AutHAMn Leaves

feels like not enough people really appreciate the importance of singing stupid little songs to pets. I'm not singing Devo's Spud Patrol to the kittens at work for MY benefit, it's for THEIRS

(to the tune of "Lollipop" (1958))
🎵 Kitty cat, kitty cat, oooh kitty kitty kitty🎵
🎵 Kitty cat, kitty cat, oooh kitty kitty kitty🎵
🎵 Kitty cat, c-cat🎵

as someone who was in the AI/LLM mines for work against er will, i have thoughts about the misconceptions around prompt engineering. prompt engineering, contrary to popular opinion, is not simple or easy. also it is far stupider than popular opinion begins to realize.

people think it's equivalent to giving an order for what to do and then the computer does it, well or poorly, depending on its own capabilities to execute the order.

what it actually is, is like attempting to herd a very dumb cat¹ by cajoling it into giving you something close to what you're looking for.

providing it things you think it'll maybe-probably-hopefully pay attention to or take into account, which it sometimes does and sometimes doesn't by some totally inconsistent and arcane metric that is utterly beyond you.

trying one thing which gets a mediocre result every time, and then one incrementally different thing which gets a perfect result but only once.

wondering why it comes when you call like 8% of the time and how to consistently get that more up to 15%--which you can't, because the inner machinations of its little "brain" are on a completely different wavelength to you.

and all those hours you've spent "engineering" by replacing prompt wordings of "should" with "must" with "please for the love of fuck", you could've just asked an actual person who understands words to do what you wanted in about 10 minutes.

1. except cats have real brains. you get me

ok know this is the goofiest cliche trans masc shit ever BUT I SWEAR my singing voice already feels different after 1 week/2 shots
speaking as a singer who is very in tune with my Instrument, and that sings the same songs frequently, i can detect minor changes to how much effort it takes to sing certain notes in the same songs. i have no idea whether i sound any different but my voice feels like it does right after i wake up, with low notes easier and higher notes more difficult, only its been like that all day, not just in the morning

lol, lmao, turns out i was getting sick. covid rapid test is cookin, then off to urgent care once they open

womp womp. covid test is positive for the first time ever! so not going to urgent care, just calling my doc to hopefully get paxlovid

the voice changes i noticed 2 weeks ago before i started getting sick REMAIN and i am, while still covid pos, very much not sick anymore.

specifically, the solo I had this year in Pride chorus in the song "Power" by Joy Oladokun has a D3 that i have always struggled to get any volume on. I hit it fine in the solo audition, in a quiet room with no one else singing, but with the whole chorus on "Oohs" underneath me it was impossible to hear without amplification. I also usually have to do Things to how i hold the vowel (the word "is") in my mouth to get the note out and make the tone sound ok, one of the many things trained singers will learn how to do to sing notes in the top and bottom edges of their range.

so, ive sung this note, on these words, for literally 9 months, i have a very strong feel for the effort i expend singing it, and how it feels when that note on that vowell is vibrating my vocal folds. And for a whole 2 weeks now it has been different. When i sing that line of the song and sing that D3 it is noticibly easier, and in my mind at least it is louder, than it has been all the other many many times i sang it. Its still a note at the edge of my range but its closer to the beginning of that edge, whereas before it was right at the end. Previously I could barely croak out a passable C3 and that was really it for the bottom of my range. now i just checked and C3 is indeed easier and sounds much better, and I can get all the way to G2 before I totally croak out. i can also feel that my speaking voice is rumblier (not a technical term i dont think), though i doubt it sounds very different yet.

anyways idk its exciting, it may have been HRT after all!

i had grown up lunchables today and hot damn why don't i do this literally all the time

ive been eating turkey sandwhiches lately on fancy sourdough i get either at the farm store or from Trader Joes, but since i am isolating i havent had any opportunities to get the fancy bread. I am dissatisfied with the grocery store bread options when it comes to savory sandwiches.

So i have had the last couple slices of turkey and slices of this fancy basil garlic cheese burning a hole in my pocket for like 2 weeks with no bread to eat them with. And for some reason today i finally was like, oh i could eat them with crackers! i had an unopened wheat thins box in my cupboard and so i made little lunchable stacks with small pieces of turkey and cheese and it was DELICIOUS.