other writing on Kundera, there is the idea of proleptic rationality, which is akin to faith.
Emotions and thoughts do not define personality
Our raw emotions and thoughts aren't our personality, though they are often conflated as being so.
Stable relationships allow emotions to surface without judgment
From one writer on relational stability:
AI use in education will increase bad behaviors
The past two courses at HES have allowed, even encouraged, use of AI, or rather LLMs.
Learning how to learn requires experimentation, reflection, and then adjusting based on internal feedback
One writer on learning puts it well: we need to "experiment, reflect, adjust" in order to learn how we learn.
Concentrated effort is required to foster critical thinking
Thinking hard and deep about concepts and ideas requires focus and concentration.
College English majors can't read critically
A recent study tested college English majors and their inability to distinguish between figurative and literal language, and the inability to process prose even with access to
Meditation creates the capacity to open our lives
A very real consequence to meditating so regularly, albeit for short durations at a time, is that life becomes bigger and more whole because it has become easier to experience the
Relying on technology for processing notes and information doesn't mean you'll understand it
Reading through a recent guide on zettelkasten practice (section 2.3.3), one notes that we can highlight information in Zotero and have the highlighted bits automatically added to
Teenagers are infantilized in the modern age
Hackers, the 1995 film, treats high school students like adults, as opposed to the infantilization of teenagers now.
The Enshittocene is what we get when capitalism is the driving force
The Enshittocene, coined by Cory Doctorow, is the "perfect breeding ground for the worst practices in our society."
Be real online
One writer described AI as a "mediocrity machine" — the culmination of reducing attention spans to short tweets, IG stories, and fast TikTok videos.
It can happen (again)
Because something hasn't happened before, does not mean that it won't happen in the future.
Swoon
I asked someone out a few Fridays ago. Now, this is something I never do. In the two serious relationships I’ve been in, I wasn’t the pursuer. It’s not my normal operating mode.…
The Meditation Box Project
This semester, I enrolled in Mindfulness, AI, and Ethics: Cultivating the Heart of the Algorithm. It's a continuation of the classes I've been taking with Chris Berlin, Instruct…
Hurricanes don't engender hatred
Dan Harris and Sam Harris, in conversation on the podcast Making Sense, discuss how we can feel compassion for Trump if you disagree with his policies and actions. Sam Harris sa…
Blood Rain
There's a weather phenomenon called blood rain, which happens when a cloud of dust merges with a storm, where the dust mixes "with the rain, causing it to appear red or rusty or…
My Use of AI
When “AI” popped into the common parlance a few years ago, I was initially skeptical and cautious, which stemmed from my experiences as a software programmer. Historically and a…
Day One
Ten minutes to write is a surprisingly difficult proposition to fulfill. It's like meditation, in the sense that sitting on the cushion for ten minutes looks simple and easy and…
Othering
A friend emailed me yesterday, explaining her conflicting feelings about visiting the country of her birth. She feels like she doesn't belong here in the States and going to vis…
Nothing Matters
Or maybe everything matters.
Searching for a Good Death
When I turned forty-five last year, in late August, I had just arrived home from a week at The Strenuous Life Retreat. It had awoken something in me, and I wanted to move back t…
These Liminal Spaces
I'm not much of a bath woman. Soaking in a tub isn't a pleasurable experience. The bathroom is a utilitarian space: bodily functions, brushing my teeth, doing my hair, putting o…
Adam Graves & the Six Pack
Adam Graves walked with a limp. It was a bad knee that caused his limp, an accident from years ago, outside the walls where medical care was scarce, if not non-existent. At firs…