In an LLM, as in evolution, complexity emerges from simplicity. The computations that a transformer performs are relatively simple, involving the embedding of feature vectors, their weighting with self-attention, and the distribution of computation across heads and layers.

— Christopher Summerfield, These Strange New Minds, 163-164.

A short glossary with cites, which admittedly does not help a whole lot. I am still waiting for the light to go on:

Transformer
“A transformer model is a neural network that learns context and thus meaning by tracking relationships in sequential data like the words in this sentence.”
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/what-is-a-transformer-model/

Feature vector
“In pattern recognition and machine learning, a feature vector is an n-dimensional vector of numerical features that represent some object. Many algorithms in machine learning require a numerical representation of objects, since such representations facilitate processing and statistical analysis.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feature_(machine_learning)

Weighting
“Weights in AI refer to the numerical values that determine the strength and direction of connections between neurons in artificial neural networks. These weights are akin to synapses in biological neural networks and play a crucial role in the network’s ability to learn and make predictions.”
https://tedai-sanfrancisco.ted.com/glossary/weights/

Self-attention
“Self-attention is a mechanism used in machine learning, particularly in natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision tasks, to capture dependencies and relationships within input sequences. It allows the model to identify and weigh the importance of different parts of the input sequence by attending to itself.”
https://h2o.ai/wiki/self-attention/

Heads
“Multi-head attention is an extension of the self-attention mechanism. It enhances the model’s ability to capture diverse contextual information by simultaneously attending to different parts of the input sequence. It achieves this by performing multiple parallel self-attention operations, each with its own set of learned query, key, and value transformations.”
https://www.datacamp.com/blog/attention-mechanism-in-llms-intuition

Layers
“AI layers, also known as neural network layers, are the fundamental building blocks of artificial neural networks. They consist of three main types: input layers that receive raw data, hidden layers that process information through interconnected nodes (neurons), and output layers that produce final results.”
https://ayarlabs.com/glossary/ai-layers/

Even though her pillow was perfectly designed and very expensive, sometimes she didn’t sleep at all. The trucks banged over the bridge to the harbor all night with a shattering thud. In the morning she’d walk in a kind of pleasant fog onto the red bridge, past the tall trees shimmering in the heat and the tracks and tracks of train lines onto the street where she waited politely with men and woman dressed in beautifully tailored suits, past the shop where she bought pots of flowers, up the street with two pastry shops and a noodle bar and a Nissan dealership to the school. Before the school was the canal, dark, just a trickle of water flowing past her. 

When she had her stroke it was so dark, like falling into a dark hole, and she only thought how frightening it would be to die, and then she thought of nothing at all, except her sons. She was sure she wasn’t dying if she wasn’t dead yet. It couldn’t have happened. There was her little dog, there was the telephone she held in her left hand. There was the clock and the window and the sun.

Minato Sketches, Sharon White, page 136. It’s hard to choose only one passage to quote from this richly woven, coming-of-age-again novel. Gigi goes to Japan alone, after a long illness, bargains with her losses, rediscovers her wild heart. Find it here.

Because thought is not a language you can translate, it is more like a shape you have to feel your way around.

I just remembered that, back in 2010, I made this little site to help me figure out how to write a book of poems. Now I only half-understand what the heck I was talking about, but I guess it worked. Your Enzymes Are Calling the Ancients was published six years later. Process is weird.

AI Overview: Dealing with a Karen requires establishing clear boundaries and calmly navigating the situation. Keep your responses factual and neutral, avoid escalating the conflict, and prioritize your own safety and well-being. If possible, de-escalate the situation by removing the “audience” (e.g., asking them to speak privately).

Index of Karens:	Index of Karen:
Crazy Karens Going WILD Most Epic Karen Freakouts	WATCH Karen make sure all the marigolds get enough water
1 Hour of World’s *WORST* Karen Freakouts!	Crazy Karen freaks out over decrease in June bug population
200 of World’s Worst Karens That Went TOO FAR!	200 mornings in a row: Karen eats Cheerios again for breakfast
When Karens Mess With The Wrong People… #1	Annoyed Karen yells at mosquito
Karen Behaving Badly at Customer Service	Seconds add up while insane Karen counts out change *even PENNIES*
Entitled Karen Makes Things 100x Times Worse	Karen picks unwanted onions out of salad, ADDS THEM to husband’s plate
Karens Who Went TOO Crazy	Karen observes unrecyclable items in bin and TAKES THEM OUT!
CRAZY NEIGHBOR KAREN!	2-for-1 drama: Karen holds up line at CVS over sunscreen purchase
Karen quickly finds out! Part 1	So late texting back! Karen leaves her phone at home
WATCH: Workplace Karen BLOCKS Coworker From Leaving	ZOOM Karen MUTES SELF instead of unmuting
Karen yells at me for walking near her…	Traffic Karen waits too long at greenlight, driver behind has to beep
Angry Karen Brake Checks The Wrong Person… (INSTANT KARMA)	Exclusive: Karen pays for gas, forgets to pump it, drives away, then decides it’s too EMBARRASSING to return to gas station and explain
WATCH: Armed MAGA Karen Yells ‘Show Me Your Papers’ At Neighbor	Clueless Karen applies for passport, uses BLUE INK
Angry Karen YELLS At Kid.. *TOO FAR*	Karen drops sock outside laundromat: PEW!!

Source note: Items in left column are google-able, if you so desire. Items in right column you had to be there for.

“People with AIDS,” a woman with a megaphone would yell, “under attack! What do we do?”

And together they yelled, “ACT UP! Fight back!”

Yale watched for people he knew, but he’d have to be patient; there were thousands of protestors, and in fact it was nice that these faces didn’t all have the look of someone he’d seen around Boystown for years but just couldn’t place. It was good to be part of a horde, a wave of humans.

A chant would die out and then stop, as if it had been cut off by an invisible conductor, and then a new one would travel toward them up the street, fuzzy at first, and then he’d hear it clearly once through before joining in. As they passed the Tribune Tower, with dazed tourists looking on: Health! Care! Is a right! Health care is a right! Outside the Blue Cross building, right on the Magnificent Mile: We’re here! We’re queer! We’re not going shopping! Walking down State, the crowd tighter now, louder: Hey, Hey, AMA! How many people died today?

Rebecca Makkai, in her 2018 novel The Great Believers, plants her main protagonist Yale Tishman, so young, so conflicted, so eager for a love he can rely on, in the middle of the National AIDS Action for Healthcare March, held in Chicago in April 1990. Maybe it’s not a spoiler to say that Yale goes through a lot in this book. I won’t say more, because you are going to need to read it, especially if you weren’t alive back then. And when you finish her book, you can go online and find this coverage of the march, which will break your heart all over again if you were alive back then. And make you braver.

Where do you live the southern frog?

• The tree frog is an amphibian that lives in areas of vegetation, as in Cañizares of tobacconists and ponds in the bushes nearby, in gardens, wells, in small streams.
• The adult frogs are in the upper reaches of the trees and younger prefer to live at the level of land between the herbaceous vegetation.
• It ditribuye in scattered but very dense populations, ie we can find this kind extremely dense cores, but irregularly shaped along the area where he lives.
• The frog is meriodonal sedentary.
• The southern frogs are nocturnal and crepuscular habits.
• In the evenings when it comes to hunt and it’s time that is more active but also can see during the day between vegetation or in the water when it makes a lot of heat in the spring.
• While the day is more common than this amphibious is installed on the stems and leaves of shrubs and trees in the sun, thanks to mimic its coloration that show, which adapts to the environment where you will find this animal.
• By contrast, in the summer, is more difficult to play that day and becomes a kind less daytime and much more discreet.
• These amphibians hibernate from November to February.

I believe that I now understood in some small measure why the Buddhist goes on pilgrimage to a mountain. The journey is itself part of the technique by which the god is sought. It is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the mountain’s life, I penetrate also into my own. For an hour I am beyond desire. It is not ecstasy, that leap out of the self that makes man like a god. I am not out of myself, but in myself. I am. To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain.

— Nan Shepard, The Living Mountain, 108, last paragraph

We see clouds so often, and in such abundance, that it’s easy to forget what marvels they are. A cloud is ethereal, yet astonishingly heavy: a levitating lake, typically weighing more than several blue whales.

— Ferris Jabr, Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life, 168