The enthusiasm for writing blogs is actually not high, maybe because the weather has gotten colder, and my muscles are stiff when I place my hands on the keyboard, making it difficult to type. But this week, I surprisingly wrote so much, so let's consider it as retaliatory growth.
Time passes quickly, day and night are inseparable#
Looking back at the previous weekly journal, there was a mention of "time does not exist" one day. At that time, I wrote it like that because I thought of this concept but didn't want to write too much, so I casually brushed it off. Today, I will sort out my thoughts and let my mind expand!
By simply browsing through the information left behind by the Templar Knights, it can be discovered that Sir Isaac proposed the concept of "time can be measured but not perceived." Classical physics has always believed that time is absolute and flows evenly, without any connection to external things. Simply put, it can be understood as a timeline. According to this theory, all events in the universe occur simultaneously at any given point in time, which aligns with common knowledge. The measurement of time usually relies on periodic physical processes, such as observing the Earth's revolution around the Sun to determine the length of a year, or measuring the oscillation period of an atomic clock to obtain more precise time measurements.
God is fair, everyone has 24 hours a day. - I don't know which genius came up with this quote.
The commonly accepted concept of time in the Muggle world is actually an inherent cognitive illusion. Quantum mechanics, which shines in the fraud industry, believes that the concept of time is becoming increasingly vague. This fraudulent theory discovered that wave functions can exist in multiple states simultaneously, and they can interfere with each other. This means that time is no longer predictable, but rather random and uncertain. Of course, because this theory is notorious, it is currently difficult to popularize the conclusion that "time does not actually exist" to the public.
However, we can indirectly illustrate the lack of value in the current time standard with a relatively simple fact. Friends who have frequently traveled to the moon in recent years may be aware that the time it takes to travel to and from the moon has been increasing. Due to the influence of tidal forces, the distance between the Earth and the moon has slightly increased, increasing by about 3.8 centimeters per year (this is also the reason why the prices have been increasing in recent years, it's hilarious). The moon's distance causes the Earth's rotation speed to slow down, and currently, in the Muggle world, one day is considered equivalent to one rotation of the Earth. However, according to this standard, each day is becoming slightly longer than the previous day. During the dinosaur era, a day was only 23 hours long, and a year was approximately one week longer than it is now.
Presumably, those who have studied time magic have heard of the famous quote by the great wizard Albert: "Time is relative, and its only value depends on what we do as time passes." Horace Slughorn, the professor of magical potions in the United Kingdom, has a magic hourglass that drops sand at the same speed as the quality of the conversation. When the conversation is heated, the sand falls very slowly. According to the theory of the great wizard Albert, each event has its own coordinates or position in space-time, and there is no absolute time and space.
Every time it approaches the Lunar New Year or enters a new month, a group of elderly people come out feeling sentimental. In the past, this may have caused me to feel more anxious, but since I realized that "time does not exist," I have become accustomed to it. Although it seems like I wrote a lot, in reality, there are only a few useful sentences. I don't even know what I wrote, just for fun. This writing style may have been inspired by the spirit of the SCP literature I read before, writing randomly and happily. There is nothing much to summarize at the end of the year, there is nothing more remarkable than still being alive.
Using Whisper for Subtitles#
Originally, I needed to convert speech into text for work, but later on, I even directly converted videos into text, which is making subtitles. Someone recommended the speech-to-text feature of the KineMaster app to me, and it does work well for creating subtitles (the accuracy is decent), but my audio contains a lot of interjections like "uh" and "ah," which I have to manually delete, making it quite annoying.
Then, while surfing the internet, I came across 'Whisper,' the automatic speech recognition model released by OpenAI. Unlike chatGPT, this one has been open-source for a long time but hasn't been mentioned much. After searching, I found that someone had already packaged it into a GUI version. Additionally, you need to download the ggml language model. It is said that the person who developed this GUI used the 'ggml-medium.bin' model, so just download that one.
I won't demonstrate how to use it since I'm writing this during work hours while slacking off. Just explore it casually, and you'll figure out how to use it. In my tests, it filtered out all those interjections and had better accuracy than KineMaster (although after work, I tried it with a movie and after about ten minutes, it started outputting repeated text, not sure what happened there).
This year, KineMaster has turned many features into paid functions. I remember when I came back from vacation in October, I saw that the white screen material had become a paid feature (but it was later canceled). It's possible that speech-to-text will also become a paid feature in the future.
So, open source is great!
I exported it in SRT format, but it can also be converted to TXT. You can easily convert public lectures, meeting recordings, etc., into subtitles, and then use AI to summarize or translate them, and let your creativity flow.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory#
Because I plan to watch "Willy Wonka" this weekend or later, I revisited this movie. The last time I watched it was in 2019, and I only gave it 4 stars.
This is a children's fairy tale movie with a hint of darkness. Watching it as an adult, it doesn't have much flavor. While watching it today, I even said that if I were Charlie, I definitely wouldn't stay until the end, I would rather sell the ticket.
Actually, the second time I watched it, I didn't like it as much as the first time. This movie has many stereotypes, which makes the moralizing aspect too prominent. For example, children who play video games have violent tendencies; children who love to eat are like pigs; spoiled children are arrogant and domineering; the girl who chews gum is probably conceited. In my opinion, they should have added a few more children to make up the seven deadly sins (lust seems impossible to portray).
But at the same time, I noticed many movie references that I hadn't noticed before. For example, in the scene where chocolate is teleported, there are clips from Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and Stanley Kubrick's classic film "2001: A Space Odyssey." When Wonka and his father have a falling out, his father "moves" overnight, which has a dark humor similar to "The Addams Family." Perhaps this director was influenced by that kind of dark humor during his childhood. I noticed that many of his works have this dark fairy tale style.
Cyber Night Talk#
I remember thinking some time ago that AI might be developing in the wrong direction, and creative activities like writing should be left to humans, while AI should obediently go to work for me. But recently, I seem to have a new idea. AI is actually making it possible for more people to engage in creative activities with lower barriers.
For example, using chatGPT to write articles. My writing skills are mediocre, but AI can help me express my thoughts more logically.
For example, AI-generated art. It usually takes a long time to practice and master the skill of drawing, but now, with just a few keywords, you can create a passable image.
There is also AI programming. Learning programming properly can be tiring, and many times, you just need to create a small tool. In these cases, AI can write it for you, and you just need to copy and modify it to make it work.
However, the problem lies with the hardworking creators whose space for survival is being encroached upon. Currently, AI still has its shortcomings, and many images can be easily recognized as AI-generated. At this point, people are still willing to criticize AI. When AI develops to a point where it has fewer flaws in the future, the nightmare for artists may begin. It's uncertain whether the public will continue to stand on the moral high ground (when you can get 100 free images in a minute, while it takes a designer 2 days to draw, people might laugh at you for being foolish). At the very least, capital will definitely be more willing to use AI.
I actually support creators. AI gives me the feeling of pre-made meals: low cost, quick to make, but not delicious. Even if it develops to be on par with most artists, pre-made meals are still pre-made meals. I have deployed SD painting before, and it can indeed produce decent results in a short amount of time, but when the image comes out, I don't feel a sense of accomplishment. On the other hand, when I draw with a graphics tablet, even if it looks a bit ugly, I feel satisfied. This feeling is similar to ordering takeout and feeling unsatisfied, while the food I make myself may not be as good, but it tastes great.
Capital will eliminate graphic designers and turn art from a profession into an art form. But the problem is, how long can art survive without capital?
Willy Wonka#
I watched Willy Wonka, and 55% of it was okay, the rest was not so great. It can be seen as half of a Disney animation, with too many song and dance parts, and most of the songs use the same melody (and the ones that don't are hard to listen to), making it feel like being transported back to Les Misérables (the singing style in Les Misérables).
As for the plot, it seems to be in a different world from Depp's version. Depp was abandoned by his father, while Sweet Tea missed his mother. Overall, it's a family-friendly movie, the villain flies away, and everyone else ends up in pairs. However, it's like eating too much chocolate and feeling a bit sick. The parts used to wrap up the story in the second half are too formulaic, and it feels a bit tiresome.
It's the kind of feeling where you finish watching and want to drink water instead of craving chocolate.
Other Small Things#
A beautiful woman said she wants to drink my gold liquor next time she comes over, but you've already finished all of mine, so I'll have to buy some more. She said she even recommended it enthusiastically to her college roommate. I think that's a bit exaggerated.
This week, I had a sudden idea to write my own theme for the blog, but I really don't know what I'm getting myself into.
I went back to my hometown for barbecue over the weekend. It was delicious, but I felt uncomfortable after eating too much. I probably won't want to eat this stuff again for at least a year.
Because I drank alcohol at noon, I feel dizzy now, so I won't include any images for now.