In conversation with ChatGPT

Model: Default (GPT-3.5)

User:

Whatever happened to the girl who played the cello for Nirvana Unplugged?

ChatGPT:

The girl who played the cello during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1993 was Lori Goldston. Lori Goldston is a talented cellist who has had a successful career as a musician and composer. After her appearance with Nirvana, she continued to collaborate with various artists and bands, both as a performer and a recording artist.

Following the Nirvana Unplugged performance, Lori Goldston went on to work with musicians such as David Byrne, Cat Power, and Earth. She has also released solo albums and composed music for films and dance performances. In addition to her work as a cellist, Goldston is known for her improvisational and experimental approach to music.

Lori Goldston’s contribution to the Nirvana Unplugged performance, particularly her cello arrangement for the song “Something in the Way,” received critical acclaim and is still celebrated by fans of the band. Her performance added a unique and haunting element to the already iconic concert.

As of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021, Lori Goldston was actively involved in the music industry, and she continues to perform, compose, and collaborate with various artists. However, for the most up-to-date information on her current activities, it’s recommended to check reliable sources or her official website.

Blowfish

I found myself reminiscing about my implementation of Blowfish today. It earned me the great honour of being listed on Bruce Schneier’s web page. My implementation made Blowfish compatible across 32-bit signed ints, 64-bit signed ints, and 64-bit floats. I wrote this code coming up on 12 years ago… how time flies.

System freeze

My backup Kubuntu workstation began freezing shortly after boot recently. The problem was recurrent for a week or so and then I just switched the damn thing off. Have picked this up again recently to try and fix, because I would like to make use of this machine’s disks.

I ran MemTest86, and that surfaced no errors. Seems as though the RAM is okay and probably the CPU too.

The first thing I tried after the memory test was to remove the WD Blue 250GB SATA SSD M.2 which was in use as a ZFS cache. And this seems to have fixed the problem! Can’t be sure yet, but so far so good. Will continue to keep an eye on things…

Here are some photos for those playing along at home:

RAM

I learned a few things about RAM today. Things began with the realisation that a CPU can read 32GB of RAM (e.g. all of it) in about 10 seconds. That surprised me at first, and then I thought about it (for the first time ever, not usually a big fan of thinking, can lead to discomfort).

Then I learned that DDR4 has a 64-bit data bus whereas DDR5 has a 128-bit data bus.

And then I learned that today’s SDRAM used to be asynchronous DRAM.