Category Archives: Paranoia

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Vide coding

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Vibe coding is a new way of building software with the help of AI. Instead of writing every line of code yourself, you simply describe the functionality you want, and the AI generates it for you. You test what it creates, and if it works, you move on to the next feature. If something isn’t quite right, you tell the AI what to fix, and it adjusts the implementation.

The surprising part is that you don’t need to dive into the code unless you want to. You focus on the ideas, the flow, and the experience, and you trust the AI to handle the technical details. It’s a faster, more intuitive way of creating software, and it lets you stay in the creative zone instead of getting lost in syntax.

For Mushroom Mayhem I started out building everything myself, it was before there were any AI assistents available, but I switched to vibe coding a while ago. All the design, the different game types, the screens, they are all vibe-coded now. The core of the game is solid, so I figured anything built on top of it would be a limited risk. For now, I’m happy with the results. Development is very fast. Mistakes do happen, but they’re usually easy to fix.

My current vibe-coding task is adding a shop to the game, so players can buy edible mushrooms to reveal what’s behind a field. It’s my biggest vibe-coding task so far, and the progress looks very promising.

Sheep

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Angry sheep!The kids were happily playing, the mothers were chatting away, and I went for a nice run. I do that more often, but this time was a little different than usual. From a big skate park, I run a loop of about five kilometers through the neighborhood. It’s all mountain paths, with the occasional bit of asphalt. After about a kilometer, I came across a group of sheep. Just on the public road. There were about fifteen of them, I think, and five were little ones. Cute. I stopped for a moment and grabbed my phone to take a picture. One sheep walked up to me, and I thought, ‘Oh, how nice, I’ll pet him’.

Suddenly, I saw the sheep in much higher definition, and the rest of the surroundings blurred. I could only see that one sheep, and it was quite clear is wasn’t a sheep, it was a ram and I especially noticed its two enormous horns. Oh. At the speed of light, I understood that he needed to defend his offspring (from me), that I could easily avoid a risk of bodily harm, and that I’d better keep running. I started jogging again, and the angry ram came after me. What?! I sped up, fueled by adrenaline, and the ram finally stopped chasing me.

So in the end, a boring running route still gave me a fun story, and a nice adrenaline boost every now and then must also be healthy.

Ex

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My mother-in-law’s (MIL) apartment is being painted. Time to remove unwanted shelves and screws from the wall so the whole wall looks nice and smooth. Some new holes were also drilled in the wall to move things to a better spot. Ana/MIL also wanted two paintings on the wall in one of the bedrooms. These had once been brought from Madrid by my MIL and had been lying neatly and safely in the closet all this time. They were made by one of Ana’s aunts, and they were two paintings with Chinese text/symbols on them.

The drilling went well. Plastic plug in the wall and a hook screwed on. Then I temporarily hung up the paintings so we could verify that everything was correct and I noticed something. Huh, the first painting had ‘ana maria’ written on the back. Funny. Then I saw the other one… ‘antonio’? That’s Ana’s ex. What?! Sometimes a story is just too good to let it rest. This was one of those stories.

Hey Ana, I finished hanging the two painting in your mothers bedroom, the ones with the chinese text for Ana Maria and Antonio.

When I told Ana, she immediately became defensive. It was a piece made by her aunt, the Chinese characters were unreadable, it didn’t mean anything, she never expected I would notice, blah blah. My MIL also claimed she never though about it. The whole story seemed completely normal to Ana and my MIL. That my MIL kept a relic from 20 years ago from one of Ana’s exes, brought it along on a trip from Madrid to Las Palmas, kept it in a closet for years, and then hung it prominently in the bedroom, apparently that wasn’t strange at all. Ana also thought it was perfectly normal. It was the artistic value of the work, and nothing else. Yeah sure.

Ofcourse I talked about the Antonio painting/situation a couple of times. When I mentioned it while we were meeting with a friend, it immediately became clear that I wasn’t the only one who found it odd. Even when I asked the AI the reply indicated it was just plain weird.

Now the whole situation has become tense. Removing them isn’t an option, because it was all so innocent and not strange at all, so why would you do anything about it. Leaving them hanging… well, if the family wants to have Ana’s name and the name of her ex on the wall, in Chinese characters, then sure, that’s possible. Apparently only the artistic value matters, and these paintings are apparently the only artistic value we have available. For me, all the typical MIL stereotypes start bubbling up.

The mother-in-law is stereotyped as bossy, unfriendly, hostile, nosy, overbearing and generally unpleasant. They are often depicted as the bane of the husband, who is married to the mother-in-law’s daughter.

AI Amazement

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I got to use an AI for free for a month. I have to admit, even after a month of usage I’m still amazed at how much work the AI can do, and how precisely it understands what I mean with just a few short instructions. I started with very small tasks and gradually began giving it bigger assignments. My free month is almost over, but I’m pretty sure I’ll continue with the paid subscription.

The productivity boost that AI provides is enormous. I stopped developing years ago because family life took up too much time, and I lost the long stretches of uninterrupted time I used to have. I always needed a few hours in a row to really focus on what I was building. But now, suddenly, even one hour is enough to make real progress. Fixing bugs, which was always tedious work, is no longer necessary, the AI handles that. All I have to do is test and fine-tune. It’s truly amazing what’s possible now, and it feels like having a team member who can take a lot of work off your hands.

Day three

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In the first two days I got a lot of work done. Today in Spain we celebrated the three kings day, so I had another day available. The third day gave me some time for testing, tweaking and finetuning. I tried the app to find stuff that didn’t feel right, logic that did not work as I expected, and other small issues. I changed some images, modified some gameplay, and used the AI to improve what I already had. Three days (and a clear idea of what I wanted) was all I needed to go from a five year old concept app to a good looking game that gave me a really good feeling. Color me amazed!

Weekend with the AI

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I had one weekend without the kids, so I suddenly had some extra time. I decided to invest it in a game I started building five years ago but never finished. I used Copilot AI, which is very nicely integrated with Visual Studio Code.

First two hours
The first few hours I could use the AI for free, just to get a taste. And did I get a taste. My old app was extensively modified so it would run again in a modern environment. Work that would have taken me days was done effortlessly by Copilot in a very short time. All the files that made up the project were updated, and every change was clearly explained. I was left amazed.

First full day
After a few hours, my free time with the AI ran out and I got a monthly subscription to continue. The level of cooperation the AI provided felt genuinely valuable. It was like talking to a colleague who had been working on the same project with me. I used the AI to review and correct code, configure my development system properly, and connect my iPhone for testing. The AI quickly understood requirements and implemented them just as I would have done myself. It adapted to my style. Impressive.

Second day
Yesterday I used the AI for small functionality changes. Today I took it a step further. The AI created the entire adventure mode, first 5 levels, and later expanded it to 25. It implemented the background music and helped me fine-tune the settings page. The AI helped me update all the graphics. The amount of work completed would have taken me weeks on my own.

The app I created was small and quite simple, but the AI’s contributions left me speechless. Copilot boosted my productivity enormously. I felt like a tester whose feedback was fixed immediately by the AI. Incredibly satisfying. Dreaded errors in project dependencies or startup issues no longer caused stress, the AI simply fixed every error that appeared and got the app running.

A few more tweaks are required and then I will place the app in the appstore. To be continued!…

AI: The next step

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A surreal digital landscape representing the rise of AI-generated content. In the foreground, a humanoid AI figure made of glowing code types rapidly on a keyboard, surrounded by floating screens displaying news articles, comments, and videos. Behind it, a vast, chaotic web of data streams and synthetic content floods the internet, blurring the line between real and artificial. The atmosphere is both futuristic and slightly ominous, with a glowing haze and fragmented digital elements.Two years ago we slowly started, but now we are really getting up to speed. The internet as we know it is slowly quickly being populated by AI generated content. News stories, comments, videos.

AI can be used like I do, like a spellchecker, to correct grammar, and make translation suggestions. I then use the AI input to create my final version. The result is that some of my texts might seem a bit different than before, common mistakes I used to make no longer appear, but you are still reading my texts, my thoughts and my feelings.

AI can also be used to do it all. I can give it access to my website, and instruct it to post a (made up) story about life, or whatever I think is interesting, once a week. I can specify the number of paragraphs, the topic, the writing style, wether to include an image or not, and the volume of posts I want. Because I want this blog to be about me, and my life, this is not something I will be doing, but in different circumstances it might be a cheap and easy solution to use AI.

This is where we are now. AI is offering easy ways to produce content. For now it is mostly in written form, but video is coming quickly. Soon the most popular sites will be filled by AI generated content, where valuable comments will also be AI generated. We are quickly moving away from a human maintained ecosphere to an huge AI generated bulk of information, which nobody really needs, but is cheap to create.

The future is still a mistery, but it is clear that figuring out what is real, actually real, and not generated will become more and more important. For quick enjoyment of some fun content there is no problem ofcourse, the sky is the limit, but for actual information we need some validation of truth. Already videos about fixing your phone are AI generated and will not actually fix your phone. Recipies include toxic ingredients, like glue, because the AI prioritised the look of the end result. Chat support systems that use AI and advice you to simply end your life. AI used to hiring people that avoid hiring women, the list goes on and on.

The internet is used to feed and train the AI. As more and more AI generated content is published, next versions of the AI, trained with this data will probably get even more things slightly wrong.

The problem of current AI systems is that they are incapable of stating they are not sure, or admin they dont know something. You always get an answer, even if the answer is sometimes wrong. There is no way of knowing if the answer is right or wrong, except by finding the answer yourself, that that is exacly what you were trying to avoid by asking the AI. People want the fast answer, and avoid the search. It is a self-fulfilling cycle where you will eventually get a wrong answer, base your actions on that, and that might result in a catastrophe.

Salt and shame

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Salt and shame!Today I heard a funny story by a colleague. While on the beach an unknown dog approached and started to lick him. A funny story, and for me an inspiration for a new song. I asked an AI for a song text based on the following premise (my colleagues story, a unknown dog licked him, made a bit more interesting):

  • Lying on the beach, daydreaming. I notice someone approaching. A tender touch. I can hear her breath. Not sure if I’m dreaming, or my fantasy just became reality.
  • Lying on the beach, daydreaming. I feel her touch. She’s not afraid, takes initiative. Wet and warm, a subtle lick. Sunscreen being rubbed all over my back.
  • Lying on the beach, I keep my composure. My eyes closed, relaxed, enjoying the moment. My stranger took it to the next level. Cream all over my body, she licks me with passion.
  • Lying on the beach, I start to get doubts, could it just be a dream, the girl is simply to wild. Were on a public beach, she is doing things to me that are probably not legal outside the bedroom.
  • Lying on the beach, I open my eyes a little. I see my lover, but she is so close. I only see shades of black and brown as she licks me with passion, still rubbing cream everywhere.
  • Lying on the beach, I suddenly wake up. It’s a dog. Literally a dog, my dreams are shattered as reality slams into my mind. My daydream was really a unknown dog assaulting me. I feel terrible, dirty.
  • Lying on the beach, it gets even worse. The beach was packed. I look around, and see thousands of eyes, all looking at me. People laugh. People are disgusted. The dog is still here, on top of me. What now?

The result I got were some very nice lyrics, and together with a style indication: dream-pop, pop, rap, dark ambient. I used my suno account and got a very nice song.

Salt and Shame Lyrics

(Verse 1)
Sun-bleached sand beneath my skin
Lying here, letting daydreams begin
Lost in thought, a gentle haze
Then a shadow fell across my days
Someone near, a breath so light
A tender touch, bathed in sunlight.
Is this real? Or just a plea?
Fantasy unfolding over me.

(Verse 2)
Warmth spreads slow, a subtle grace
Fingers tracing time and space
Sunscreen scent, a summer kiss
A boldness I couldn’t resist.
Wet and warm, a playful tease
Rubbed all over, finding ease.
She takes the lead, no hesitant plea
This stranger’s touch awakening me.

(Chorus)
Eyes closed tight, surrender slow
Letting go of all I know
A rising tide, a burning heat
Is this a dream? Or bittersweet?
Something wild, something free
Lost in the moment, just her and me.

(Verse 3)
Doubt creeps in, a whispered fear
This feels too much to be held near
Public sand, a reckless game
Things she’s doing, whispering my name.
A line is crossed, a boundary blurred
Passion flares, unspoken word.
Licking slow, with fervent grace
Lost in shadows of her face.

(Verse 4)
I crack an eye, a blurry view
Shades of brown and black shine through
So close now, I can almost see
The intensity consuming me.
Creamy touch, a fevered plea
This isn’t right, it can’t be she.

(Verse 5)
I wake with a start, the spell is broke
Not a lover’s kiss, but a canine stroke!
A dog? Oh God, it’s truly true.
My daydream shattered, soaked in dew.
Dirty and raw, a shameful sting
This fantasy, a ridiculous thing.

(Verse 6)
But the worst is yet to unfold
A sea of faces, stories told.
Thousands watching, judging eyes
Laughter rings beneath the skies.
The dog remains, oblivious still
While humiliation takes its fill.
Stuck in place, what can I do?
Underneath a horrified view.

(Outro)
Salt and shame, on this crowded shore
A broken daydream, forevermore.

Soccer card issues

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It seems impossible to avoid these kinds of issues… Something basic has failed once again. I understand that logistics are challenging, but in this case, it seems the logistical base should have been in order. Hundreds of photos of hundreds of children, along with a record of name, number in the album, team, coach, group photo, team logo, landscape or portrait. This must have been thought through.

The problem: The football cards of Alan’s team are unfortunately not all perfect. A mistake slipped in. One of Alan’s teammates does have their own card, but with the wrong photo of another boy. Such a shame, especially for the boy himself and his parents.

An (empty) album costs 7 euros, and for every 6 cards, you pay 1.50 euros. The album holds nearly 200 cards, so with plenty of trading, you can manage with exactly 34 packs. That will cost (34 x 1.50) + 7 = 58 euros. It’s an expensive album, especially if your child is pictured incorrectly in it, for his team mates it is a shame that a friend’s card isn’t accurate.

A quick fix would be to print a few new corrected cards. That seems like the cheapest solution to me. Perhaps they’ll do nothing; ‘better luck next time’ is even cheaper. We’ll see how this unfolds.