Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1542
A dream with comfortingly obvious symbolism, a poll question about grammar, the funniest moment in GoT, Nick Cave's AI heel turn
Hello hello hello. Good morning. Still COVID negative. Day three. No COVID bounce so far, that is nice. Did you know you could bounce-back and get COVID again? They thought for a while it was related to Paxlovid, and it sort-of is but you can also just bounce back anyway. So we are being careful for these six-ish days after I turned negative. We are so careful we are so responsible look at us we’re just the best.
Couldn’t fall asleep last night, mind racing. It was racing, I suspect, because I actually used it yesterday, worked on a chapter of my anti-AI polemic. Very satisfying, I get that ex-work euphoria, like exercise, when I have a good bout of writing. I am happy to be working on the book again. Re-read the 10,000 or so words I had so far. It is pretty good! I still agree with it. I mayhaps swear too much.
In my insomnia I developed a new innovation where I wear my watch to sleep. By the time I am going to sleep, the watch is already charged, from the hour or so I had spent reading. My watch has, accessible from its main face, my “email myself” app, and it is pretty good — not 100%, but pretty good — at text-to-speech conversion. So when something is gnawing at my mind as I am falling asleep, rather than roll over, turn on the light, grab my phone, ruin all my sleepiness, I can just tap my wrist and mumble my oh-so-urgent thought right into my wrist.
I did this, oh, twelve times or so last night. And I gotta say, as a group of texts, they are pretty good! I am happy to have preserved all of those thoughts. It would have been sad to lose them to the sandman.
When I woke up, the watch had 76% battery. I put it back on its charger while I did teeth, got dressed, made the bed, etc and it was at 85%. I do, every once in a while, have a day where for some weird reason my watch battery almost runs out, so I need to get that charge back to 100%, I guess. I could buy a “nighttime” watch if I were to get really into this system, but I have chosen a less extravagent route and added a watch charging cable to my work setup down here in my office. It’ll do.
I also had a dream where I had a buddy who was me. A clone or a twin or something. Only that version of me did not have a job, did not have to work, did not need to work. Maybe I supported them, maybe they were non-corporeal, it was unclear. But man. What was clear is that they were so much more happy than me. Just an all-around happier person, because they did not have to have a job.
No way I could possibly interpret the symbolism behind that dream.
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Still working on the “To Investigate” list. We are so close. Eight hours left. We’re listening to an awesome band named Kunzite, again. They seem to be Ratatat-adjacent and they sound like Ratatat and man I forgot how much I loved Ratatat and also this band rules.
OKAY! Poll time. A situation has recently come to my attention. Three times in the last week, I have said “I am free between 2 and 4:30 call whenever in that window.” The times have changed but not the syntax, which is the point here.
And all three times, the person I have said that to — different people — have called me AT 4:30.
So. My question to you is:
Isn’t it clear when I say that I am free from 2 to 4:30 that I am no longer free at 4:30?
I mean, I get what is happening here, they see those times, assume they are individual availability times, and they choose one. They are reading it as “I am free at 2 and 4:30.”
So, regardless of my grammatical correctness or not, I will adapt — it is clear that people are not picking up what I’m laying down — but my question to you is:
My syntax is clear, isn’t it? “I am free from 2 to 4:30” clearly means I am no longer free at 4:30.
Right?
Still no actual poll tool in Buttondown, but leave a comment, or better yet come argue about it in the Slack with us.
Nick Cave wrote a Red Right Hand file yesterday and he basically pulled back on his position on AI. He had used to say it was awful, but now his friend made a video commemorating the 40th anniversary of Nick’s really-very-good song “Tupelo” and Nick sent it out to everyone and said “yeah, I have changed my mind on this and I like this video.” He did hedge, a bit, said he had only changed his mind “to some extant.”
And I gotta tell you: the video is borderline unwatchable. I mean, I tried. Creepy AF, and utterly pointless. Did not like. We are getting the Blonde version of Andrew Dominick, not the The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford version. Alas.
Now, I would never accuse Nick of cravenly using AI to, you know, self-promote and/or change a view on some important modern topic just to appease a friend. No no no. He would never do such a thing.
So I’m just gonna assume good faith and that Nick has indeed changed his mind and is totally okay that this film he put out is creepy and built upon the backs of millions of artists whose labor has been stolen in order to make it.
Alas.
“It’s just a tool like any other,” Andrew Dominick told Nick. That “like any other” is, of course, a manifest lie, and the sentence without that qualifier means nothing. In the immortal words of Adam Savage, everything is a hammer. Thus everything is a tool. But AI is indeed not “Like any other.”
All of that came to me in my insomnia last night. Will be included in the “but it’s just a tool” chapter of my anti-AI polemic, which really does need a name.
I did like that the person whose question Nick was answering was from Anchorage, Alaska, though.
Last thing before I talk about my daughter as per uszhe. I forgot to tell you the funniest thing I had seen in my recent Game of Thrones re-watch. I had absolutely no recollection of the scene and I bet you didn’t either.
Back when Tywin Lannister is ensconced in Harrenhall, plotting his war against Rob Stark, he is meeting with his small council. This is when Arya Stark is in disguise and serving as his cupbearer. Anyway, he’s super pissed at this one guy on his small council. He is talking to this dude with exasperation and like the dude is a small child and the dialogue goes something like this.
“Remember when I asked you to send that raven to Lord Clyde of House Marvin?” [GoT fans don’t quote me on the house names here I am making them up, too lazy to go look the exact ones up.]
“Yeah?” the dude says, looking slow and confused.
“And how that raven had all our battle plans and troop movements and all that?”
“Uh huh?” the dude says, looking slow and confused.
“Well it seems you sent the raven — the one with all our battle plans — to Lord Merwyn of House Cleve instead of Lord Clyde of House Marvin.”
“Okaaaaay?” the dude says, looking slow and confused.
“And do you know whose bannerman Lord Merwyn is?”
“Uhh… Noo?” the dude says, looking slow and confused.
“He is Robb Stark’s bannerman,” Tywin says, very patiently.
“Uhh… Okay?” the dude says, looking slow and confused.
“You sent all of our battle plans to the enemy.” Tywin says, very patiently.
“Ummm. Sorry?” the dude says, looking slow and confused.
To his credit, by GoT standards Tywin does not completely lose it, does not have the dude beheaded right there. He seems, in fact, somewhat paralyzed by this dude’s utter cluelessness and uselessness. He exiles him, but compared to the way he has treated other incompetents, and considering he has, you know, a torturer and The Mountain at his disposal, and considering the supremacy of this dude’s mistake, he really is very patient!
Anyway, that scene is just such a brilliant dead-on send-up of the modern American workplace I cannot credit its genius enough. Just fantastic. Twin’s levels of exasperation and the dude’s boundless depths of slowness are just both so glorious.
Jane seems to have had a much better time at camp yesterday, loved it. Started telling stories using “But” as a joiner of scenes instead of “and then,” just like that recent great clip of Matt Parker and Trey Stone that was making the rounds the other day. Can’t help but wonder if her camp teacher saw that clip. But it was great. Still refused to brush her teeth last night but at least flossed and fluoride rinsed. Baby steps, I guess.
We did “pretend I’m a baby” last night and did rockabye baby while I cradled her in my arms. She is getting so big. Every night she clings to me and I walk up the stairs while she is supporting herself, me not carrying her. Two floors. She gets a great core workout and I get great weight and stair training.
We are keeping each other healthy.
Got a moody and quiet playlist for you. Every moody and quiet playlist for the next year will probably have a Springsteen song on it and a Mississippi John Hurt song on it.
Have a lovely day every day. Talk tomorrow.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.