Strange Programming Days; Or, The Interdimensional Alarm Clock
Strange Programming Days; Or, The Interdimensional Alarm Clock

Friday • May 23rd 2025 • 8:32:50 pm

Strange Programming Days; Or, The Interdimensional Alarm Clock

Friday • May 23rd 2025 • 8:32:50 pm

Preface,

The following text is about creating an art project with an AI, once complete, it will be an alarm clock that vocalizes inspirational messages.

I chose not to complete the project today, and may not complete it tomorrow, as not to hurry things.

What this text demonstrates is about asking AI for small useful programs, which even though it is a budget AI, it creates them perfectly.

It is not true that AI will eliminate need for programmers, you should instead learn programming, to know how to ask it for apps.

From a broader perspective, it is time to write code in a way that AI can easily understand.

This will mean more verbose code, more repeating yourself, and probably a new application architecture.

What used to be called portals and widgets, which would allow low power budget AI, to create tiny apps.

Stitched together by broadcasting simple data events, that all little apps would listen to.

As widgets or portlets, the little apps are completely decoupled, they can be very easily replaced or upgraded.

A portal user interface is pretty much what we call a dashboard today, though a bit more clunky.

Well worth it though, because you just ask AI for what you need, perhaps even with voice commands.

You can build out a full screen interactive toolbox, for any purpose, with an AI that maybe low power enough to run from a smartphone.

It appears the age of downloading apps, is coming to a close, as now you can just ask AI to make what you need.


Without furhther ado, Strange Days; Or, The Interdimensional Alarm Clock

I’ve been taking a closer look at indoctrination, the things that we accept as fundamental, that aren’t.

But today, being Friday, I wanted to rest a little, and get a bit more creative in the process.

I remembered how Donnie Darko mentioned showing beautiful pictures, so that the world only knows good things.

And how upon a good nap, some people feel reborn, or having transcended dimensions.

So I imagined the idea of a clock that awakens with a spoken alarm, that reminds of the beautiful rules of universe.

I used an AI to expand on rules about poverty, bullies, and even being called a number in school.

Though I haven’t finished the list, it was only because, it is just too heavy to finish ion one day.

And I remembered that I had a dusty link, to a programming AI.

I hurried over there, to first create a kind of a teleprompter, because in this art project the rules of the universe are shuffled.

That means my reading must be broken up in 50 pieces, and it just makes sense to create a custom voice recorder for it.

This being that strange wonderful age, where AI can code little apps for us.

I ptompted it that I will be reading a new line delimited script, and I will need previous line, next line, record audio, stop recording audio and download audio, buttons.

It is my first time programming with this AI, so I wanted to see if it could infer the code behind buttons.

It did, perfectly, which frightened me, immensely.

Hence the strange days, this shouldn't be possible.

I threw buttons at AI, and it gave me a program.

That is, the reason why you only hear the negative people critiquing AI, that it creates bad code, steals jobs, and does not impress.

The rest of us, are quietly having kittens, whilst laying eggs as well, we are speechless.


I tested the teleprompter very little, but it records audio, and when you click stop, it sends it to your downloads.

So, you start at first line, click record, read the line, click stop, and the audio file jumps into you downloads.

The audio files can be easily played by the browser, disabling auto-download, allows for easier re-recording.

The AI, created, a perfect little program.


The matching alarmclock is untested, but all the code is there, including shuffling of the audio.

My instructions were: “Create alarm clock input elements hour and minute, display and update "Alarm will activate in hh:mm:ss", when time arrives dispatch dom event alarm. When dom event alarm is heard, shuffle audio array 'a.mp3','b.mp3','c.mp3' into alarmQueue array and play each sound.”

The use of the queue ensures that the audio files will play once, and that their order will be shuffled enough.

It appears to require minimal changes, I will have to give it files from the teleprompter.

Where it says at line 45 (if you do view source), let audioFiles = 'a.mp3', 'b.mp3', 'c.mp3';


I was hoping to set an alarm for a time of day, but the AI gave me a countdown timer, which is more accurate for naps.


This took about two minutes, and this is a slightly dated AI, and low powered service.

The new AI is much more powerful, instead of a singe file, it makes changes across entire code repositories.

I wish I could bundle the alarm clock today, but I should not do such a thing.

This is a touching art project, though a bit clunky, and digitally whimsical, it is sure to make someone's day.

Artwork Credit