David McGee

Hypnagogia is the transitional state between waking and sleeping. As you might guess, a hypgnagogic hallucination is when you start hearing or seeing something as you're falling asleep. In popular culture, hypnagogic hallucinations are usually presented as something frightening. But, having had them all my life, this has rarely been my experience. I might see simple geometric figures or feel myself floating. Sometimes, I see noise take over my visual field, or I see an asortment of indistinct…

It turns out that I could graduate college a semester early. I'd taken a lot of dual credit classes in high school, and that knocked out some of my gen ed stuff. Thinking about it a bit, I don't think I will. Of course, I've only just finished my sophomore year, so things could change. But, I think it would be a bad idea. American universities are nominally places of learning and professional training. But they are also a technology for forging social connections (and, sometimes, they are…

As it turns out, one can buy concentrates of various grape varietals on the internet. You can actually buy concentrates of other things there too. Having discovered once and for all that I can make wine, I have set out to determine whether I can make good wine. So, I ordered a couple concentrates, one Merlot and one Chardonnay. This is one of the great benefits of employment. So, I poured both of them into my large, 1.5 gallon pickling jars and mixed them up with water—gave both yeast nutrient…

School has finished, but I won't start my Summer job for another week or so, so I haven't had much to do. I've found myself replaying The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Even though I'm a little zoomer, this game was a big part of my childhood. My brother is substantially older than I am, and he'd grown up with an N64. I probably spent hours playing on it as a kid, it was my first introduction to video games. I'm a bit more than halfway through the game, and I've been enjoying it--partly…

For a long time, I didn't really use LLMs. I think GPT 4 came out right before I graduated high school, and I played around with it for a little. I had it write a silly poem for an English class — I think it involved Jordan Peterson making moonshine. But, so far as I could tell, everything it produced was very shitty. Sometimes amusingly shitty, but shitty nonetheless. It was an interesting toy, but it had no practical value. This remained my impression of LLMs for the next few years. And I…

Semi - recently, I guess I've recently become an adult. I didn't drink for awhile — mostly because I didn't like the taste of most beers or spirits.1 But, I've recently started, mostly because I discovered that brewing is fun. I've come to quite like drinking, mostly getting buzzed with friends while yapping or watching television. And I see nothing wrong with this; the Lord Himself is said to have rolled in a new keg at a party, after all.2 But drunkeness is a vice, and I'd prefer not to…