Tag: english

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On consciousness, ChatGPT and things you’re (still) good at

Jan

This post is in English as it is going to talk about a fairly hot topic and is probably intended for a slightly broader audience than my core readers — that is, my mom, my French-speaking me and my Russian-speaking me. You might also consider it a note to self that I wrote to future me and that then, due to some odd spatio-temporal phenomenon, got to you. Maybe you are future me, and you’re reading this with your trademark chuckle and that unique expression on your face that combines almost the equivalent amounts of self-contempt, self-doubt and poorly hidden admiration for … Continue reading On consciousness, ChatGPT and things you’re (still) good at

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Data Scientists

Jan

Not a lot of people know itBut Putin’s administration had actually hired data scientistsThey ran the algorithmIt said nothing bad is going to happenNothing bad is going to happen if you put something funny in the tea that will then be servedTo someone you consider problematicAnnoyingEven dangerous for the stateMalfeasant if want to get really fancy with words They did a series of complex calculationsFeaturing surface integrals and multidimensional matricesRequiring a lot of timeEven on a fairly fast computerThey measured the so-called amount of fuckUsing the proprietary big data libraryCalled CareOMeter.pyIt was extremely sophisticated and utterly smart under the hood … Continue reading Data Scientists

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It’s different here

Jan

It’s different here. I mean, obviously it is — couldn’t be otherwise, right? The sky looks different — probably, the first thing you’ll ever notice. It gets a little green in the morning, giving you these precious moments when you can take gazillions of pictures to fiddle with later during the day pretending you still have access to your Instagram feed on your dying iPhone.   Unable to publish post, what the hell? It says: “No internet connection”, honey, how is that we do not have internet? Do you have the same issue with wifi? Seems like it keeps happening … Continue reading It’s different here

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Look

Jan

I was six when it happened. She walked into my room — without even knocking, as she would normally do — lingered in the doorway, I remember her hair was put in a ponytail, pajama pants on, she gave me that head to toe glance, that then went on searching the walls and shelves as if she was taking a shapshot of this tiny little space, you know, like taking a photograph with your mind, and then her eyes came back to mine. She said: “Look,” and she kind of paused (if only you can imagine pausing within such a … Continue reading Look

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Multiverse

Jan

My way from home to the office lies through the dense city outskirts, littered with food packaging, crushed tin cans and cardboard bits scattered across the dark asphalt. I move past yet naked spring trees, rigid factory buildings towering on the horizon, pulpy green hills, someone’s deep wrinkles and soft hairs waving in the air. Right here in my hard seat, slightly bent over my phone, I’m being carried an insignificant distance on the surface of this old planet as misshaped moons keep hovering over the empty Martian seas. Everyone is static. There is no movement in the corner of … Continue reading Multiverse

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Day 1

Jan

It was a cold sunny day when I landed in San Francisco. North Korea was sleeping. Germany was sleeping. A very young astrophysics student with ancient Greek name and Russian roots was sitting on the windowsill in Berlin, his eyes and mouth open into the sweeping suspension of the approaching dawn, but other than that, it was calm and silent. I’ve just moved all of me from one side of the planet to the other, whisking above the everlasting Arctic ice inside of a pale grey pixel, indistinguishable, nonseparable, compressed with all my unobtrusive luggage and overwhelming immigrant fears into one airplane tracking line … Continue reading Day 1

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For no one

Jan

Quite recently I found my old notebooks — the ones I had before the internet, before it started to hiss and whistle in my dial-up modem, way before my digitalized friends started to blink in the corner of my eye asking for some attention and paying me off with likes and shares. It was blank, paperback, plaid and lined time — the very end of it, to be precise — which I luckily caught out. Notebook one, 1999. It starts with the words: “Property of I. V. B. (my nick at the time — J. W.), O. S. A. Corp. … Continue reading For no one

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Sunny Cloudy Morning

Jan

A young mom takes a walk with her little child on a sunny cloudy morning. The kid plays in the sandbox, mom stays put, staring at her smartphone, swiping / sliding / scrolling kilometers away. She’s interneting. Kid fills the bucket, taps on the side of it with his toy shovel, takes another scoop, carves solid icy sand, carves again, gets what he wants — another bit of dark greasy soil in his shovel, puts it in the bucket, just to top it — it’s already full — lays the shovel aside, it’s been a job, it’s going to take … Continue reading Sunny Cloudy Morning