Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Bye bye, Google

Thanks to the generosity of the California State University system, those of us within it (staff, students, teachers, etc) are gifted with a free license of ChatGPT education. Since our own campus IT has rolled the service out, I’ve been using ChatGPT for all sorts of queries that would have otherwise gone to Google.

Because why slum through Google’s intractable ads just to click on the first result that may have the correct answer? For very specific questions, such as “Is 0.4 of an inch of rain considered heavy?”, ChatGPT simply rules. The service returns only the correct answer, super legibly, with not an ounce of advertising distraction. (I do realize I am essentially using the paid version. Surely the free version will eventually have ads.)

Is Google on the roller-coaster ride downwards? Not on my account. I still use it for more open-ended questions, such as inquiring about the qualities of a particular product. Soliciting multiples of results - to gather varying experiences and testimonials - is still better done with the traditional search engines.

What I do find interesting with partnership between the CSU and OpenAI is that it is a de-facto endorsement for students to use ChatGPT for their schoolwork. A few months before that would still be considered cheating. Obviously, students have been and are using AI LLMs since they’ve become available. They just have to be smart enough to edit the output and make it their own. It’s the stupid ones who don’t that get caught.

I do carry reservation about English students using it to write. That’s suppose to be purely the student’s own inspiration (and perspiration), isn’t it?

I'm just saying

It’s day three of President Trump’s second term, and egg prices have not gone down at all! In fact, there aren’t any to buy at my local Whole Foods. Because no matter who the President is, the annual avian flu rolls around like clockwork. Farmers have to kill the infected chickens, and therefore, decreased egg supply. I guess I’ll substitute that particular supply of protein with beef jerky for the time being.

Word on the street is President Trump signed an executive order to basically end telework for Federal employees. Sucks to the be the guy who works remotely for the Federal government, and voted for Trump. Though maybe he sees this a self-sacrifice for the betterment of the country. People on both sides of the spectrum can agree the government budget can do some trimming. Like Bernie Sanders, I suggest to start with the Department of Defense…

There are staff members at the university I work at that are still on a hybrid work schedule. COVID’s been over for at least two years now! And this isn’t the bitter me talking (I’ve been full-time onsite since middle of 2020). The nature of my work means I cannot be remote, so it is what it is. There’s no use comparing.

However, I think the university has to consider the downside of hybrid work. There’s less people on campus on any given day. (Fridays are practically ghost-town levels of personnel scarcity.) A vibrant student experiences starts with a vibrant campus. We are not getting the maximum when people can work from home. Anything student-facing should be 100 percent full-time on campus.

Vendors on campus are making less money, too.

People are saying the return-to-office order will cause a brain drain of Federal workers. Folks would rather quit than go back to a commute. Well, our university is facing a budget crisis…

Unforgiven

As a person employed by a university, I am perhaps not the most unbiased opinion in this whole student loans forgiveness issue. My job depends on the college system continuing on to be a revolving door of incoming students turning into graduates. Should the value of a college degree crater into oblivion, well, I better go find something else to do.

The students are the paying customer, that is of no doubt. And in grand American tradition, they pay in credit. How else can anyone afford to attend college when room and board for a year is the equivalent of a used car. I managed to avoid student loans because one, my family was poor enough to get me all sorts of State and Federal grants, and two, I lived at home.

I’d have signed loan papers too had I needed to pay $900 per month just to share a tiny dorm room with a complete stranger. Probably a guy named Mike from Souther California.

Students graduate with a tremendous amount of debt weighing down their financial future. Unlike other debts, students loans do not get wiped off in a bankruptcy. I wonder what were they trying to prevent when that was implemented. Seems to me they don’t want people to declare bankruptcy upon graduation to shed the school debt. The graduates can take the credit hit because they’re just starting their adult career anyways.

Piggybacking off that, I think student loan forgiveness will create negative incentive for universities. There would be no motivation to control costs (like building a lot more student housing) if there are no consequences for the students down the road. Don’t worry about the tuition increase! Borrow all you want from the government! Uncle Sam will wipe it away eventually!

We need to look at the whole thing holistically: how to lower the total cost of college, so that whatever students has to borrow can be repaid timely and responsibly. Numbers getting too large (and inescapable) is how we got into our current mess.

Camping club

San Francisco State University is not immune to the pro-Palestine protests that’s been going around American college campuses. You expect nothing less in a bastion city of liberalism. (Except when it comes to building housing. On that we are conservative as heck!) Protesters have been camping on the SFSU campus lawns since last Wednesday. One question I do have: how do we know some of them aren’t actual homeless people looking to shack up for a time, undisturbed?

Whatever the endgame is, I hope it doesn’t turn violent like it has in Columbia University and UCLA. Protest in CSU Humboldt caused the remainder of the Spring semester to go virtual. What a freaking waste! Imagine surviving through the worst pandemic of ours lives (god willing), enduring years of online classes, only to have to do it all again. I’d be pissed if I paid full price tuition. All because some people thought camping on university grounds is an effective way to make a difference for two countries situated on the other side of the globe.

But more power to them - so long as things stay chill and peaceful. SFSU is a public university, so First Amendment rights are paramount. I am sure the same grace will be allotted to groups whose messages are not so majorly supported by the campus community. (Shoutout to the Bible-thumper guy who comes to SFSU from time to time, calling every passerby sinners and adulterers.) It was only a year ago when Riley Gaines was nearly chased away from making a speech.

Because universities should be a place for exchange of ideas. A coliseum for verbal jousting between those ideas. It’s a tremendous disservice if during a student’s four years of college that they never once hear something they strongly disagree with. That’s how you get people who got mental breakdowns when Trump was elected in 2016. The 2024 presidential election is rubbing its hands in anticipation.

Varying viewpoints

On campus recently I passed by a flier for an event advocating for protecting women sports. I guess the subject matter pertains to a discussion of whether or not trans women (biologically born men who now identify as women) belong in women athletics. This particularly group seems to be advocating for exclusion.

It’s good to see this type of discussion being allowed on campus. Let’s face it, college campuses skew heavily to the left, and this one is in San Francisco of all places. It’s rare to see other viewpoints out in the open. Straying from dogmatic left positions leaves one open to ridicule at best, cancellation at worst. No conservative-leaning student would risk showing up to campus with a MAGA hat. The “speech is violence” crowd would pounce immediately.

Yesterday, the campus community received at email from the VP of students to the affect the university has a duty to protect the first amendment. To allow free and open discussion on varying topics, from varying sides. You have a right to protest speech you don’t like, but you do not have the right to shut it down. I have to think this is in response to the protecting women sports event. I sure hope that event happened without fuss.

Because I think it’s very important to have open discussion on a college campus. A marketplace for ideas to duke it out. A gathering of information from all sides so students can critically think for themselves. What I don’t want is for campuses to become an echo-chamber of far-left ideology. These kids are then taught what to think instead of how to think. Those who oppose are effectively silenced due to the crippling social costs of speaking out.

I’m glad my campus is a place where an event on the other side of the trans right discussion can happen.

This is going to be fun

I was at IKEA over the weekend and boy was it packed full of people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a crowded showroom. There were many a young couple who most likely just purchased a house and are now looking to furnish it. Universities are also starting back up for the fall semester, so there were bunch of those sort of families buying stuff for their beloved undergrad.

And all I wanted to buy was a simple laundry basket! Good thing masks are enforced indoors in this part of the country.

It seems time is going in slow motion this year, because it’s difficult to realize the fall semester is upon us once again. It will be another school year of the unprecedented because our campus is going for a hybrid model. Not in the sense that classes will be physical and streamed online concurrently (we don’t have the money for that). Rather, a third of the classes will be on campus, and the rest will be online; either or. Of course, on the support side this poses a tremendous challenge for us. One that we’ve never done before, and hopefully, the last time we ever do it.

Also hopefully people will realize the pandemic is still very much going on, and to carry some grace for everyone else. It’s almost guaranteed that things will not go smoothly, with many hiccups along the way. I can’t speak for other departments, but for sure our department is trying the best we can. Like most places of employment, we are short-staffed, and going through the pandemic all the same ourselves.

As for me. I’m surprisingly excited for the upcoming semester. Nothing quite like extreme novelty to mix things up and create good learning opportunities. For an entity that’s as cyclical and unchanging as higher education, the past two years have been utterly chaotic (to say the least). Scarcely has there been a dull day at work. That’s a silver lining to COVID I can live with.

Best two months

The final two months of the year is my absolute favorite, mainly because as the weather turns colder (or stays cold, as is normal for San Francisco) and the sky turns dark earlier in the day, people tend to spend more time indoors. That means they aren’t outside in the neighborhood making a ruckus, which means I get to enjoy more peace and quiet time, which is just lovely. Indeed, I am that old man yelling at the clouds when the kids are playing out in the streets during the Summer months. Shut up!

You might notice the irony of someone living in a dense, urban city complaining about noise, and believe me, I am looking to change my living situation some time in the near future. What I really want is some place small out in the woods, where the only noise I can possibly hear is the wondrous sounds of nature. Whether that is ultimately doable or not vis a vis making a living wage remains to be seen, but it’s not like I can possibly afford to rent a place within the Bay Area anyways, much less talk of actually buying a house. It’s a very grim future when a six-figure salary is considered low-income in San Francisco.

But that’s a worry for another time.

Another reason why November and December are favored months has to do with my particular line of work. The standard schedule of a university calls for week-long holidays for Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year, and as university staff I get them off as well. It would seem petty to be giddy about having fewer days of work, but even the most ardent of people who love their jobs - I would include myself in that pool - welcome extra days off to do other things, or simply relax. Thanksgiving break is when I collate the best photos I’ve taken during the year and put the top 12 into calendars of next year to give to my friends.

Christmas break, as usual, I am flying back home to China.

Finally, December is the best month because it’s the month of my birthday, though I don’t possess the vapid narcissism of some to celebrate the occasion of my birth for the entire month. I’ll be turning 32 soon, which isn’t quite as scary or stress-inducing of an age milestone as 30. I do wonder if there will be one like it before turning 40. Maybe 35? Obviously, I’m not yet ready to find out.

Let’s finish the year strong, friends.