TL:DR – I tried to coin a term for the kind of content that is designed to game algorithms.
First, there was years of keyword stuffing by spammy websites trying to get up the search engine results pages (SERPs), then there were text link advertising and guest posts that attempted to game the search engines in the name of search engine optimisation (SEO ). Then it was more about clickbait, make a headline attention-grabbing enough (regardless of the actual quality of the content to which it points), people visit those and share those and the spammers attempt to go viral.
Now, it’s Algo Bait, algobait, material created, headlined, and linked in order to game the social media algorithms. It should all be avoided, it’s all BS.
I asked ChatGPT to explain the term algo bait, this is what it had to say about a term I thought I’d only just coined!
Algo bait is a neologism used in the context of online marketing and advertising. It refers to a technique used to attract algorithmic attention and improve a website’s ranking on search engines, social media, and other online platforms.
Similar to “click bait,” which refers to sensational or provocative headlines designed to attract clicks, “algo bait” refers to content that is designed to attract algorithmic attention. This can include specific keywords, meta tags, and other optimization techniques that are intended to increase the visibility and ranking of a website on search engine results pages (SERPs).
In short, algo bait is a technique used to optimize online content to attract the attention of algorithms and improve a website’s ranking, visibility, and ultimately drive more traffic to a website.
TL:DR – My songwriting process for a recent composition entitled Ticking Clocks. Stream or download it here.
About a week ago, I mentioned that I was putting together a new song. I’d recorded a so-called 1+1 demo (just me singing with Martin guitar). But, earlier this week I hooked up with Adam, the drummer from my band, and we worked on the arrangement in his ad hoc studio with me on Taylor guitar (DI, direct injection, into the desk, U-phoria UMC404HD) and he on drums (electronic drums with an acoustic kit setting, also DI into my desk).
Once we had things just about right and had recorded a decent take of the drums and guitar, Adam added some nice retro 70s synth (the synth sound is called “Chick Corea”). I then returned to my home “studio” to record vocals (MXR mic), to add some electric guitar (Ibanez RG, EQ’d to a jazzy tone), Yamaha bass, and even a bit of tuned percussion in the form of MIDI glockenspiel played on my Akai keyboard (MPK mini).
I then mixed down the multiple tracks into the final song using one of the less well-known, but just as good digital audio workstations (DAWs), Acoustica Mixcraft. There’s really no need to break the bank on Pro Tools, Logic or whatever at this level. After all, most of the heavy lifting is done by the VST (virtual studio technology) plugins that even the professionals use in their pricey software. Mixcraft is basically GarageBand for Windows.
I then worked up a photo of a broken clock taken by Adam to create this montage with the title of the song and our names. Oh, and I recorded the ticking of a working clock for the very end of the track.
Lyrically, I am still thinking this is about the young woman in The Beatles’ song She’s Leaving Home. We never knew for sure why she left, but it seems there were issues. My song is almost a sequel to that song and perhaps we can imagine she is called Luka, as in the Suzanne Vega song, perhaps even the suitcase in my song is the very same suitcase that was ‘pulled from under the bed’ in the Squeeze song Another Nail in my Heart. Now she’s back at her childhood home and they are gone. However, you take it, The Beatles, Suzanne Vega, Squeeze and perhaps (as Adam pointed out) even The Style Council were influences on the final song, and a touch of Rush with the intro, I confess.
The key turns in the lock
she pushed the door wide open
with her suitcase. It’s a shock
to find herself back here once again
She locked the secrets deep inside
Unanswered prayers her woe betide
She finds the clocks
They stopped the day she stepped away
From the cruellest of hard knocks
and all the fear that it revealed
The silent screams, the sound that mocks
Those echoes drowned by ticking clocks
No need to knock
She grasps the letters from the floor
You know she’s taking stock
And gasps to know the secrets
they don’t hold her any more
The key’s inside the box.
She didn’t need to worry
About secrets locked up deep inside
Unanswered prayers her woe betide
She winds the clocks
And knows the secrets they can’t hold her
The cruellest of hard knocks
and all the fears that they concealed
She locked the secrets deep inside
Unanswered prayers her woe betide
She faced the shocks
And knows the secrets they can’t hold her
The hardest of hard knocks
And all her fears now gone forever
The latest iteration of my song Ticking Clocks is available to stream for free on BandCamp, or name your price and you can download it.
You will hopefully listen all the way through and hear the proggie addition of a ticking clock at the end that has a growing reverb bloom and pans away from centre…well, a friend mentioned that he liked that addition to the song and assumed it was some grand long-case clock. Unfortunately, the reality of my home studio is much more mundane…
This screengrab shows the tools I used to make the clock sound much better: Compression and Reverb:
I had tried to use ChatGPT to help with the lyrics and the title, but none of its suggestions worked in any way. I also used MidJourney AI to generate some poignant artwork, but none of that really fit either. Top left works best, top-right spoiled by hovering suitcase, bottom-left too old, bottom-right too young.
None of the versions in this generation work, although bottom left could inspire another iteration, where the girl is standing looking into the house and its raining indoors!
TL:DR – Trypophobia is a fear or aversion to seeing clusters of holes.
Trypophobia is the name for the phobia (intense and apparently irrational fear) of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps. The term was coined by a web user back in 2005 on an internet forum. I always assumed its etymology lies in the word tripe and the Greek work for fear, maybe that is what she was thinking of. I find tripe repellant to look at (and eat, come to that).
It’s a weird one though isn’t it…why should anyone be scared of holes or bumps? Well, food full of holes might be rotten, whereas bumps might be present on food or skin because of disease. So, it could be that is the explanation. A subconscious response to seeing something that might cause harm.
Honeycomb tripe
But, as with lots of so-called irrational fears, nobody really knows. It seems like it’s not irrational to shy away from rotten food or snakes, or potentially lethal spiders, or being up high or trapped or exposed or whatever.
Me, I remember I had a dream as a child where my grandmother had a hole in her face from which were emerging lots of tiny flies, it was just a dream, but I still recall it and it makes my face tingle thinking about it. As does looking at some of those trypophobia triggers people post on the net, pictures of seed heads with holes, or photoshopped faces with lots of holes peppered in the skin. I’m not scared of any of these things as such, they just make my face tingle when I look at them or even just think about them.
I have a friend who has trypophobia who doesn’t like to see clusters of holes either, but she is also perturbed by seeing lots of the same animals, like insects or even flocks of birds. Again, the irrationality of it can be explained as perfectly rational if you think about the threat from certain insects or even birds.
In 2013, researchers Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins did a spectral analysis of visual trypophobia triggers and recognised that the same characteristics in those images are present in images of the skin and fur patterns of dangerous animals. So, maybe that’s part of the origins of this irrational fear too.
Trypophobia is yet to be officially recognised as a real condition, but for those of us who recognise the symptoms, it is very much a real condition, we just have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up. Some people have an extreme response to triggers while it is a very mild condition for some of us trypophobics.
The converse effect of the skin-crawling feeling of trypophobia is perhaps that pleasurable ASMR (Autonomous sensory meridian response) that certain sounds and images trigger. I first knew of the ASMR response when I listened to the Mike Oldfield album Platinum on headphones back in 1979. There is a track, Charleston, on that album which has a whispering scat section that flips back and forth through the stereo field and gives some listeners an ASMR type frisson, me included!
I originally wrote this post for my Sciscoop site back in May 2016 but noticed a lot of people reaching Sciencebase looking for trypophobia information and images. If you want to find images, any search engine prompted with the term trypophobia triggers, will do the job, there are so many real-world examples as well as artistic images that have been created as triggers. But, be warned, they could make your flesh crawl or give you goosebumps.
The correct spelling is trypophobia, but people are searching and landing here using misspellings including tryphobia, typhobia, thripopobia.
TL:DR – Book authors should register their books so that they receive royalties when the books are borrowed from a library.
Top tip for fellow authors (of books). Register with your national public lending rights organisation (PLR at British Library) and claim the books you wrote or co-wrote. In the UK, an author gets 30 pence every time one of their books is borrowed from a library.
There are about 5000 libraries in the UK lending out 165 million books a year. So it could add up and for some authors probably earns them more than sales!
3D-printed model car and stack of books
I think Ireland and Canada also have this system in place, so worth registering there and with the other countries that do if your books are sold abroad. It’s not available in the US.
If you borrow my book Deceived Wisdom from your local library, I’ll get 30.5 pence and you’ll get to read my book without having to buy it! It’s a win-win, isn’t it? Also, if you’ve requested and borrowed, it then another reader can borrow it after you and I’ll get another 30.5p. Tell your friends…
Deceived Wisdom was published in 2012 in hardback by Elliot & Thompson.
ISBN: 9781908739346
eBook ISBN: 9781908739599
Oh, here’s a bonus tip if you’re any sort of published writer, you should join ALCS and claim the royalties on photocopies of your articles and pages from your books etc.
TL:DR – I used ChatGPT to pick five of the best pieces of advice from a list of 24 offered by Werner Herzog.
I was always intrigued by the idea of Werner Herzog, although I must confess I’ve only seen a handful of his films, among perhaps the most well renowned, Fitzcarraldo. Anyway, an article passed across my social media timeline today listing 24 pieces of advice from Herzog. Some might apply to all of us, some are rather figurative, others are more pertinent to filmmaking, but could easily apply to other areas of human endeavour. Anyway, 24 seemed like too many aphorisms at the time, it was a Monday morning, and so I turned to ChatGPT and asked it to select just five from the 24 that might be seen as universal advice, lifehacks, for all of us.
Always take the initiative.
Learn to live with your mistakes.
Expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature, old and modern.
Thwart institutional cowardice.
Develop your own voice.
I asked it for its reasons for picking those over the other 19 and it basically replied that each of the others could be seen as being more pertinent to filmmaking and not particularly relevant for non-filmmakers. I don’t think that was entirely true as each of the others could be taken as advice in other contexts, but the top 5 are pretty good advice for us all. Here is the list of Herzog’s original 24 pieces of advice.
A rainbow is an optical phenomenon. They are seen when light is refracted and reflected by water droplets in the atmosphere. They do not exist as physical objects in the same way that a solid object would and so do not block the path of light from the sun or any other light source so do not cast a shadow. You only see a rainbow when the light source is behind you and you are looking at the region in the atmosphere where the water droplets are present.
TL:DR – Tips on choosing which photo to process how to denoise and sharpen software, adjust levels, and crop.
Recently, I wrote about the beautiful Short-eared Owls that turned up on our patch over-winter in the slightly warmer climes of the Cambridgeshire Fens. I got photos of three hunting in the hour before dusk. The photos were okay, but I knew I could make them better with a few simple tools.
UPDATE: The SEOs are back. At least six of them on the fen. I got a few more shots late November 2023 including this one of a grumpy-looking Shortie that had just missed catching a vole.
Short-eared Owl hunting (unsuccessfully at this point) over the fen
The problem is always hand-holding a big lens when the light’s fading. There’s camera shake and a short shutter speed is also needed to freeze the action. This adds up to the camera switching up the sensitivity, the ISO, and that makes for more photographic noise.
So, what can you do to improve a noisy photo that might also have a bit of motion blur. First off, you must make sure you’re shooting in RAW mode. RAW mode lets you download what is essentially an unprocessed digital negative of the photo you took.
I’ll run you through what I do with the RAW files out of my camera. First, I select from the photos the one I think is the most dramatic or has the most character, the best light, the sharpest. I also try to pick one that doesn’t have distractions like foreground twigs or foliage or a cluttered background. Often your choices are limited with bird flight photography as the birds appear on their own terms and where you happen to be standing at the time determines a lot of that. A slight movement left or right might help sometimes in terms of foreground and background.
So, I’d picked this photo as the best of one of the owls flying in front of me. It was fairly close. Background isn’t too bad. The blurred building in the background almost adds to the composition although might have been more appropriate if it were a Barn Owl. That stem in the bottom left is a distraction and could do with being removed. We’ll see.
The original photo was shot at 600mm zoom, 1/3200s shutter speed, f/6.3 aperture and ISO 6400. That ISO number is way too high and I might’ve got a similar result if I’d used a slower shutter speed to get the ISO down a few stops.
I resized the photo to fit the website, but other than that with this first view it’s not cropped nor processed or edited other than a basic RAW to JPG conversion to make it displayable and to add my logo. The website loads the image as 1024 pixels wide with a JPEG compression of about 90%. It’s quite noisy, not as sharp as it could be, the levels (contrast, brightness, saturation etc are not optimised). And, in terms of composition, it’s not how I’d want the final photo to look.
TOP TIP: Push the sliders on whatever adjustment you’re making to the point where it is immediately obvious that you’ve made an adjustment and then claw them back ever so slightly. This way you will hopefully avoid making the photo too painterly. If you’re having to push anything beyond about 12% of the way up, then it might be worth abandoning the photo, unless you’re after a painterly effect.
So, stepping back I first feed the RAW file to DxO PureRaw. This removes a lot of the noise from any photograph really well. It also applies basic corrections that are known to be needed for the specific camera and lens setup used. I’ve zoomed in on the program in action so you can see, on the left just how noisy the photo was originally, and in the right of the frame, how well the noise reduction works.
The frame below is that same image saved in DxO PureRaw. Hopefully, you can already see some improvement from the original RAW capture above and displayed at the same composition. PureRaw lets you export as a DNG file, which is like a generic RAW format so you can do the subsequent processing as if the file were fresh from your camera.
At this point, I generally make an important choice. I can either simply open the denoised image from DxO in my photo-editor (PaintShop Pro) or add another step and open it in Topaz Sharpen AI. This software does denoising too but it can also sharpen and remove motion blur. Either way, at this point, I would first crop the image to give me the composition I would like in the final image and perhaps mirror the image so that the subject is facing in a more pleasing direction (flying left to right is better to my eye than having the bird fly off to the left.
The following photo is cropped and reversed to give me the composition I am after. I’d usually do a square crop for Instagram.
I am quite happy that this image is fairly sharp and so I won’t apply Topaz in this instance. Instead, I will use PSP to adjust various parameters: Overall brightness (raised 14%), shadows (up 10%), and highlights (no change). Saturation up 8%, Focus/sharpening up 66%. I’ve left the white balance as it was. I then brought in the blacks by 6% and the whites by 4%.
I then raised the vibrancy, which is an adjustment related to saturation but slightly subtler, I gave that a 12% boost, which I think gives the photo even more of a “golden hour” glow. Also added a few percent of “fill highlight” and boosting “clarity” by about 10%.
That grass stem sticking up from the bottom right is a bit of a distraction, so I removed it using what PSP calls the Scratch Remover tool. PSP also has a tool called Magic Fill which can do a much better job of removing objects from a photo if they’re not simple, thin lines.
Once all that’s done, the final couple of steps are always to apply a moderate “unsharp mask” to make the final image even crisper and then to add my dB/ logo.
So that’s probably as far as I’d take it. To my eye, it looks fine. At the very least, it looks a whole lot better than the RAW original, but that’s to be expected, you don’t expect to look at negatives instead of prints of photos. All photographs have to be developed, they always have been, in the digital age, we have more sophisticated tools to do the job for better or worse.
When looking close up at the originals (pixel peeking), I can see marked improvements with each stage of the above processing and would be confident that cropped closer it would still print nicely in a print magazine, screening at 300 dpi, at up to 6 inches width, but perhaps no bigger in this case.
Just for completeness, I did do a Topaz process on the DxO output and it does reduce the speckles of noise still further. However, there was also a bit more of a loss of detail. The image below was DxO then Topaz and then the same PSP processing as before. I cropped it a bit tighter for what I might use as a photo to accompany an article about this species, or owls in general, showing a bit less of the fenland background.
Instagram-ready version below
DxO and Topaz are the leaders in terms of denoising at the moment, I’d say. I prefer what DxO does though, but Topaz has the sharpening options that DxO PureRaw lacks. I trained on Photoshop but have stuck with PaintShop Pro for editing for many years, PSP has almost all of the same tools as Photoshop for the basic processing I do. Lightroom has advantages and there are, of course, many alternatives out there to all these programs. I must confess that I usually use SnapSeed for photos on my phone and sometimes for a landscapes, architecture, flowers, moths etc. I might do use the above workflow but then open the file on my phone in SnapSeed to bump what that app calls “Ambience” and “Structure” and adjust saturation a little more.
TL:DR – Using ChatGPT to generate an artificial therapy session.
None of the following should be taken as a substitute for professional, expert help where it is needed. It is merely an exercise in testing the limits of so-called AI. Please speak to a professional if you need mental or physical health guidance or treatment.
ChatGPT is a language model, it’s basically predictive text on steroids. You feed it a line and it comes right back at you with a retort. Feed it the right line and it will write you a sonnet or a limerick, a few more lines with the right prompt and it will analyse a piece of prose, you can then ask it to generate a new piece of prose on a different topic with the same tone, style, and voice. I’ve mentioned it a few times before.
The system was launched to the public in November, but I had work and music commitments to cope with, so didn’t take more than a cursory glance at it at the time. It’s become a bit of a distraction for me in January 2023 as it has for at least a million other people, apparently.
There are some very intriguing ways to prompt ChatGPT, you can tell it to “act” as a particular professional: a songwriter, an author, a scriptwriter and prime it to generate replies on which you might build up your own creative writing output. You can ask it to tweak your social media bio to improve engagement, you can ask it how best to answer job interview questions and so on.
Today, I thought I’d see how ChatGPT fares as therapist. I told it I wasn’t feeling particularly happy with my lot, despite the cliched efforts of “counting my blessings” and asked it for advice, it came back with an eight-point plan that anyone might follow to improve their mental well-being.
First, it told me that there are many things you can do to increase your mental well-being, in addition to taking part in the activities you already enjoy.
Prioritizing self-care: Make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular physical activity.
Connecting with others: Join a group or club that shares your interests or volunteer for a cause you care about. This can help you build new friendships and expand your social support network.
Exploring new activities: Trying new things can be a great way to challenge yourself and find new sources of enjoyment.
Finding ways to give back: Helping others can be a powerful way to boost your own mood and sense of purpose.
Practicing mindfulness: mindfulness techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises or yoga can help you to be present in the moment and reduce stress.
Working on your mental health: it may be beneficial to continue to work with a therapist or counsellor to help you manage feelings of loneliness and improve your overall mental well-being.
Keeping a journal: Writing down your thoughts and feelings can be a helpful way to process your emotions, reflect on your experiences and track your progress.
Remember, what works for one person may not work for another, so be open to trying different things and find what works best for you.
I wondered “out loud” what else a therapist or counsellor might add to that list…It came back with this response and seven more tips.
It’s worth noting that, therapy is a process and requires time, patience, and dedication, it may take time to see the results, but with consistent effort, you can make progress towards a more fulfilling life. A professional therapist or counsellor may have some additional recommendations for you, based on your specific needs and goals. Some possibilities include:
Setting realistic and specific goals: Setting clear and achievable goals can help you to focus your efforts and make progress in areas of your life that are important to you.
Addressing any unresolved past issues: If you have any unresolved past issues that are impacting your mental well-being, a therapist or counsellor can help you to process and work through them.
Building resilience: A therapist or counsellor can help you to develop coping strategies and build resilience, so you are better able to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life.
Improving communication and relationship skills: A therapist or counsellor can help you to improve your communication and relationship skills, which can help to strengthen your connections with others.
Managing feelings of anxiety and depression: If you are experiencing feelings of anxiety or depression, a therapist or counsellor can help you to identify the underlying causes and develop strategies for managing these feelings.
Reviewing medications: If you are taking medications for mental health concerns, a therapist or counsellor may work with you and your physician to review the medications and make adjustments, if needed.
Exploring alternative therapies: A therapist or counsellor may also explore alternative therapies, such as art or music therapy, or equine therapy, with you if they feel it might be beneficial.
I don’t think any of the suggestions are beyond the wit of anyone trying to look at their well-being, but it’s interesting to see them grouped and presented in this way by the AI.
One additional exercise, I asked the bot to take stock of all the advice and to extract the three most important points from all that it had presented. This is what it added:
All of the recommendations above are important and can be beneficial to improve your mental well-being, but the following three are some of the most crucial suggestions. Remember, it’s important to be patient with yourself and not to expect immediate results. It’s a process, and it takes time, effort and commitment, but with a consistent approach, you can make progress towards a more fulfilling life.
Prioritizing self-care: Self-care is essential for maintaining physical and mental well-being. This includes getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular physical activity. By taking care of your physical health, you will be better equipped to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life.
Building and strengthening connections with others: Building and strengthening connections with others is important for our mental well-being. This can include connecting with friends, family and loved ones, joining a group or club that shares your interests, and volunteering for a cause you care about.
Finding ways to give back: Helping others can be a powerful way to boost your own mood and sense of purpose. Giving back to others can bring a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, and it can also help to strengthen your connections with others.
TL:DR – Information about and photos of local Short-eared Owls.
I’ve discussed the Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus, previously. Beautiful bird that occasionally overwinters in the UK, having spent the summer months in Iceland, Russia, or Scandinavia.
We are lucky to see them hunting on the fens sometimes. These photos were taken in the hour before sunset at NT Burwell Fen. There were three shorties hunting.
We usually anticipate their arrival in October, November, but they can sometimes arrive earlier and will stay until early April. There were half a dozen at Burwell a couple of years ago and one of them with damage to its wing (it could still fly) stayed through the summer months.
Shorties will hunt over fens, grasslands, marshes, and other open habitats. In my experience, the best time to catch sight of them hunting is in the hour before sunset, but others report seeing them at any time during the day when the owls hunt small mammals such as voles, mice, and shrews.
The owl has a distinctive, buoyant, and “floppy” flight style, they usually follow a “flap-flap-glide” flight pattern, and will often perch on fence posts or bushes, looking out for moving prey. They will often perch quite close to birdwatchers and photographers.
Also see on the same trip to Burwell Fen – Peregrine (in flight over the Wicken side), several Common Kestrel, Barn Owl, and Common Buzzard.
TL:DR – Ten great tips to protect yourself online.
Use strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts. Avoid using easily guessable information, such as your name or birthdate, in your passwords.
Enable two-factor (or multi-factor)authentication on any accounts that support it. This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a code sent to your phone or email in addition to your password. Opt for an authenticator app if possible rather than relying on SMS.
Keep your operating system and all software up to date. Software updates often include security patches that fix known vulnerabilities.
Be cautious when clicking on links in emails or messages, especially if they are from unfamiliar sources. This is a common way for hackers to spread malware.
Use antivirus software and keep it up to date. This will help protect your computer from known viruses and malware.
Be careful about what information you share on social media and other public platforms. Hackers can use this information to gain access to your other accounts.
Be cautious when using public Wi-Fi networks. Avoid accessing sensitive information, such as online banking, on these networks as they can be vulnerable to hackers.
Use a password manager to store your passwords securely. This will help you to use strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts and avoid reusing passwords.
Be aware of phishing attempts and how to identify them. Phishing is a tactic used by hackers to trick you into providing personal information or login credentials.
Regularly backup important data and files. This will ensure that you don’t lose your data in case of a cyber-attack or a device failure.
Bonus tip: Use a VPN (virtual private network) service when accessing the internet from a public network. This will encrypt your internet connection and help protect your personal information from hackers.
Another bonus tip: Disable notifications that might appear on your phone, so that a third party cannot see the contents of messages, such as PIN numbers sent to you as part of enabling tip number 2!
The first eleven tips above were suggested by ChatGPT, number 12 I added myself, I then asked it for more, slightly more advanced tips, to bring us up to 20!
Be careful when downloading and installing software or apps, especially from third-party sources. Only download software or apps from reputable sources and be sure to read reviews and check for any red flags before installing.
Use a firewall to protect your computer from unauthorized access. A firewall is a software or hardware security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic.
Use encryption to protect sensitive information. Encryption is the process of converting plain text into a coded format that can only be read by authorized parties.
Be aware of social engineering tactics. Social engineering is a method of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging sensitive information. Examples include phone phishing, pretexting, baiting, and quid pro quo.
Be mindful of your online activity and take steps to protect your privacy. Be aware of the information you share online and limit the amount of personal information that is publicly available.
Be aware of the risks associated with public charging stations and USB drives. These can be used to spread malware or steal personal information.
Regularly review your account activity and financial statements. This will help you detect any unauthorized activity on your accounts and take action as soon as possible.
Be aware of the risks associated with Internet of Things (IoT) devices. IoT devices such as smart cameras, thermostats, and doorbells can be vulnerable to hacking, so be sure to secure them properly.
FYI The initial prompt I gave to ChatGPT was the following, you can craft similar types of prompts asking it to act as almost any kind of expert, novelist, songwriter, computer programmer etc
I want you to act as a cyber security specialist with experience at all levels of security, privacy and protection of computer systems. You are aware of emails, social media, phishing attacks, malware, and viruses in detail. I need you to devise a scheme for protecting a non-expert individual from hackers and crackers and other malicious actors. The advice should be comprehendable by a lay person but also provide sufficient information that they can quickly get started to make sure their computer, email, social media and other systems without turning to others for help.
