Tales from the jar side: Gemini + OpenAI, AI integration presentations, International affairs, and the usual toots and skeets
What do mermaids use to wash their scales? Tide. (rimshot)
Welcome, fellow jarheads, to Tales from the jar side, the Kousen IT newsletter, for the week of December 1 - 8, 2024. This week I taught an NFJS virtual workshop on Integrating AI into Java, as well as my regular courses at Trinity College.
Gemini + OpenAI
This week I published a video about accessing Google’s Gemini AI models using the OpenAI API:
The conclusion is that the OpenAI API is growing into the definitive base API for a wide range of AI tools who support programmatic access. All you have to do is import the library, change the base URL, choose the model you want, and add your API key and you’re good to go. A few weeks ago I made a video about accessing Perplexity that way, and even used it as an assignment in my AI Integration course at Trinity College to prove the point.
I noticed today that Grok, the AI model from X/Twitter, also supports that approach. Interestingly enough, Grok also supports the Anthropic (Claude) API as well. I might consider making a video about that, assuming I could get over my revulsion at doing anything that in any way supported Elon Musk.
As an unrelated aside, I imaging Elon is not happy at how long it taking to capture the shooter who took out the CEO of United HealthCare, nor is he likely to be enjoying the the massive popular support the attack is getting, especially on social media. Maybe he should just stay busy dreaming up more budget cuts that will never get enacted. I can’t believe he fell for the old trick of managing an annoying supporter by sticking him on a committee with no power, but as has been demonstrated repeatedly, Elon is an idiot.
Sorry about how dark that got. Let’s move on.
AI Integration Presentations
This week the students in my AI Integration course gave their group presentations. They still have time to get me their code and documentation, but the presentations themselves were fun.
Topics included:
A rap battle of the bots between GPT-4o and Gemini. Apparently, Claude refused to participate (!), even knowing it was all in fun and involving fictional characters.
Two separate, but completely different, recipe generators. One took a user-supplied list of ingredients and came up with a recipe from them, illustrated it (with varying degrees of accuracy), and then read the recipe to you so you didn’t have to touch a screen. The other took a random item from your refrigerator, identified it, and generated appropriate recipes from three different countries using that item.
An AI art modification engine that generated an image, then let you remove items from the picture, recolor it, or resize it as desired.
One accepted a type of ecosystem and generated information about it (including citations), illustrated with with appropriate animals, and read facts about it out loud. That one, interestingly enough, used the Perplexity AI engine, which is how they were able to use citations.
There were several more, but you get the idea. The images were almost all generated using DALL-E, but most of the audio generation came from ElevenLabs rather than OpenAI, which I found mildly surprising. At least one used Java, most everyone else used Python, with a couple of JavaScript/TypeScript implementations.
I thought the whole experience went well. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing or not, but my current set of students tends to work quite well in groups, and I’m glad to encourage that.
I’m currently using AI tools to help me generate questions for a final exam, which they will probably complete with the assistance of other AI tools. Eventually we’ll be able to eliminate the middleman and just let the AI solve questions posed by the same AI. But no AI can replace the fun of those presentations, which is hopefully where the real learning took place.
After the semester is over, I’ll re-examine the whole course and try to figure out what worked and what didn’t.
International Affairs
The IT community as a whole is quite diverse, but only if you consider geography. I have friends from literally all over the world. My current group of students at Trinity are from everywhere. That meant I was able to talk to one of them about the overnight coup / revolution in South Korea this week. I don’t think any of my students are Syrian, but overthrowing Assad happened over the weekend so I haven’t had a chance to talk to any students about it. If so, I assume they’re happy. Tossing out Assad hurts Russia, Iran, and Tulsi Gabbard, all of which are good things.
By other diversity metrics, we’re probably better than the industry average, though not as good as we could be. We do have a reasonable number of women and many students of color, by whatever measure they prefer. Those issues didn’t really come up in class discussions, since we focused on the technical topics we were supposed to be covering, but I was happy to see a wide range of students all working together successfully. I could be wrong about that, since there is definitely a layer between them and me, but from my point of view they were a good group and I enjoyed being around them.
My final exams are this week, after which they will scatter to the winds and I’ll start preparing for next semester.
Toots and Skeets
Syria
I mentioned the successful overthrow of Assad in Syria was bad for, among others, Tulsi Gabbard. She’s probably the closest to being a Russian asset as the US has right now, though there are way too many candidates for that job. She’s also Trump’s pick to be Director of National Intelligence, and since Trump is the other major politician in Putin’s pocket, I’m thinking he might replace her with Assad. If nothing else, the guy does know how to destroy things.
Okay, that got dark, too. Moving on.
Easy decision
Case dismissed, or cite them for contempt, or both. No jury would convict.
Tis the season
Sigh. I hope that’s a reference to rapidly-growing 2-year-old Cindy Lou Who, but I suspect it isn’t.
Earthquake!
Yeah, that’s not good.
Probably in poor taste, but…
There were so, so many of these gags. This one was, believe it or not, one of the more subtle ones.
Contracts
Years ago, my wife got me a framed contract like that for me to play quarterback for the Washington football team. I’m still waiting for it to be signed, too. I admit that after I turned 60, the odds probably dropped significantly. I don’t think the Red Sox will be calling this year, either, though I’m confident I could still help in my own way.
Sing us a song
I don’t think Billy Joel, circa 1973, would have appreciated a mocha latte, at least until he tried it. Of course, he would want it with a Big Shot of extra caffeine (rimshot). I also imagine Davy, who was still in the Navy at the time, probably retired years ago with a full pension. Finally, the answer to “Man, what are you doing here?” is clearly “profiting off the misery of others.”
Teaching
How would you teach a man to salad? Grow a vegetable garden?
Pure imagination
Probably my best reply of the week.
Red shirt
I’m guessing he was working security and was on an away mission. I mean, Tigger is clearly an alien, though one of the good ones.
Major victory
I was going to reply that the bottom team is playing at home, but of course a dozen people beat me to it. Still, take the win, wherever it occurs, and nobody deserves it more.
Have a great week, everybody!
Last week:
Week 1 of Spring in 3 Weeks, on the O’Reilly Learning Platform
Practical AI Tools for Java Developers, as an NFJS Virtual Workshop
My regular Trinity College schedule.
This week:
Week 2 of Spring in 3 Weeks, on the O’Reilly Learning Platform
Upgrade to Modern Java, as an NFJS Virtual Workshop
My regular Trinity College schedule.