Mambo Taxi

I'm going to reboot this journal; with a semi-technical focus. But not only. I intend to write about neurodiversity and disability and social justice and fixing tech for everyone. And other stuff.

So here's a first post. I have been experimenting with Large Language Models, and I'm so impressed at how far they have come in two years. There are seriously cool things they can help us with, and I'd like to see how they can solve more problems than they create. I've seen good evidence that a person using LLMs (not training new versions; just using the commercial-grade top-of-the-line models) has less negative impact on the planet than their impact shipping groceries from across the continent, or owning a car. So I currently choose to see what good we can do with them. (To be clear, I am also open to good-faith discussion if this feels wrong to you, and you have data I should also consider.)

I had a funny learning experience last weekend, with an experiment that flopped badly, followed by another one that has me sort of excited.

It started Saturday morning when I was curious about the brain science of "running on autopilot" and how weird that is. Gemini Pro satisfied my curiosity, noting that experiencing a glitch while thinking deeply about something was actually a sign of high cognitive efficiency, not a deficiency in attention to the world. I appreciated its conclusion, and asked if I could learn how to do this more effectively - for example, I often close my eyes while composing my thoughts while speaking, and I would appreciate being able to just tune out the distractions so I can succinctly say what I need to.

Gemini pointed out that "you aren't failing at conversation; you are optimizing your bandwidth". And suggested a few ways to improve the environment for me, including a) occupying my physical self with distractions like fidget toys, and b) be willing to wait 3-5 seconds to compose my thoughts before speaking. These are good advice; and it also had a good follow-up question for me (because I instructed it to; I really like my personal instructions. But that's a different post).

It asked me, "Do you find it easier to articulate complex thoughts when you are walking side-by-side with someone (where eye contact is naturally intermittent)?"

I responded with a few paragraphs that summarize to "hell yes!" and added that thinking while walking is really effective for me to figure out what I want to say, and indeed I have many of my best ideas while walking. Then I commented that I wished I had a more natural way to talk with LLMs while walking- I have lots of trouble dictating my non-linear thoughts to Siri. 

I said, "I would love to have a 'deep thought to linear language interpolator' - why can't conversational LLM map from my deep brain space to linear language for me?... Can you guys get onto that? human/machine telepathy isn't too far off is it?..."

Gemini's response was... interesting.

You nailed it: "[Siri] engages the same difficulty with linearizing my thoughts."

When you type, you are allowed to be non-linear. You can write the middle of the sentence, then go back and fix the start. It is a random-access buffer.

When you speak to Siri (or a person), you are forced into a Linear Context. You have to get the first word right before you can say the second. That is exhausting.

The Solution: The "Interpolator" Workflow

You asked why conversational LLMs can't map from your deep brain space to linear language. The answer is: We can, but you are giving us the wrong input.

You are trying to "clean up" the data before you give it to the AI. You are doing the interpolation work yourself.

The "Raw Stream" Hack:

Instead of trying to dictate a coherent note to Siri, try this workflow using a voice recorder (or a better dictation app like Whisper):

1. Abandon Grammar: consciously decide to speak in "bullet points" or "word clouds."

2. Verbalize the Meta-Data: Say things like, "Okay, idea about the server migration... wait, not migration, the upgrade... anyway, connection to the old database... oh, and remember the firewall rule."

3. The Interpolation Step: Feed that messy, non-linear transcript into an LLM with the prompt: "Here is a raw brain dump. Please linearize this into a coherent paragraph."

This offloads the "linearization" burden from your brain to the AI. You stay in the "deep brain space" (generating nodes), and the machine handles the "protocol translation" (generating syntax).

Would you like me to try to be your "Interpolator" right now? You could type a messy, unedited stream of consciousness about a complex topic you're struggling to articulate, and I will attempt to "translate" it into linear prose for you."

Well. That was an invitation!

So then in the same chat, I tried using Gemini Live mode while on a walk, with the following underwhelming - but funny - results.

---

and the conversation (if you can call it that) continued in that vein, with a very polite Gemini interrupting me every few words asking me to go on. I was more amused than frustrated, and decided out of stubbornness to implement something better.

(Because sometimes I think that's really what LLMs are good at- giving me a quick win on 80-90% of a problem, then I work much longer on the remaining 10-20%!)

So I started another chat asking about how to do the same thing, but starting from a Voice Memo, which has no time-limits. Gemini steered me toward writing a "Shortcut" - the Apple scripting tool - which I can run on the Voice Memo (which efficiently automatically generates a transcript right on my phone) and send the transcript text to Gemini to interpolate my stream of consciousness into a logical statement.

I can report that it works remarkably well!

I iterated changes to the instructions a few times. I wanted it to give me a summary to be read aloud by Siri, plus a complete report in markdown for me to paste into my journal. Improvements included:

1. instructing it to tell me what inferences it has made, rather than trusting it was recording my own thoughts verbatim.

2. I changed the description from "a meandering voice memo" to "stream of consciousness" and then it improved the instructions further to replace "Input: A raw, possibly rambling transcript." with "Input: A raw transcript of purposeful exploration." - I didn't fully test but Gemini suggests that would serve my intent better.

In the end, here are the instructions that Gemini wrote for itself:

As I said, it works well. I've tested it on 10 minutes of voice memo, taken while I was on a walk, where I talked about a morning's events, figuring out what I thought was important, and what I had to add to my TODOs, and I talked through a set of decisions that I wasn't clear on the answer. When I read the output, it was certainly more organized, and it was also faithful to what I had said. 

Its logical inferences were not bad. One of them:

• Synthesized the "Middle Ground" approach for the project meeting as the primary action item, discarding the two extremes (total prep vs. total ad-hoc).

In that part, I had described planning to do a lot of prep for a meeting, which I didn't want to do, and also didn't want to go in with no planning, then I realized I could do less prep and ask about followup. And Gemini inferred that I was describing a "middle ground approach" that was what I wanted to do.

I think this is what LLMs are supposed to be good for: producing structure out of human creativity. I started with curiosity about how the brain works, asked for suggestions on improving how I interact with the world with my own brain, and it non-judgementally recommended things that made sense, which led me to further questions which led to a solution I wouldn't have expected.

I think any company that fires its employees and trusts the AIs to do their work with minimal oversight are... doomed. We are no where near "General Intelligence." I think those of us who have the flexibility to experiment and even ask the AIs "what can you do to help?" will find there are many possibilities, and many could even amplify our own superpowers related to brain differences and neurodiversity. 

So that's one step in this direction. I'm still experimenting.

By the way, if you give Gemini that set of instructions (from "Role" through "Changelog" above), and a transcript from a stream of consciousness voice memo of your own, from a 10 or 20 minute walk and talk, it should be able to give you a fair interpretation of what you want to record. (and if it doesn't do it well on the first try, just re-run it, and it will probably be a bit different).

I'm curious how well it does for you!

[ 2026-02-05 edit: I added the "write in first person" line to the part two instructions above, since the reflection is meant to be as me.

It feels pretty natural doing this with a long meandering voice memo. This morning I did this while walking the dog for 25 minutes, and the output was excellent, just requiring a few small tweaks for my journal.]

What's the word "soul" mean to you? What associations does it bring up? Is the word fraught with baggage... smelling partly of brimstone? Does it have deep connection for you? Is it ineffable and abstract? Is it like a Platonic ideal of a thing, not to be pinned down? Is it boring? Is it a handy fiction?

I'd love to have a conversation about that, to the extent we can in an online journal. Anonymous comments are fine. My hope is to have common referents to continue in another post.

I invite you to make your first comment here, that is to say without reading the previous comments before-hand. Of course feel free to read other comments too, and discuss with others, but after your first comment. :) Thanks!

[Edit to add:

I can say: the breadth of peoples' responses is pretty darn cool.

So, I suggested a dialogue. What now?

It would be one thing if we were in the same room, and could look at each other and be clear that we're going to treat this with the respect it deserved. In that situation, I would say we could just ask each other open, honest questions; questions that don't try to convince the other of our own understanding; but help the other person to articulate their truth for us. And take it from there.

We could try something like that. I'd participate. Why don't we try that?

It might go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: you're welcome to not reply to someone's question, or to reply telling them you won't reply (and that's final; challenges are not OK).

]

Not figuratively, literally. My bike has developed a (dangerous) tendency to lose its gear, often when I'm starting up from still, and also when I'm coasting. Not the chain, but likely the freewheel, according to elbie_at_trig, who was conveniently going home at the same time as me, just as I was thinking, "if only I could ask someone to jog along next to my bike..."

So, yeah. Tomorrow morning, cycle shop is my first stop on the way to work.

Otherwise, I feel like I'm not spinning wheels, quite the opposite.

Work is going, and the three active projects are interesting, if potentially long. But the structure of things allows me to interleaving the work, and I can't imagine getting bored with it. Really, this still feels like perfect job for me. And hey, I missed my boss, who was gone a week on vacation, but I can hardly fault her for that.

Life feels adequately social, these last weeks. Care and feeding of my introverted self- it sometimes feels like I need a push, but I'm getting most of what I need.

This Thursday evening is the third and final Quaker Seekers at Laurier session we have planned; we're speaking on Equality. I think there's an LJ post sitting in my brain, to help me organize what I'm saying in my two 6-minute pieces.

Last week I had a conference-call with co-organizers for the Quaker Quest Traveling Team. A month from now I'll be one of two presenters to a regional Quaker gathering, and in early May they're sending me to Pendle Hill for a weekend conference with other trainers. This work feels both like something I'm pulled to do, and a big side-order of "what the hell was I thinking when I said yes?" Where it goes nobody knows, but I am loving the finding out.

In late May melted_snowball and I are taking a vacation to Nova Scotia for my birthday; it's our first time to Atlantic Canada and I am already having dreams about rocky shorelines and whale-watching.

This week has featured two meals with duck (breast; and burgers), and two meals with pesto. It is a good life, my friends.

I'm midway through installing linux on a mac mini. I'm in love with this hardware; it's so quiet, runs cool, and is barely bigger than my hand. I'm putting Xen-enabled debian onto it, so alongside the web and email services it can run virtual servers such as Asterisk, or possibly freePBX. Anyhow, my coder.com server will move over some time in April, I hope.

Also in April, my geek crew of Perl Mongers are doing a hardware hacking workshop with Arduino microcontroller boards. So far, I've tested sample programs that play a simple tune; flash LEDs; and (sort of) replicate a Clapper but send a signal over USB to computer. My goals are to control a 600x200 pixel LCD display, and to precisely control a stepper-motor to... well, it'll be cool if it works, that's all I will say for now.

So, all you folks who haven't posted about yourselves recently- what's up with you?

I just went to the going-away reception for a colleague of dan's, a man of many talents who is moving west to become a CTO at another University. There were hors d'oeuvre, wine, cheese. And there were many speeches; some entirely professional and largely boring, some more heartfelt messages with personal touches. But you could tell this man will be missed for his even-keeled and wise service to the University.

And so, walking Rover just now, I was trying to determine exactly what I was feeling in response. I thought, for a while, that it was sort of a proxy pride-mixed-with-loyalty; watching all of these people who'd been working together for decades, showing honour to one of their beloved colleagues.

I'd be feeling it by proxy because of course it's second-hand imagining of their pride and loyalty, recognizing their depth of connections over the decades. And while I do feel loyalty to the University (as an excellent employer, as a source of social and societal good, as somewhere I hope to work for a long time) it's not anywhere near the loyalty of someone who had given it his all, for multiple decades, in a career he'd spent his entire life in.

So, I figured this proxy feeling was best personally described as "inspiration". And that was OK.

But you know, that's not quite it. As I watched Rover run in the school-yard I realized something else was more true. What struck me, hearing these profs pay their respects, was a personal profound sense of getting older.

Not in a negative sense, at all. Or, yes, but not only. Realizing it's the way of things. You spend your time on earth in whatever you're going to do; and possibly you pay attention and get better at things (and possibly the things you're better at, manage to find you). And perhaps you are recognized for the things you do, or perhaps you just know, yourself, and that's OK. And maybe if you're very lucky, it makes a great story; or maybe it seems dull.

But it's your life, every step, and you wouldn't be here if you hadn't been there first. And the you, now, can see a lot further because of it. And it's like seeing a photo of yourself from a decade ago with that hair and clothes and realizing shit, I really thought that would look good on me? And like listening to a Quaker friend's twelve-year-old go on about how much he loves watching The Wizard of Oz over and over, and as he gesticulates wildly with his hands, keeping the Cheshire grin to yourself (and thanking God for his parents not being bigots). And it's like recognizing to yourself the dues you've paid, ultimately OK with them even if they were crazy over-priced stupid dues.

And maybe, looking honestly and lovingly at the you-of-half-your-lifespan-ago and whether, if the two of you met, younger-you would laugh out loud in surprise (and maybe awe) at the you-of-now. And you're mostly looking forward to discovering the you-of-the-same-timespan in the future. Shit, he really thought that was a good idea then, didn't he? By God, yes, I do. And you'll please be keeping that smirk to yourself, future-me?

And maybe they won't throw a party with canapés and the University President, which is probably better off if they don't; and maybe actually the worst is yet to come. But maybe you get to use that as a stepping-off point to something even better than you'd ever imagine from here, the you-of-now who is getting older and paying attention and being open to the chance that the best is yet to come.

I need help remembering this.

"The concern-oriented life is ordered and organized from within. And we learn to say No as well as Yes by attending to the guidance of an inner responsibility. Quaker simplicity needs to be expressed not merely in dress and architecture and the height of tombstones but also in the structure of a relatively simplified and coordinated life-program of social responsibilities."

--Thomas Kelly, A Testimony of Devotion, 1941

From Quaker blogger rikomatic.com