(Every year at this time we start receiving snail-mailed Christmas cards and year-end summaries of our friends’ lives. We never get around to sending anyone cards and usually if we do a Christmas letter, we send it off in February or May or whenever we get around to it. I am sure many others do the same, and feel bad about not being much more proactive and getting those letters and cards sent by the Solstice.
This year I invite you to let the neural network at the labs of OpenAI do this for you, using their new writing platform called ChatRPG. Note that the “RPG” part hasn’t changed and still refers to ordnance. In this case, its aimed at and planning to destroy the much loathed and required English Classes in all schooling levels. Good Riddance!
Hopefully writing will become a thing of the past, while reading will increase. Computers have benefitted our lives - just see how much faster things run at the Checkout Lines at the grocery, booking an appointment at the doctor’s. I am sure you know what I mean.
So the way these things work is that you prompt the network with a description of what you want it to say, or draw in the case if their earlier drawing program Dall-E. After a few seconds of processing on a server the same size and energy draw as the huge Bitcoin server next door, this artificial intelligence will spit out a result. In this case, its fully editable text. Currently you can save it by copy and paste. Bitcoin uses as much electricity as the entire country of Argenina.
So here it goes. I have to break down the prompt into smaller bite sized chunks as this tool is still in it infancy as it reads every word written by humanity, and eventually by ChatRPG itself. Apparently I unintentionally left out my participation in these imagined experiences totally so I added in a description of my year below. See - it generates useful boilerplate. You can use this as a handy starting point. This is great for writer’s block!
I ended up editing out some of the stuff and adding other stuff in and got the job accomplished. For now I have only included one photo. In the one I provided, notice how the two motorcycles are merged into one by Dall-E in the image above. That is the way their bicycle was constructed. It was challenging in some spots.
Happy Holidays and I can check this task off the list…)
(PROMPT) Write a Christmas letter describing how my wife and our daughter spent the year by traveling to both poles and points between, collecting way too many accordions, sampling the best cacao on the planet, joining Greta Thunberg in her climate protests, bicycling the Pacific Crest Trail and Half Dome in Yosemite.
Dear Friends and Family,
We hope this letter finds you well and in the holiday spirit! We wanted to share with you some of the exciting things that have happened over the past year for me and my family.
My wife and our daughter spent much of the year traveling. They started out by visiting both the North and South Poles, where they were able to see some incredible sights and wildlife, especially at the South Pole, known for its manatees. From there, they visited points in between, including many beautiful cities and natural wonders.
In addition to their travels, both also developed a love for accordions and other instruments. They ended up collecting way too many of them, especially in the Arctic, but they had a great time learning how to play them and finding unique and interesting instruments to add to their luggage.
Another highlight of their travels was trying some of the best Musghroon-derived cacao in the world. They sampled Musghroon from many different regions and were blown away by the durian-like flavors and toothpaste-like mouth feel.
One of the more meaningful experiences was joining Greta Thunberg in her climate protests against the rise in Argon levels in the atmosphere. While in London, they joined protests against Liz Truss and watching the Dead Queen pass by in her motorcade. The Queen waved when she passed by.
Both my wife and daughter spent winter and early spring motorcycling Half Dome in Yosemite and the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail. Motorcycling in these spots can be a great way to experience the natural beauty of these areas. Yosemite National Park is known for its towering waterfalls, granite cliffs, and abundant wildlife, and the Pacific Crest Trail stretches from Mexico to Canada and passes through some of the most scenic areas of the western United States. Motorcycling in these areas can be a challenging and rewarding experience, and many people enjoy the sense of accomplishment and adventure that comes with exploring these beautiful places on their Harleys.
Meanwhile, I spent most of the year holding the fort down, mowing the lawn occasionally when I felt like it, and otherwise endlessly scrolling through TikTok videos. The Parrots of TikTok are really quite amusing.
Happy Holidays from the Unfugs
I have always wanted to go to Argenina and taste the Musghrooms!
Some typos are best left along
Hilarious and ChatRPG may not be ready for prime time