Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1581
Nick Cave's "No more Shall We Part." Assorted reader updates. How fun would it be to monetize AI if you had no moral code. Even if it won't work.
Good morning! Hello! Hi, boy howdy what is up. Weird week for me what with the travel, feels like it should be Friday. But I can manage, I can manage.
Some reader updates:
Reader update #1, From Jussi: To Clarify, Minerva’s campaign for Somerville Bike Path Cat Mayor was not “DO CRIME.” It was, simply: “CRIME.” Pro-Crime? Anti-Crime? Who can tell. Only Minerva knows. Apply your own interpretation.
Reader update #2, from Mark, who is a pilot:
Your relative flew the Piper J-3! That's the cub! The legendary Piper Cub! over 20,000 made! There are a ton of them still flying today, and you can buy a kit to build your own replica cub from one of about a half-dozen kit plane companies. They're so great, pure flying, almost 100 year old design and still wonderful. Many of the modern replicas have higher-powered engines but the general design is the same. I've never flown one but I really want to. They are so small and take off and land in such a short space that I've seen pilots doing multiple touch-and-goes on a single runway - like, a mile long runway and the cub pilot will do three takeoffs and landings.
I should really figure out how Helen Mary and I were related. She was such a bad-ass.
Additionally, reader Chad has done some deep research into the window tinting question. Hasn’t gotten quite to a definitive answer yet, but has heard rumors that there are places that will take the tint off, inspect your car, and put it back on. Also found a few examples of places that offer tints explicitly darker than legal, so.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Some progress, anyway!
Join the GMHHAY slack! Reply to this email and ask for an invite if you’re a human who likes chatting with other humans about topics such as these within!
We are listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds today. No More Shall We Part, which was… maybe one of the last albums of the traditional ballads phase, before Warren infected Nick with a more, shall we say, experimental musicality that leads to a lot more synths and drones and whatnot these days. This album contains some of the last few Nick songs I truly loved, deeply, down to my core: “We Came Along this Road,” “God is in the House,” “Love Letter,” “Darker With the Day.” Just a fantastic album. I saw this tour. Twice, actually. Once was a Nick Cave solo show, no bad seeds, though he did have Warren and the McGarrigle sisters, doing their beautiful backing vocals to “Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow.” And he played the Birthday Party’s “Wild World,” that show. Made my friend Andy really happy. Miss you, buddy.
Just took my new dosage of Wegovy, new style of pen, had to watch a Youtube instructional video, since the Wegovy pens have changed since I was on that particular brand. This new, upped dosage, will probably make me sick today, I’ve already been wrestling with intermittent nausea for, mmm, gonna say three four weeks now? Not sure what is up with that, not too keen to investigate.
Some readers may remember from some months ago the fused closed glass bottle of non-alcoholic Amaro, Dr. Zero Zero brand, that I could not even figure out how to open. I am happy to report I took the thing to the workshop, put it in the vise, used a pair of vice grips and a) it opened right up, and b) I did not shatter the bottle. So good news, Rick’s deluxe non-alcoholic Negronis are back on the menu:
Two different non-alcoholic gins: Ish for the throat burn, Monday for the Sapphire vibes
Dr. Zero Zero NA Amarno (Amarno, get it? get it?)
Versin NA Vermouth (Versin, get it? Spanish for “without,” get it?)
A healthy shale of orange bitters. Technically these have alcohol but we won’t tell if you won’t.
Alfred’s Bitter Orange and Rosemary NA Apertif
Don’t feel compelled to try and recreate this recipe. You may well not like it, it is a bit more sweet than normal Negronis, and it’s a lotta cash to shell out to buy all these NA Boozes.
But if you ever come over, ask me and I will make you one.
How psyched would I be to be, like, a young and impressionable 35, 40 years old and thinking that it would be fun and exciting to monetize, with ads natch, some AI company like OpenAI or Anthropic with Ads. My god, I would be so good at that job, I have monetized so many fucking Internet social platforms at this point. It would be so fun. It would be so profitable. It would be so… you know, “in the moment” and a job that felt important because the press was always asking you for interviews and shit and I would think I was doing something important. So tempting, so tempting.
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that it is not immediately obvious to people why these platforms are so evil. I have to remind myself that many people — and especially many people in Silicon Valley — do not respect the creative act. I have to remind myself that in my time working for Internet tech companies, I didn’t make many friends who truly loved music, were moved by it, or went to awesome shows. Or art openings or read books. Tumblr was, of course, an exception, those people were arty farty to the max. But as a whole, the industry? Really not super into the arts.
And I think about people who are probably so excited about the task of getting OpenAI to be making money through ads. The opportunity, the thrill, the sense of destiny and importance. And, of course, the money. And I have to, like, remember what I was like, and how, even I would be sorely tempted. And these people are younger. And do not care about the arts. Of course they’re pumped.
It won’t work, by the way. The economics aren’t even going to come close to monetizing that kind of cost with advertising. Google doesn’t make enough total revenue, including Youtube, to bring OpenAI to profitability. There is not enough ad revenue on the planet to bring OpenAI to profitability with its $1 trillion of cost commitments.
But it sure would be fun to try.
If you had no morals.
Or were clueless.
And it’s interesting, this one, because a lot of people think advertising is immoral. I don’t think advertising per se is immoral. Of course surveillance capitalism adtech is immoral, and my entire career has been a Don Quixotean waste of time trying to keep advertising on the internet ethical. ut that is a separate conversation, really. You can rationalize the advertising component at OpenAI, probably, maybe. The advertising isn’t gonna be the evil part.
Because you can’t rationalize the morality of the product itself. The theft. A person I do not know said it best on Threads:
The work of my heart was stolen against my will, and even if they give us a one-time payout, they get to keep it. The AI garbage machine that I despise will forever have my blood running through it. So no, I'm not happy about it.
Jane forgot to go to school today, I guess. I finished making her lunch and time rolled by and she didn’t come downstairs and I went up to find her and she was quietly playing in the playroom with her Cabbage Patch doll. No drama, no arguing, I just reminded her it was time for school and she got up and came down and put her shoes on. She brought her Cabbage Patch doll downstairs but then decided at the last minute to not bring her to school. She would offer no explanation for any of this. Mysterious. She is very mysterious.
A musical correction: Three days ago we incorrectly labeled our playlist November 6 instead of October 6. The non-existent editors of GMHHAY regret the error.
Got a country playlist for you today. Been a while. Mostly new, some old, some funny combinations like the two kings of Jersey, Bruce and Jon Bon Jovi that’s a good laugh. Love the Julien Baker & Torres collaboration. At the last Torres show I saw she said “My name is Mackenzie and my project is Torres” so, I guess her name is Mackenzie? Mysterious. I could Google this, but I think I prefer not to.
Okay byeeeee.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.