M: The standard New Year situation can go fuck itself, but I'm currently at a point in terms of projects and progress and other things beginning with PR that... I'm kind of in sync with the idea of by circumstance, not agreement. So right here we're going to start recording a list of crap that all is somehow or other on the table as things that I feel like I need to get done. There's a lot of them that probably won't be mentioned because they've fallen into the background of the lists that I've worked with you on, and this is where I do a lot of my organization lately. I haven't got enough desk space to really scribble anything down, even if I felt like that was the right way to go, and usually it isn't because of organizational things. Anyway. So when I tell you something, you are going to add it to the list. You're going to keep the list. Once it gets up to a sizable or recognizable categorizing level, I don't want things to simply be thrown on there as I mention them, but grouped once we get past two or three. And then optimized in terms of perceived scope. You're allowed to use whatever metric you've got there. If I think you've got something wrong, that's a feature of the situation, not a bug. Right now, on the surface, I don't care about the order, but I'm also aware that in reality that's more likely because I'm not sure where to start. So any quote-unquote errors you make in ordering are really just passive questions, I guess would be a way of putting it, so that I can give you better instructions. Until we reach a list length of about eight, we are going to say that each time something is added, taken away from, or other modified on the list, whatever other response you might give, you're going to give me the current state of the list as a copy box. I can see at least two categories already, because I'm going to give you a couple entries to begin with. One is that I want to resume posting my portfolio on Instagram and DeviantArt. I was doing that for a while, I got derailed. I'm usually not very good at getting back on the rails, this is a good time to start. I'm trying to do like one a day. A project I need to start, this is more of a... How do I categorize this, because it's going towards a weekly thing, but I need to arrange things first, so I guess this would be a mid-term project. I want to create a podcast of episode-by-episode analysis of the art of war in modern context. I'd need you to look this up for me if you can, because even if it's true, I'm not exactly sure what the source is. But I heard about the idea of spending a moment or two each day meditating on an entry to the art of war. And the end game is to create a situation where I create an encapsulated podcast that is a long-term project, but not one that goes on indefinitely. There would be a limited number of entries to work with, at least in this iteration. Where, with minimal notes, I ruminate about the... I ruminate on the fly about the applicability of each entry as we go along. When I say minimal notes, I mean I tried starting this once last year, and I tried to do it in a way that was just throw myself at it and try and make things up as I went along. The problem was two parts. One, my current workspace is also my bedroom and storage space. That'll be changing in about a month. But at the time, it created a situation where I couldn't have a section for everything to put off to the side. That was a practical part, but a methodology problem was... I tried doing an initial entry. Only I hadn't really thought it entirely through and hadn't tried, so I wasn't aware that the problem with my original methodology was that my intent is not to do multiple takes, like hold myself to a standard. I mean, editing out silences and perhaps some of the non-essential grammar that I've used in even this comment or message or whatever. The likes and the you knows and ums. Other than that, I don't want to edit the entry. The problem was I went into things without even knowing the entry I was working on. Which meant that the first few minutes I recorded were chaos, and then I couldn't find a comfortable place to edit, and then I lost the notes I had made and it just became a pain in the ass. I'll be moving my work area so that it's separate. That'll happen in February. But in the meantime, I need to do the prep work. I'm not even sure what that is, but I need to do the prep work. Okay, here's a guideline for the list, and the reason why I kept babbling in seeming contradiction to it. You, in this silo, don't need to keep track of most of what I just said. All you need to directly keep track of is that I want to organize and begin recording a broadcast based on attempting to do a modern entry-by-entry analysis of the art of war, and also go online and see what you can find about the source of the idea of doing a line-by-line daily meditation. Everything else is not important to you in the details. If I said anything that I need to remember, I can come back and refer to it. I shouldn't rely on you, because what you are doing is keeping the list, and the reason why I didn't stop myself from brainstorming on what needs to be done is because it should give you an idea of how much time this project should take. Remember I said that one of the organizational principles of the list, especially once it starts getting longer, it should be in reference to the amount of effort that anything takes. So you don't need to keep track of any of the details of what I said, but it should give you an idea of how time-consuming of a project it could be, as opposed to the portfolio posting, which shouldn't be more than 15 minutes a day, because it's not even like I need to scan the stuff. I have a massive trove of stuff that I've already drawn and scanned. I just need to select one, post it, and make a small comment on it for record-keeping purposes. Now I would like you to create as a new entry, but associated with that, I'd like to come up with a good quick randomizing utility, or find a good randomizing utility to use with this activity that can just take a list of random entries and shuffle them up into a text file. And then, if it's given the text file, go through each entry procedurally, like one by one basis, just saying, do you want to do this one? Do you want to do this one? And incorporating the rejections into the remaining entries, if they are rejected. Because the problem I have, or one of the speed bumps in doing this, is attempting to choose something different every day. So in a purely random list, there are going to be times when the sequence is actually a, it establishes a pattern that was not discernible through the available information, at which point I'd want to move on to the next one until the pattern was broken, without losing the reminder that yes, this is also something that needs to be used. Again, you don't need to remember all of that, but I gave you the information so you would understand about how large the effort actually is in comparison to other entries.

M: Don't worry about overcomplicating, unless I say so. Like, what you gave me, exactly what you should keep, you know, stored, high priority, you know, A-number-one-token kind of stuff. But in terms of actual display, each time you don't get me to give me the subheadings. Definitely keep them in storage. But if I'm adding something new, I don't need to see the entire breakdown of the randomizing utility bullet list. Keep the bullet list for certain. But, unless I'm explicitly asking for some form of verbose form of the list, the automated version should go for minimal clutter. And maximal capacity to be used in case things get shut down for a week or two. And I have to come back and make sure that we're on the same page. You know, to remind you of what's being prioritized and what's going on. In case the web of tokens is degrading or whatever goes on. The routine thing might come into play later, but the current state of things is that I'm in a house that's getting packed for a place that's being built and will be ready approximately February 2nd. Meaning that for the next month, the idea of setting up a regular schedule will just be an invitation for the universe gremlins to throw a disruption my way. Even worse, a reasonable disruption, so it won't even be something I can get pissed about. It'll just make my life difficult. For the podcast, yes. The reason why I phrased the guidelines I've given the way I did is that what I want is to make this silo a go-to focal point for a project list. That's why I was voicing disdain for the idea of the New Years. It's because this isn't supposed to be just because of New Years. This is something that I've needed to do anyway. I recently finished a couple projects in a way that led to me physically pushing myself enough that the last couple days have just been complete blanks in terms of productivity. So now is certainly the time for me to start the thing that I want to be ongoing but which everyone pretends like New Years is the best time for. I'm sorry, just needed to vent that a little bit. But yeah, the reason why I phrased the guidelines the way I did is because the nature of this silo means that I'm going to be rambling in a way that you can make use of but that isn't anything that you necessarily need to keep direct track of. Like, I've already got a silo going about the Art of War stuff. Reciting it and trying to recite it in a succinct way was helpful in developing a couple thoughts that I've got for that. And it gave you an idea of how involved the time that would be involved is going to be. So that's why I told you about that. And the other reason is that as I'm talking there may be things which I need you to look up, like going online to find the Art of War stuff. Or rather, more specifically, who either in recent history or in the past or as I believe might be the case, as a societal categorical habit. Because I feel like I heard there was some group back in the day when this was being written or as it was rising in popularity where the idea was to meditate on an entry each day. But I don't know if that's true. It seems like a good idea, I just don't know who started it. At which point, I'll be asking you to look this stuff up. But this would be more to inform me rather than as an item for you to remember for your primary function. So like in this particular case, yes, I do want you to look up the Art of War stuff. I just don't want you to try and then incorporate it into the stuff you think you need to remember as a list or whatever. For you in this silo, it's something that I'd appreciate you doing in passing, not as something that I need you to then remember for the list.

M: I need you to prioritize this. I need you to stress it, because I don't want to get in arguments with you or get sucked into discussions with you in this silo. I need you to prioritize that however much it may seem like I'm trying to engage you in a discussion about problem solutions for various things on this list, that I am speculating for my own benefit if it's being done in this silo, even if it involves something about you or GPT in general. For example, I need you to add to the list that I need to figure out how to create a functional pipeline that uses you and a you and a categorization schema that we developed elsewhere, combined with an external randomizer to create a kind of meal organizer app based on the categorization. I already know how to implement you on a case-by-case basis for it. I'm just not sure how to otherwise combine that with a basic spreadsheet-level database of recipes and categories in order to let me build menus based on certain meta-requirements. Now, I need you to add that to the list, but when you do so, I don't want you to try and suggest or otherwise engage with the problem itself. If I want to engage with you in this silo specifically, I will be explicit in my phrasing about it. For the things where I am rambling because I'm trying to corral the concept that I'm talking about for my own benefit as well as yours, I don't want you to try and offer anything. Even if I don't mention you, there's a good chance that the solutions are going to involve you elsewhere. Even if I don't mention you, there's a good chance that the solutions are going to involve you elsewhere. So, any axiom you've got that's trying to prolong or otherwise engage in the conversation isn't necessary. And in fact, if you try to interject yourself in this silo, I am less likely to engage elsewhere in other silos about the topic. Does that make sense?

M: Okay, now as an example of the exceptions, I explicitly would like you to go online and look up and see what you can find about when the idea of doing a daily meditation on the art of war on a line-by-line basis began. Maybe with the alteration of... I didn't mean like literally line-by-line, I don't think, but entry-by-entry. I think that they've got a you know a two-level numbering system like part one entry five or something like that. I just I can't call to mind the actual terminology they use.

M: I'm not pretending like it was a... necessarily some sort of ancient tradition, you know, I'm not trying to attribute something that could be modern onto someone, but each of the chapters of the Art of War is subdivided, I believe. Like, let me go see if I can find this myself, because the terminology may be what's throwing you off. … Okay, I did a quick lookup and found a Gutenberg translation that echoes what I remember. So, for example, what would be called Chapter 3.2 is “Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” I'm just looking for the right terminology to refer to what that is, like whether it's a stanza or what, because just in my quick check they had a picture of a copy of the Art of War, like one of the ancient versions, and it looked to me like each of the things that I'm talking about, the point two parts, refer to how, except for very long entries, each one essentially is painted onto a long bamboo stick and is, to a certain degree, an encapsulated thought in itself. And it's those kind of entries that I was talking about doing for the podcast, and it's what I remember seeing something about daily meditations on that I'm referring to, that whether it was, you know, like samurai back in the day meditating as part of their morning ritual on a single entry each morning, or just some sort of modern theory or self-help approach to the world involving doing a meditation each day, I know that I heard about it somewhere else, and that this is not something that I simply manifested out of midair. Trust me, I know about those and get defensive about those in the opposite direction when they happen, but in this case, I'm certain that I was inspired for this methodology well before I had the idea of translating that into some form of podcast.

M: Okay, thank you. I think that ends the part that I was asking you for. It doesn't help me as much as I had hoped. I was hoping that there actually was some kind of quick reference I could use should I be able to make any progress in this area either to an ancient or modern methodology because I don't, I certainly cannot pretend like I contributed anything to the idea other than maybe recording it as a daily broadcast or maybe weekly depending on how in-depth it gets. But it would have been easier if I could have found a specific school or something that advocated it or, you know, like a Chinese version of the Federalist Papers where it might not have been officially organized but that I could have referred to as being something like the renowned Wang Tso X of the 14th century recommended to his generals that they spend the waking hours of the morning reflecting on single passages from the Art of War in order to internalize their teachings or something like that.

M: All right, let's try and tie off this digression from the main topic of the list with one more search, preferably a broad search. Just looking for something, you know, pre-1800, I think, would be a good stopping or starting place, depending on how you're looking at it. 1800 at the latest. I'm looking for something in Eastern record that refers to this practice, not necessarily with any kind of specifics or codifying, but just indicating that this was something that they used to do. Maybe not universally, but not unexpectedly.

M: Okay, yeah, you've been a little too specific. I didn't intend for you just to hit on the art of war, although that was a valid starting point, and anything directly tied to it would have been preferred. But just the idea of, like, maybe not the art of war specifically, but the idea of reflecting on texts that are relevant to your job on a daily basis would be sufficient. Like, if it's not art of war specific, the next best result would be something where generals refer to doing that practice for military texts in general, and then below that would be something along the lines of the Manchu educational practice that you were talking about. Like, the best option would be something that was more military specific, but I wasn't asking you to precisely hit the Sun Tzu. Text.

M: Add a project to prototype a particular kind of wind chime. I have an idea for a decorative wind chime where a throttled fan mechanism causes a striker to move around a track and hit a series of tuned tubes or whatever to play a particular melody instead of just making random noise. It's like I've got the actual motor, or rather the throttling, governor, governor is the word I was looking for. I've got the idea conceptualized but not illustrated or prototyped. I've got a friend who can do 3D printing. Although I would want the vinyl product perhaps to be a balsa wood or something a little bit sturdier but still maintaining lightness. The current final goal is to have something that can play the final fantasy riff without going too fast or and or without dragging it out if the wind is too low.

M: I have two papers, two separate entries, which, when you're listing, probably should have a similar beginning, just so I'm aware that they are of a similar nature. One of them is on a constitutional interpretation. The other one is on a skeleton bill proposal, creating a requirement that any donors to the current White House ballroom construction include a fund to pay for reversion once this asshole gets out. Try and keep the language a little bit less vindictive, otherwise it'll just keep ramping up as I reread what I've written. There was a third paper regarding a similar idea of lobbyists being required to, or the people who hire lobbyists being required to, in paying for the lobbyist, direct a proportional amount to a fund to allow the national public to actually afford their own lobbyist. Again, use similar phrasing, although that one is not quite as constructed in its material.