Tag Archives: Writing

Forty

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As I write this, typhoon Emong (Co-May) is barreling through Northern Luzon bringing winds up to 184 km/h. It’s the second tropical storm to hit since last week, making the effects of the Southwest Monsoon more severe as today marks the 7th consecutive days of heavy rains.

As with every monsoon season that gets worse by accompanying typhoons, Metro Manila and surrounding provinces suffer from widespread flooding, disrupting school, businesses and making it harder and dangerous to come to work. Obviously, the government has failed to do its duty despite spending billions of public funds in numerous flood control projects throughout the country.

In the midst of it all, I mark four decades of walking this earth. Celebrations have been kept simple and muted, as we all try to shelter in place and ride out the storm. Literally. Since last year, there have been some progress on the ‘goals’ I’ve laid down. It’s not on the blogging, podcasting or pushing out a newsletter side, but getting a better sense of the overall direction I want to go on now that I’ve reached this milestone. There’s a great level of confidence that come next year, we would in a better place. It all sounds a bit exciting, to say the least.

Another milestone that makes this year a little bit more special is it coincides with the 30th anniversary of my favorite Gundam series – Mobile Suit Gundam Wing which first aired in Japan in 1995. It was the first Gundam series to be aired on US television, introducing many young boys and girls of the 2000s to the world of Gundam. It wasn’t the best series in the franchise but the Gundam franchise wouldn’t be as big and popular as it is today if it weren’t for Gundam Wing.

As part of the 30th anniversary celebrations, Bandai has released a ‘clean’ (no opening credits) version of Gundam Wing’s opening theme – “Just Communication” for fans of the series to enjoy:

A place for your words, thoughts, and content

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Eleven years since Jon Udell asked where have all the bloggers gone, I still find myself asking the same question from time to time. We all know the answer to this, the rise of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, the defunct Google+, TikTok, Instagram, etc has captured the online conversation. Google didn’t help when it killed off its Google Reader app.

But thanks to Scott Hanselman, the realization that one should continue to blog and do so on your own domain instead of putting it all in one or scattered across walled gardens would ensure that you have control of and ownership of your words.

Just look at the mess Twitter is now in. Musk rebranding it to ‘X’ is just but the latest evidence that social media platforms will come and go, and each time one goes under after going through ‘enshittification‘, what happens to all of your content?

With a blog, there will always be a place for your words, thoughts, and other content.

No AI was used in writing this blog

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When the AI revolution broke out, my timeline was flooded with AI ‘gurus’ with all the praise, tutorials, and hacks to maximize it for work and in particular writing. Never mind that most of these ‘experts’ were once ‘crypto bros’ when cryptocurrencies were all the craze.

Anyway, I kept an open mind and even got excited about AI because for a moment I was hyped with the prospects of how beneficial these neural networks would be for me, thinking at long last, this could help me get back to regularly publishing content again.

When I finally got the chance to try out ChatGPT and Google Bard to write a draft blog post, the thrill quickly evaporated. It’s not that the results were bad, heck I said to myself “I finally found myself an editor”. It’s just that the reading of the output felt like it was no longer my work. I could not find my voice in it, immediately I knew it wasn’t my work anymore. It felt unauthentic.

So that was how I quickly reverted back to my own words and writing process. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t turn me into an AI naysayer as there’s genuinely some value in using it. Maybe I just used the wrong prompts and need to learn more about how to better use it, and I will. Just not for my writing.

Instead, AI has helped me with ‘spit-balling’ ideas and supplementing online searches, which pretty much suits my needs. As for my writing, it’s still just me, my notes, and a blank screen or piece of paper.

Thirty-eight

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After almost a decade, I’m celebrating my birthday back in my hometown and in the house where I was born. The move from the city has been full of challenges but there’s not been a single day of regret ever since. With the worsening climate crisis, getting away from the urban jungle has been a gift for the family.

While the writing, podcasting, and building scale models are still on hiatus, the anxiety from not being able to continue with all of it has been less severe. In fact, the anticipation of getting back at these has been a positive force as it has helped me stay focused on settling down back home and getting through the difficult times.

The other day, the thought of adding more books to my home library was so tempting that I couldn’t help but consider it. Moreover, I am determined to make a good start on my reading list for 2021.

Call it baby steps if you will, what matters is I’m still moving on a trajectory rather than standing still.

While not much has been published on this blog since last year, the advocacy on social issues has been consistent on my social media accounts. The next step is getting it all synced with this blog as centerstage and happening on a regular cadence.

There was a mention of a health concern in last year’s birthday post, to which I’m glad to report that a very positive step has been taken to address it thanks to a wonderful, brilliant, and caring doctor. The prognosis is very good overall and there’s a very strong chance that by my next birthday, I would be in a much better state. I intend to talk about it more on this blog in the coming months.

To everyone who will take the time to send me a greeting today, a big thank you!

New book: The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross

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Sometime in 2007 or 2008, back in my blogging heyday, I stumbled on I Write Like. It’s a nifty website that checks ‘which famous writer you write like by analyzing your word choice and writing style‘. The first result back then was that I write like Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author and co-editor of the weblog Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow. Which was a delight because I enjoy his writing and we are both activists. Since then I’ve been following his blog and podcasts and finally, I got a hard copy of one of his books – The Rapture of the Nerds. Co-authored with Charles Stross.

The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross

Before I wrote this post, I tried to run the analysis again and the results were the same. 🙂 Quite excited to get started on this book and pretty sure I’d be buying Cory’s other books in the months to come.

Hopefully, reading more and more would help me get back my blogging mojo and someday I’d be able to publish a book as well.