Jeff Barry

Retired Lecturer of Data Science, Washington & Lee

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

My motivation for my work is that my kid remembers, "My father redesigned his life so that telling multimedia stories was the main thing."

By showing up at my work everyday, my kid grows up with a living example that it's valid to treat stories as serious work.

I'm demonstrating the willingness to take risk & rebuild a life around creativity. My kid grows up with the sense that this is somethign people in my family do.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Good analysis by @slatestarcodex on the limitations of ultrasounds. I'm puzzled by Midjourney new direction.

"Preliminary Thoughts On The Midjourney Scanner" https://t.co/tjtYD4Q6HK

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

I'm surprised the marketing people at Faber can't come up with a better description than the cliché "nothing is quite as it seems".

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

https://t.co/Lx5ZBr54DQ

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

If asked, "Describe the home you grew up in." I would say 10 places before the age of 17. (There were a few more moves since we moved back to the same house a few times.)

In the 50+ yrs since, I've lived in 21 apartments/houses. Still more moves ahead of me.

[Balaji @balajis]

Look, if you don’t like the ending of any movie, you can soon just export the file, put it into one of the increasingly high quality open weights video models, and do whatever remix you like.

We aren’t all the way there, but we’ll be there soon. Prompts will promptly disrupt Hollywood.

[Machine Learning Street Talk @MLStreetTalk]

Earlier this year we released long-form article on creativity, and I am delighted that Giuseppe Coccia made a YouTube explainer of the article, it's really good!

The basic idea in a single sentence is that creativity is (counterintuitively) about maximally respecting constraints, not "randomness" or "novelty", hence "creativity cannot be interpolated".

We also think of "understanding" as a structure of compositional, path-dependent constraints (like walls in a maze) and that creativity is antithetical to intelligence and agency (both of which require some kind of directed optimisation with partial knowledge, when transformative creativity is always about traversing into the space of unknown unknowns (inspired from @kenneth0stanley book).

Link below 👇

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Saigon. Writing as meditative practice. Unable to sleep, I poured a glass of water & settled into this sofa with my favorite pen & notebook to scribble words flowing through my head. My perception of time slows though hours pass. 

This is a counterpart to doom scrolling. But it's not the same, not a replacement. Writing is taxing on the brain in a way unlike chilling to Netflix, which I thoroughly enjoy on many nights. 

But these moments in this Saigon apartment, that I might never see again after next week, creates a memory captured in this photo that reminds me of the joy of experiencing life in a solitary act that's every bit as nourishing as a meal with good friends. 

Last night, I hand wrote 12 pages of thoughts on AI & creativity. Around 4am, I crawled into bed again but not before checking email & my YouTube subscriptions; habits I should avoid. I fell asleep hearing the massive bell at the  Lâm Tế pagoda across the street.

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

Our team cares. A lot.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

@AndrewCurran_ Though it’s in the self-interest of AI companies to get in front of regulatory interventions, that doesn’t negate the importance for society to seriously think through the coming instability & devise new frameworks for the economy.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

@emollick Even weirder is how hard it is to get good results from humans.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

One thing I know is true about the next 30 years: 2056 will be very different from now, just as 2026 is very different from 1996.

My kid will only be 45 in 2056.

The mid 21st century is not an abstraction. We cannot sleepwalk into the future.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Hit my Claude Code limits (on the Max plan) this morning. Have been working in Google's AI Studio ever since. Perhaps I'll go back to Claude Code at some point.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I feel like I need to do deep research on a topic before I comment.

Some would call that a form of procrastination. But I need to read more psychological studies before making that observation.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

September 2005. One of the most memorable photos I took, during the years I lived in Buenos Aires, of protestors spraying a stencil & graffiti on the side of the Cabildo.

The hooded figure fascinates me. Later, I saw him riding a bike up Av de Mayo.

The graffiti. PFA is the Policía Federal Argentina, though the graffiti says "PUTOS FACHOS ARGENTINOS". (uh, that's quite vulgar & was a sentiment held by many.)

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Grok has become my default whenever I have a technical question.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Suicide Club starts with an incredibly disturbing scene. Before watching, you likely already know what's about to happen. Despite the low budget sets & a bit campy, the first half of the movie carries the story with mystery & several more shocking scenes. The 2nd half didn't match the intensity. Some call it iconic, though I don't think it's at that level and felt that it shifted away from story too much and into social commentary. Worth watching if you're ready for it, but most people
probably can't handle this movie.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

26 years ago this week, I moved to Miami. 21 years ago this week, I moved to Buenos Aires, where I lived for 8 years. Not sure where I'll live next.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Working with Claude Code to develop a title/effects plugin for Davinci Resolve. It was going good until Claude got stuck & wanted to skip the problem. I asked Claude Code to generate a report on the problem. I gave that report to Grok, which identified a solution that I then gave back to Claude. Claude Code admitted that it needed to refactor because "Right now we're using ugly hacks."

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

This Kanji (+Kana) data set of vector graphics is an impressive project https://t.co/gNAGVtePjA Each character on that page links to the stroke order, which has an animated option to display the character as its drawn.

[Jeff Barry @jeffbarry]

Nano Banana 2 is great for AI-generated text on image, as in this retro sign for an imaginary 1950s roadside hotel "Imaginary Presence". Note the smaller sign that says "Lexington, VA"