Using chatGPT in my writing

I use chatGPT to improve my writing, especially for German and English texts.

Example 1: A month ago, I got a job offer from an Austrian company. While preparing for the interview, I used GPT to clarify some questions I had about typical German expressions. For example, I asked GPT to translate "could we continue in English" to German and it answered "Könnten wir auf Englisch weitermachen?" as I expected. I thought about using the word "fortfahren" instead of "weitermachen". I asked GPT "what is the difference between fortfahren and weitermachen". It provided a detailed answer but what surprised me was that it also said "...in your sentence "Könnten wir auf Englisch weitermachen?" the word "weitermachen" is more appropriate because it refers to continuing the conversation in English. If you were to use "fortfahren", it might sound a bit more formal or less natural, though it wouldn't be incorrect." GPT's ability to keep the context in mind is not something you can do with ordinary Google searches.

Example 2: I usually start a post with handwritten notes:

Then I convert my notes into a coherent whole. When I feel like there might be a better way to express an opinion but cannot remember the expression or when I am in doubt about an idiom or grammar I ask GPT:

• Question: Check for spelling errors: (paste text) Answer: Shows me spelling errors
• Question: "have enough sleep" or "get enough sleep" Answer: "get enough sleep" is more commonly used and idiomatic
• Question: May I use "they" for "someone". Answer: Yes, you can use "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to "someone"
• Question: check grammar: It is depressing to realize the difficulty of changing our own faulty ideas, let alone changing others. Answer: The grammar in the provided text is correct
• Question: make better: This increases the chance of meeting someone compatible a lot Answer: "This significantly enhances the likelihood of encountering a compatible individual."
• Question: Would it be better to use "adult" instead of "equal" here: To avoid being influenced by charming yet superficial rhetoric, don't be flattered by being treated like a princess and instead maintain an expectation of being treated as an equal. Answer: Considering the context of the sentence, where the emphasis is on avoiding superficial treatment and maintaining a balanced dynamic, "equal" seems more appropriate.
• Question: rate the English level of this text out of 10: (I paste the whole blog post) Answer: The text demonstrates a good command of the English language. Overall, I would rate it as a 9 out of 10.

I can confidently say that chatGPT improves my text from being 7/10 to 9/10. It makes writing much easier and fun, I feel like I am discussing it with a knowledgeable friend.

13.08.2023: DeepL write is also nice.

Music: Nina Hagen - Du hast den Farbfilm Vergessen

Hosting a website on your local computer

If you want to host your website on your local Windows PC, you have to run a local web server:

1. Setup IIS (it comes with Windows 10+). Use a port other than 80. Copy your website files to the folder that IIS recognizes. 
2. Verify that on your browser, you can see your website when you type localhost:<Port> to the address bar.
3. Add port to Windows Defender Firewall inbound rules.
4. Add port to your modem so that the modem forwards traffic on that port to your local IP address. On my modem it is done in NAT Forwarding - Virtual Servers
5. Verify that your website is online by turning off wifi on your mobile phone and typing http://<your global IP>:<Port> into your mobile browser address bar.

You cannot use https without a domain name for your local website because "In order to get a certificate for your website’s domain from Let’s Encrypt, you have to demonstrate control over the domain", i.e. you have to attach your IP address to a domain name.

Links related to SSL certificate:

• SSL in IIS
• openSSL
• makecert

Tips for online monitoring of children

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced children worldwide to stay at home and take online lectures. Since children have little self discipline and lectures are usually boring compared to other things the kids could do on their computer (e.g. watching videos, playing games), parents need to monitor them.

My 8 year old uses a Windows 10 computer. He has two accounts, one for school and one for playing games. I use Microsoft Family to block games on his school account and limit his time on his gaming account. When I am at home, I use Google Hangouts for real time monitoring of his activity on his school account because he tends to slack off or watch movies. He shares his screen with me so that I can see what he is doing. Since he likes to be loud, I am usually in another room. But he is scared to be alone, so seeing me on his screen has he additional benefit of calming him down.

Why HTTPS?

Recently I converted my web site from HTTP to HTTPS. Reasons:

1. Chrome flags all HTTP sites as unsecure by default which is annoying.
2. To protect login information from man in the middle attacks.
3. For Progressive Web Apps (web apps that can run offline)
4. For accepting online payment.

The basic steps of converting your site to HTTPS:

1. Buy a domain name and redirect it to your server IP.
2. Install Nginx on your server and configure it to forward traffic to relevant ports.
3. Obtain a TLS/SSL certificate and install it.
4. Add a cron job to automatically renew the certificate.

Car IoT

As aircraft have become software with wings, so are cars on their way to become software on wheels. Self driving and IoT have accelerated this trend. Yesterday, when I was talking with my friends we envisioned a design that could improve driving comfort: Cars could collect vibration data measured by their sensors and transmit it together with location information to servers. This data would indicate road quality. The server could process and broadcast data to all cars. Other cars could adjust suspension settings in advance that would maximize comfort on that road.

With this technique, only the first few cars that collected data would suffer and the rest would benefit. Data would be current at all times. I think Google Maps uses a similar approach to guess traffic congestion by collecting data from smartphones.

To collect data we need:

• Vibration sensors on car.
• Access to internet and access to central data server

To adapt to road conditions we need:

• Adaptable suspension on car (i.e. actuators and sensors)
• Access to internet and data server by car.

If we could protect privacy, we could automatically tap into the intelligence of the swarm.

Note to self: Do a simpler version of this concept as a hobby project.

Public DNS

I have been using openDNS (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220). Now I switched to Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4). There is absolutely no need to mess with the hosts file.

Fantastik Çin

Google Çin bugün sansür uygulamasını kaldırmış (bugüne kadar durmalarının ayıbı da Google'a yeter). Çin'de uygulanan internet yasakları fantastiklikte Türkmenistan'dan aşağı kalmadıklarını gösteriyor. Misal wikipedia bile yasaklı. Harmonik toplum mu dediniz? Ben almiim canım...

İlginç 1: Sanki Çin'deymişsiniz gibi interneti huzurla(!) gezmenizi sağlayan bir firefox eklentisi: China Channel

İlginç 2: Google'ın bugünkü uygulamasının uncyclopedia'daki parodisi

mp3: Prodigy - Firestarter

Twitter

Garp'ta sürekli gündemde olan twitter ne işime yarar ki derken iginç bir twitter örneği ile karşılaştım: NASA'nın ayı incelemek için gönderdiği uzay aracının durumu twitter'dan takip edilebiliyor.



Sanırım twitter'ın makul kullanım alanı hızlı ve kısa güncelleme gerektiren aktiviteler. Misal bu aralar düğün sezonu, organizasyonu çekip çevirenler etrafa bilgi vermek için cep telefonu üzerinden twitter kullanabilir. Diğer stratejik uygulama da sadece annenizin dahil olduğu bir grupta akşam ne yediğinizi bildirmek olabilir(!)

mp3: Acoustic Alchemy - Best of Smooth Jazz Guitar

Side effects of messing with the hosts file

For the last couple of days I had trouble logging in to my blogger account. I could see my blog but the navigation bar at the top was missing. I tried different things and found out that the problem was with my hosts file (located in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\).

In the past, I had edited my hosts file so that I could access sites like youtube. I had also entered blogger.com (since it is another favourite target of censorship). Perhaps blogger had changed its ip address without informing yours truly. I commented out the blogger lines in my hosts file:

#72.14.207.191 blogger.com
#72.14.207.191 www.blogger.com

Then I opened a command window to check out the ip address of blogger:



As you can see, the ip address is not 72.14.207.191 anymore, it is 74.125.79.191. Mission accomplished.

Interesting note: I could reach blogger.com with UltraSurf. It means that UltraSurf bypasses hosts (besides hiding your ip address).