```yaml
---
slug: tycho
published: 2024-01-09T23:22:00-07:00
description: A Little Prince, lost in the era of diffusion models.
changelog: ~
---
```

Tycho was my first cat. There were cats before him of which I was party to their excellent time on this planet, but Tycho was my first cat. I saw him at the emergency vet. I'm afraid it might be my last time. My phone is on me. I dread the inevitable call. It's cancer. Again. It's just a matter of time now.

That this one year old lovable Maine Coon made it to month five and a half of his chemo is a testament to his stubbornness. I'd like to think he complained loudly at the cancer until it went away.

Sucks the cancer collapsed his trachea.

I'm going to wake up with wracking sobs.

I was working on a "family photo" in DALL-E. Not because I wanted the output, but because I wanted to test the limitations of AI diffusion models. What did they "understand" and what shapes output more than others. To get good output, do I forever need to tag myself as a "German-American out of shape Bruce Willis?" Could the AI ever make Tycho an all-black Maine Coon mix without slipping that smoke color into his ruff?

Now, do I want to try?

Previously, I was crafting a moment. A moment that could happen. A photo that might have been. Now it's a photo that never will be. I could keep refining the prompt, escaping the reality for a fabrication, never letting go. He could fight a dragon. He could be human-sized. He could be a lot of things, but only in my mind.

Now, only in my mind.

It's probably not healthy to want to create for a pet you cannot cherish in the present anymore. You move from an expression of ideas to memorializing really quick. And it's an easy escape. I feel it already. I want the AI to make up scenes. I want us playing with the cat wand again. I crave seeing him standing on my chest until I wake up, judging my sleeping in. I'm going to miss tomorrow; the moment every morning he senses me finally stirring and slides up the bed to be little spoon and start his day proper. Moments as I remember them.

I have my photos. But making more feels wrong. They're a poor substitute for my love.

But he's forever my little prince. This is as the AI last imagined him.

![The family portrait project, envisioned by DALL-E, 2024](https://github.com/jakobo/codedrift/assets/1795/f781653e-9c9e-4424-a398-1f5d5046ed73)



A Little Prince, lost in the era of diffusion models.

Document

A Eulogy for a Pet Where LLMs Persist

```yaml
---
slug: in-memoriam
published: 2014-06-11T00:00:00.000Z
description: For Eric, For Kat, For the Meyerses
changelog:
  - on: 2020-02-23
    note: This was rescued from the archives of the old [felocity.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20050507121849/http://www.felocity.org/journal). As a result, many links in this piece were left pointing to archive.org destinations.
  - on: 2020-02-24
    note: Also, fuck cancer.
theme:
  primary: "#663399"
---
```

I have conversed with Eric Meyer twice in my life. The first time was an oddball question on his reset.css file. The second was in person at my first ever An Event Apart. In only two conversations, the haze surrounding CSS and specificity was removed and I finally saw a beautiful web. He doesn't know it, but those two conversations were when my career moved away from server code in favor of the browser. For many of us in the web industry, Eric is a mentor and an inspiration.

Since the middle of last year, Eric and his wife Kat have shared with the world [a parents' nightmare: their battle with cancer](https://web.archive.org/web/20141009223744/http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/category/personal/cancer). Their second child Rebecca was diagnosed in August with grade 3 (anaplastic) astrocytoma. Day by day we watched, hoped, and prayed for their daughter to win a battle that wasn't of her choosing.

Rebecca Alison Meyer passed away June 7, 2014. She was six years, eleven and a half hours old.

On June 12 and days after, [the internet will be awash in purple](https://web.archive.org/web/20141009223744/http://www.zeldman.com/2014/06/10/the-color-purple/). The color #663399 to be exact. For those of us who the Meyer family has touched deeply, it is our symbol of mourning. This page, all the tweets, and all that will be said in person and online cannot begin express the collective sadness we all share. Eric and family, may the pages, the blogs, [the tweets](https://web.archive.org/web/20141009223744/https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&amp;q=%23663399Becca), and the comments all find you. I wish the best for you all as you make it through the the days to come.

---

[The family requests charitable donations](https://web.archive.org/web/20141009223744/http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/06/09/in-memoriam-2/) be made in Rebecca's name to the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House or the St. Baldrick's Foundation.


This was rescued from the archives of the old [felocity.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20050507121849/http://www.felocity.org/journal). As a result, many links in this piece were left pointing to archive.org destinations.

Cancer

2024

A Eulogy for a Pet Where LLMs Persist

2014

In Memoriam