Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1089
We need a threads algorithmic-boost opt out, we are entering the third age of brands, Rao's shouldn't do brand extensions, AI will kill us but also I signed up for ChatGPT for a bit.
Good morning! Hello, there. What is happening. Thursday. Oh joy. New Covid stats. Let’s see. Big dips in wastewater levels in all 3 Raleigh zones, all 3 Cary zones, both Durham zones. Just a slight, teeny, weeny dip in the Carrboro zone, the one closest to me. But all in all, not bad! Hospitalizations statewide down. We might be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on this latest wave.
Maybe the daily US death toll will go back down. Still a thousand dead a day, easy.
I am listening to a band called Chrome. They are pretty psych. Sorta a less droney Slift, with more synth. Not bad. We have 20 hours left on the 2023 To Investigate playlist.
Just back from bringing Jane to school. G Wagon lady was in a different coat. Matte black Model X was two cars in front of me — always exciting to see those doors open. Aggro van guy has too luxurious of a beard to be as hardcore as he pretends. There was a Rivian R1T — only the second time I’ve seen it there not sure what’s up with that.
The sun is shining, the heat is on, I’m thinking my feet need to go into the electric slippers. I did a mod on them yesterday and they’re even better, they now heat the top of my toes even better my god they are just the best.
Let’s continue on with our list of topics.
So, yeah. I purchased a subscription to ChatGPT. And yeah, I still think AI is simultaneously stupid and evil and will destroy us all. People keep telling me this is an oxymoron — that something stupid can’t destroy the world. When this happens in person, I just sort of stare at them for a second until it clicks in their brain. When it happens on the internet, I wonder to myself if they have ever read any Douglas Adams. For indeed, it is almost a certainty that when the world goes, profound stupidity will be deeply involved.
So why did I purchase this subscription. Well, first, logistically, I purchased it through the Apple store, that evil monopolistic behemoth that should be regulated but also I appreciate for its consumer-friendly subscription policies and easy of cancellations (I am filled with contradictions). So I can cancel at any time. But I figured I should probably get to know it better. And I probably will cancel it in a month or so. I figured I would do an A-to-B test with Jane on its artistic skills. I asked it to draw a Hello Kitty in a chef hat cooking pancakes, the same thing that Emily asked Jane to draw while we were at a diner in Arlington or Watertown or whatever. First off, it haughtily told me that it could not draw a Hello Kitty, because of copyright reasons, so it would draw a cat. Secondly, ew:
Tell me Jane’s is not better:
I dunno, maybe it’s personal taste but I prefer my illustrations to have a style that isn’t the same stupid style as the entire internet.
It is boring for me to tell you what stupid things it has said when I ask it things, because the internet abounds with examples of the world’s smartest robot saying stupid-ass things. I am trying to find a way for it to be helpful in my life. My friend Noah loves it for its assistance in coding but I do not need any more assistance in coding than I get from my employees, who code better and are easier to work with.
Some people just seem so into it and I am trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. I mean my life is filled with like 200 menial tasks every day surely it can be moderately helpful with at least one?
Also the thing just fucking talks too much, and talks to you like an idiot. I was sorta high on a gummy watching the Matrix Resurrections again (way, way better of a film than I realized at the time) and I asked it why The Analyst was so intent on getting to the black cat in the diner fight scene cuz it didn’t make sense, the black cat is mainly a symbol and a metaphor. If they ever gave it a concrete role in this film — aside from the indicator of Matrix manipulation laid out in the OT and a notifier for being in the Matrix at all — I missed it. Because who watches a movie at home without their phone in their hand (except Josh, Josh you are a mensch).
But all it did was spit out something like twenty paragraphs about the black cat’s role in the Matrix films — the same thing I just told you above in like twelve words — and then offered no explanation for my question.
Like, I get enough verbose nothingness in my real life from people who don’t know the answer to the question I don’t need to pay $20 a month to get more. If you don’t know, just say you don’t know.
But of course it can’t do this because it’s job is to associate words and phrases with words and phrases next to those words and phrases on the internet, and no one ever thought for a moment that sometimes the best word or phrase is no word or phrase.
None of this is interesting. None of this is interesting! It’s all so boring! AI is so boring!
But anyway, I am always trying to make sure my opinions aren’t stupid or wrong or ignorant so I figured I better do a little more research.
If there is anything even remotely useful that you’ve found for it to do — that does not fall into the realm of computer coding — let me know.
Two days ago I posted a Tweet on Threads (this is the correct terminology FYI) and… it didn’t achieve main-character status or anything, but their dumb-ass algorithm picked it up and sprayed it all over creation to a bunch of people I don’t know, and suddenly I had every Dick, Jane and Bobb(y)(ie) on the internet opining about my half-baked, semi-ironic thoughts.
I do not need this in my life. I do not aspire to achieve greater notoriety on the internet. This is why I usually bury my more brilliant thoughts inside 2,000 words about butter dishes or electric slippers. Emma pointed out I could just switch my account to private, but I don’t think that’s quite what I’m going for. If, for example, I post my daily GMHHAY notification, and a friend of mine reads it and comments (which is awesome), that is great. And if some friend of hers sees that in her timeline, is curious, goes to my profile, clicks on a GMHHAY, and reads it and becomes interested and signs up, that is awesome! I love that! There are a hundred or so people that read this now that I do not know personally and I think that is absolutely the bees knees.
So I do not want to be hidden on the internet. I want to be somewhat difficult to find. I want the people who find me to be vaguely not sure why I have followers at all, not sure what I’ve ever done in my life, and be fine with that, or go do a bunch of digging on their own.
I do not want my content shoved in people’s faces. I do not want the pointless drama of the internet to reach me because I made an idle comment about screen sizes. It is insane!
Threads absolutely needs an “opt me out of algorithmic amplification” option.
(This Chrome album is growing on me)
On Tuesday (oh, how I desperately want to say “yesterday” but it wasn’t yesterday, I am still playing catch-up on this giant topic list) Emma and I were at the dinner table having a conversation like two adults who don’t spend all their time on their phones at the dinner table (this is in semi-jest; more on this another day mayhaps). We were talking about some brand, I forget what. Oh right: compostable trash bags. Cuz we had run out a month or so ago and I went to my Amazon orders page and dug out the old order for them, and hit reorder, because I liked that old box ‘o bags.
But when they came, they were totally different. Not the same bags at all. Too small for our trashcan. No drawstrings or tie handles or anything. Shitty.
Do you know the absurd dilemma about a poor purchasing decision on a box of trash bags? It is the worst. Like… you think “well I’ll just use them up and buy the right kind next time” but… it’s a box of 50 bags! You use one a week! You’ll be using shitty trash bags for a year! But what choice is there? The environmentally catastrophic action of purchasing more trash bags? I mean, sure. Ours are compostable and come in a recyclable box but still! It is so wasteful!
And so for a month or two I have been foisting my guilty paralysis about this onto my wife, who also has to use shitty trash bags for a year because or me.
So Emma just cut the gordion knot (is “gordian” capitalized here? probably) and bought new, better ones. Or so we assumed. Because she, too, reordered an old Amazon purchase, and — who knows! Maybe they were different now too! The box was the same, she noted, but who knows!
And so we come to my profound, professional point that in the old days I woulda run as an essay in AdAge or something (I am saying that too much lately, noted, will stop, permit me this one last time):
Brand has entered a third age, which is paradoxically the first age all over again.
First we had the Lever brothers age — brand as a mark of the trade, as a mark of manufacturing and provenance. A brand was something English chemists used to guarantee that their soap or drugs were reliable and not compounded by some ruffian rapscallion because Dickens tells us that was half of England’s population at the time. First age of brands: manufacturing provenance.
And then it slowly migrated into the second age, as laid out by Naomi Klein in No Logo but of course by that time, the migration had been done for quite some time: the version of brand most of us know today: decoupled from manufacturing, more of a lifestyle and cultural signifier, getting into all that philosophical junk Veblen and Galbraith and their ilk went on about, along with all those philosophers I ignore that people just freakin love. You know the drill: Calvin Klein or Disney or Porsche or Hello Kitty just slapping their name on every damn type of item for a licensing fee, who knows where any of it was made. Second age of brands: cultural licensing signifiers
So here is my theory, maybe we’re entering into a third age of brand where brand actually matters again, in the sense that we need to know where things were made to know if they are even the same freakin thing we bought last time. Except maybe it’s not the official brand name, maybe the brand we care about is… I dunno. The factory or something?
But in any case, I know something is changing with brands because I was walking through the grocery store and I noticed that Rao’s — the greatest pasta sauce — has done all these brand extensions into actual pasta and soup and… Yeah, man, that was a bad move on Rao’s part. People inherently distruct brand extensions now, I think. I love Rao’s but I do not trust them to make good soup. Why would I? I doubt they even make the soup. And if they do, they should spend like $50 million telling everyone, because no one believes this any more.
These latter two observations are somewhat in conflict but also not? I mean, my favorite butter is the Harris Teeter generic brand organic butter. Cheap and organic, that is a rarity. But it does not make me want any more Harris Teeter brands. But if I saw a brand of organic butter that said “made in the same factory as the HT Organics butter!” I would buy that.
Manufacturing provenance.
Blah blah blah words words words.
Barely saw Jane yesterday. But tonight is my bedtime night. I am excited. I got this list of “questions you should ask your kid” from my friend Julia on Facebook and I am going to ask them to Jane tonight. It will be a hoot, just you watch.
Today’s Media of the Day is a mix, justa mix, mostly new stuff. New Ride single last week, no lie it’s the best thing they’ve put out since reuniting. New Sleater-Kinney is great. Mistle-Thrush is on streaming now, as we said last week. Thank you Henry for introducing me to Supercar. The new Warlocks is awesome. Good mix.
Okay I will talk to you peeps tomorrow stay safe out there.
Agreed on Rao's, and larger brand point, and frustratingly agree on bad garbage bag orders!
(also surprised no Pitchfork thoughts? Though not sure what thoughts to have...)
Hi Rick! Just dropping by to say 👋🏼 and I enjoyed the read. Also (lol) I discovered it on Threads ¯\_(ツ)_/¯