ChatGPT is Addie LaRue

I’m re-reading one of my favorite novels, a book that I still posit is too similar to the a favorite movie of mine to be a mere concidence. While listening to the audiobook I was struck by the character’s struggle. 

Mild spoilers ahead.

Adaline is cursed to a world that can’t remember her beyond the initial interaction she has. If she walks through a doorway they’ll forget her and she’s back to square one. 

The thing she longs for is a memory, a later, something beyond the here and now. 

In a way that’s like dealing with ChatGPT. You wish it would remember, that it would go beyond the now and hold the past in mind when asking it questions.

Simple posts

Maybe it’s the journey of each digital designer. We start out with drop shadows, bezels, fancy gradients and swirls, and explore the world around us. Eventually, if we keep at it long enough, many of us turn toward monochrome as the embodiment of all that is perfection.

Take this site, for instance. My ideas for it have morphed over the years, now it’s as simple as I can make it. Granted, not as simple as I can imagine, but I’m too lazy to keep pushing.

So, Daft Social caught my eye today and I love it. If that could by my blog I’d do it. 

For now I’ll admire it from afar and think about tweaking my theme some more.

Podcasts are personal

I just caught up on a bunch of my favorite podcasts today while going around the house cleaning. 

Podcasting has become one of my favorite methods of consuming information that I enjoy. That, along with listening to books on Audible, takes up a huge amount of my day. 

If I’m not talking to someone, I’m probably listening to Apple Music, a podcast, or Audible. My life, career, and personal interests have been shaped by the spoken word, and I love it. 

My podcast player of choice is Overcast, but if you’ve never use a podcast player before Apple or Google’s defaults are fine. 

Consuming the world through audio isn’t for everyone, some people prefer to consume video or text on a screen in longform or short form. All of those are fun for me, but pale in comparison to the joy I get from listening. If you’re new to podcasting, I’d like to recommend some of my favorites:

Accidental Tech Podcast

I’ve listened to this one for years, and rarely miss an episode. The dynamic of three friends talking about tech, and often waxing poetic on very random topics, is endearing and makes catching up on the news a lot of fun. I love Casey Liss as the narrator, walking us through the show, and sometimes playing the “normal” person on the team, someone who (at least when I started to listen) had to watch his budget, couldn’t buy every toy they talked about, and often didn’t have the deep knowledge one very topic; but knew enough to explain it to the rest of us. Pair that with Marco, his childhood friend, and person with enough money to buy every toy, along with his incredibly background as a developer and lover of technology, and it’s enough to pull me in every week for their dynamic.

However, the piece that pulls the whole thing together for me is the added element of Siracusa, the third member that completes the trifecta. John is the Eeyore to the Tigger and Pooh of the show, the one to really dive into things, almost always be right, and whose topic tangeants are never too long, even if they go on for a half hour. If you are feeling overwhelmed by this entire list, but have a passing interest in technology, I’d start with ATP. 

Also, I’ve been a member on and off, and the member specials are hilarious and worth paying for.

Bald Move

Whenever I’m into a popular new television show, such as The Last of Us, I’ll often check if Bald Move has a feed just for that show, and I’ll follow them for the length of the season. It’s two friends who love to geek out on movies and shows. 

Connected

Three friends who talk about tech. That’s the tagline. However, the reason I stay is because of the inside jokes, the cultural differences between an American, Italian, and Britain (British?), the game shows, and so much more. This pairs well with ATP above, and is a fantastic compliment each week. Even when both shows touch on the same topic, they do it in a different enough way that I find a lot of value. Also, I started listening to podcasts back with Myke on the Pen Addict. That, along with Leo Laporte’s Twit was my introduction to podcasts, and anything Myke’s done since has been so fun to follow. 

Downstream

I love everything Jason Snell does, and when he started a podcast to talk about the streaming players I knew I had to listen. It’s been such a joy to follow, and unexpectedly became related to my day job (a story for another day).

Do By Friday

I don’t know Merlin, so if he ever reads this I hope he won’t take offense, but I struggled to get “into” him as a podcaster for a while. All of the rabbit holes, inside jokes, strange sense of humor, and seeming disconnected story lines, made him hard to follow. However, between this show and Reconciliable Differences (shared below) I’ve come to love his style of storytelling and talking. I’ve followed long enough to track where he’s going with things, and really love the tangeants he takes.

That’s a LONG way of saying I really like this podcast now, and he and Alex Cox nail some incredibly important and touchy topics while having fun and navigating the human experience together. 

Hardcore History

Dan is a storyteller at heart. If we lived in a cave thousands of years in the past he’d be the one commissioned by the tribe to spin tales around the campfire at night. It doesn’t matter the topic, if Dan is going to dive in I’m ready to listen. 

If you enjoy hearing stories of history, and losing yourself in hours upon hours of content on specific stories and eras, then this podcast is for you. If you’re not sure what to start with I’d recommend the Wrath of the Khans or the Death Throes of the Republic. Both of them are older, so you’ll have to pay, but they’re worth every penny. If you’re not sure feel free to listen in on the more recent ones for free.

Dithering, Greatest Of All Talk, Sharp Tech, Stratechery

I’ve bundled these podcasts together because they’re all part of a bundle. You have to pay to listen to all of it (although some of it is free to listen), but with a single monthly membership you get everything. I love listening to each of these, whether it’s hearing Ben Thompson and John Gruber dive into the latest tech news, hearing Andrew Sharp and Ben Golliver talk basketball each week, hearing Ben Thompson and Andrew Sharp talk tech, or listening Ben Thompson’s daily updates in audio form. Because Ben has bundled these together I get it all for the same price, so I consume most of it, and even tried Sharp China for a while (I stopped because it felt too much like normal world news, which I’ve tried to avoid to reduce my stress). 

If I’d recommend ATP as the first podcast, I’d recommend the Stratechery Plus bundle if you’re interested in paying anything. I’ve found it’s helped me in my job as a product designer in the startup space, giving me a way to contextualize tech news from the lense of a fantastic analyst. 

The next four podcasts I’ll list are all part of a bundle from Ben Thompson. Also, Ben and I both worked at the same company; separated by almost a decade of course, but I’ll still count it!

Reconciliable Differences

This, along with Do by Friday, were what finally won me over to Merlin. He jumps into the show seemingly unprepared (except by 50+ years of life experience) and rambles on while John (from ATP) tries to keep him in line. It’s a perfect pairing of two fantastic hosts, and I love hearing any topic they go into.

The Talk Show

This is one of the hardest formats to pull off. While every other show has a two or three hosts to pair off each other, John (at least now, he had a co-host in the past) is the only host, and each episode he brings on a new or recurring guest to chat. It’s a format that could be boring, where each interview feels like the last. But John has a charm to him, he has the ability to make an interview not feel like an interview.

Now, granted, sometimes it means he does most of the talking and really dives into topics he loves, but it works well. One of my favorite guests is when Craig Hockenberry comes on and gives John a run for his money in terms of talking over John. It’s hilarious. This show does such a great job of spending hours on a topic or a theme and the guests just enjoy the time together. While I’d welcome being a guest on any of these fantastic podcasts, this would probably be the greatest fanboy moment for me to make it on the talk show. 

Under the Radar

This is one of the calmest podcast I listen to. It’s two indie iOS developrs who talk about the process and philosophy behind building businesses based on Apple’s ecosystem. It’s such a delight to hear their anecoddates, and David feels like a wise sage walking through the dos and don’ts of making a great app.

Upgrade

Two of my favorite hosts of other shows come together to talk about tech, what could be better? This is almost like a bonus show, since I regularly listen to content from each host on other podcasts. But I enjoy upgrade and usually catch each one.

Honorable mention – Rocket

I’m so dissapointed that Rocket has ended. I’m not sure why they stopped, but I loved listening to each episde as these fantastic hosts walked through the tech news. I’m hoping at least one or any of them will start up a new show soon. 

While this may seem like a long list, there are actually more podcasts I listen to. However, these are the ones (except for Bald Move, which is a special case) where I catch nearly every episode they come out with. 

One trick I’ve used over the years is to sometimes listen to a show at 1.5x or 2.5x speed. This is where Overcast does such a great job of handling the speed change. When I do speed up the shows it’s often to passively listen (like the radio of old) while working.

If you’ve gotten this far I’d like to also recommend my own podcasts. One is a tech podcast, inspired heavily by ATP, Connected, and Under the Radar, and the other is a topical podcast; focused on remote work culture and working in tech in general. I am also working on a few other podcast ideas, including one shaped more like The Talk Show (I love the idea of different conversations each week with different people) but don’t have anything to announce yet. 

Making an app

I love the short form video that the folks behind Halide put together. They’re working on an app, and sharing the process behind that app. Their exploration of their process feels real, feels natural, and doesn’t seem to be screaming for me to give them attention. It’s just a few folks sharing about something they love. That’s what I aspire to. Great job!

Improving my audio for Zoom calls

 

I co-host a few podcasts with friends, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to make my voice sound better over Zoom and in audio in general. I’m still learning, so I welcome any feedback on this. 

For anyone curious, here’s my setup so far. 

For my microphone I use a Yeti mic. They’re average quality, and really cheap to get started. There are many other mics that are better (and I have some of them), but for simplicity I’d just grab a Yeti to start out. 

If that’s all you do you’ll be golden and sound quality will shoot through the roof compared to using your laptop’s built in mic or even the mics on most headphones. 

———

If you’re looking for ways to improve audio quality even further read on.

Buy a pop filter. It smoothes out your harsh vowel sounds (like the letter P). It’s super easy to install, just slide it over the top of the Yeti. 

Get a desk boom arm. The stand that comes with the yeti sucks. It’s too short and it picks up the vibrations of typing on the computer. I’ve used Yeti’s branded one for years and it’s good enough to start out with. If you have a little more cash to spend my friend and podcast co-host loves a different brand, and it seems a bit better in quality.

Get a shock mount. The best microphone stand comes from the floor or ceiling, but isn’t practical in a lot of home office setups. Mounting your boom to the desk is fine, if you have a shock mount. They’re cheap and worth getting. 

If you’re on a computer with USB-C you’ll also want to make sure you have a USB-A to USB-C adapter since Yeti doesn’t support USB-C yet. 

—— — 

For using the Yeti always make sure the Yeti blue logo is facing straight toward your mouth. Don’t speak into the top of the microphone, but rather toward the blue logo. It should be roughly six inches from your mouth. I keep mine just a bit below my chin so it doesn’t cover my face on video calls. 

If you get Yeti’s boom arm, you’ll want to place it behind the desk facing toward you. 

That’s it! You’ll sound amazing. I personally turn the gain all the way down, and speak right into the mic. That seems to work the best for sound so it doesn’t pick up background noise as much. I also use the cardioid pattern (the little heart icon) since it’s just me using the mic and I’m not sharing with someone else in the same room.

Also, I make sure to plug my laptop into ethernet instead of wireless. It’s made a big difference with sound quality.

I’ve been considering a Ring doorbell for a while. Our house currently has no doorbell. We ripped it out during a renovation and never installed a new one.

A few weeks ago I bought one as a Black Friday special. But I just couldn’t bring myself to set it up. I finally opted for something more low tech. On Amazon I found a sound only doorbell. Kind of a novel idea at this point, but so far I’m loving it. Easy to setup and no worries of a third-party camera tracking our family’s movements. 

Self Publishing Plagiarism

A recent post on Reddit has me incredibly frustrated right now. Now, before I go on, I’ll say that none of this has been proven yet. But I find it damning nonetheless given the evidence shared. A Redditor started poking around with Mark Dawson’s published books and checking into phrases he’d written that felt unique. Many of those phrases were copied from other books published before. At first the examples seem hapinstance. Like, I’m sure some of the books I’ve written have similar phrases, but then the list just keeps going on and on. 

This is maddening. I’ve written seven novels, and plucked up the courage to self-publish three of them. It took time. It was a lot of fun, and I loved every moment of it. I didn’t copy from someone else, I didn’t use AI to generate phrases, I hand crafted these books and made something that spoke to me, art that mattered. 

Where did I get my inspiration from? Not from copying phrases in other books, but rather from the world around me, from the dozens of novels I’ve read as inspiration, but not as theft. 

I’ll follow this closely and see if it comes out as true or not, but if true I think Mark Dawson owes a massive apology to the thousands of self-published fans who have followed his materials, listened to his podcast, purchased his courses. 

I’ll give him a chance to correct this, of course. I appreciate so much of what he’s done. But this doesn’t fit the spirit of what I consider drawing inspiration from other sources. 

Scars

Many of us carry scars from the life we’ve lived so far. Some real, some invisible. As we move through life and experience new situations, whether in work or otherwise, we have to adjust in realtime to how things have gone before and try to figure out whether to accept a new situation or put our defenses. 

Often kindness and understanding goes a long way toward providing a sense of safety and encouraging us to push outside our comfort zones.

Hard, not impossible

Work should feel challenging. It should feel hard to do because it pushes our curiosity and comfort zones. But it shouldn’t feel impossible. We should feel safe, trusted, and capable. It’s so tricky to find the right balance of all these elements to make a difference and throw ourselves into the fray. When you find it? Hold tight and follow the ride. 

Energy for today

For the past few months I’ve started to notice a trend. On the days where I put out a lot of energy, I often feel worn out the next day. I’ve learned to be more kind to myself and not try to force things. The rollercoaster of energy moves throughout the week, and the best thing to do is acknowledge it and find ways to work aroudn it. 

Don’t be a correctness bully

We don’t work along the lines of negative reinforcement. We work on the lines of positive reinforcement. We seek out things are beneficial, trigger positive emotions, and feel constructive. So don’t be a correctness bully.

Great article

I’ve been working on this. I used to do it all the time and now I’m trying to find ways to positively encourage instead of just telling someone that I think they’re wrong.

Is flat design over?

Flat design became a thing and we saw an overnight shift in design approach for interfaces when Apple introduced iOS 7 in 2013. They certainly took elements that other manufacturers were already implementing but the impact Apple has on the rest of the industry (as a trend-setter) cannot be matched.

iOS 7 saw a massive jump in design language for iOS. Apple introduced a much simpler and flatter design compared to its predecessor’s more complex and skeuomorphic design. Tim Cook called it “the biggest change to iOS since iPhone.”

I remember when that shift happened. I installed an early beta of iOS 7 and was blown away by the change. Now, slowly, icons and logos are bringing back some life and color. I love it. Recommend checking out the article, has some great examples

What we do with what we have

We don’t always have the option to choose between the options presented to us, but we do have the choice in how we react to those choices, how we let it control us, how we let it fill our minds. 

My heart goes out to those who are suffering, struggling, trying to figure their way out through this life. Many of my friends and family are dealing with challenges, and I think of them, help where I can, listen where I can. 

The older I get the more I see life for what it is, a beautiful chaotic challenging terrifying exhilarating journey that each of us take. It’s messy, it’s messed up, and many times it snuffs out those who are the best. 

All I can do is push forward each day, try to love others as best I can, and try to do a little bit to add something kind and loving to the world. 

Voice memos

Years ago my brother started texting me with voice messages. It drove me crazy. I couldn’t process the audio as quickly, had to pause and listen to it, and it in general disrupted the flow of communication. It started up around the time he got into the Apple Watch. It was easier for him to fire off a voice message to me than to type anything, and at the time Siri was far from reliable (an argument could be made for that still, of course, but iOS 17 speech to text is actually good!). 

I complained to him, but it didn’t stop the incoming barage of voice from him. I finally accepted and adopted the practice myself. I LOVE it. I can’t imagine ever going back. There’s something about sharing the inflection of my voice, my emotions and thoughts, and just sharing without editing, that is extremely compelling as a communication form. As a millenial who avoids phone calls when possible, I find voice messages the perfect middle ground. We can asyncronousy share the rich detail of voice without having to plan a call. 

Because of all that I’m extremely excited that my friends are starting to adopt iOS 17, that means that the voice messages are starting to appear transcribed on my phone! So, I can listen if I have time, but I can also scan the text that appears alongside the audio. It’s perfect, and it’s my favorite form of communication now.

Update: My brother seems to remember it differently, that I sent him voice messages first and he finally adopted it. Let the record show that I think I was right. 

Amateur presenting

This article from Seth is on pointe. I recently hear a great presentation from someone, and was amazed at how well it was put together. There were even decently timed jokes, and a valuable message tied together. I thought after that I didn’t feel I could pull off that type of presentation, but I do have things I want to share. Taking the approach Seth mentioned would be authentic to me, and I feel I could pull it off. 

Writing daily

For a couple of years I wrote 1,000 words per day. I did that six days a week and wrote out hundreds of thousands of words. It was one of the best practices for unlocking my brain and removing the fear of a blank page. Now if I need to say something I let loose without any concern for what’s coming out, write it, then revise after. Writing and revising at the same time never work for me. 

Sleep on it

Some days I spend an innordinate amount of time trying to perfect a design. I wrestle with the tinest details, go over it again and again, iterate, and try to get it to a point where I’m happy with it. 

Then I sleep on it, and in the cold light of the morning have a strong sense of the things I can do to make it better. Something about sleep separates me from my work, helps me to see it from an outside perspective and critically evaluate how it can be improved. 

Also, I drew what I thought was the perfect illustration last night, and this morning it looks like absolute chaos; and not in a good way.

Listening to my books

I like to write. I’ve written a few novels for fun and plugged away at them each day with a thousand words. For years I’ve tried to figure out a way to listen back to the words I wrote each day. Maybe I’ve missed something obvious, but nothing up to this point was working.

That changed today, though! I successfully found a workflow. 

I write my thousand words, or in this case, the start of my book, and paste that into descript (premium license required). Then, using their AI voices, I have it generate that into an MP3. I then upload that MP3 to Overcast (requires a premium subscription), my podcast player, and can then listen back to it while I run or go about my chores. 

It’s pretty amazing. Granted the voice isn’t that great yet, but it’s just enough to listen and get a sense for things. I love it. 

Nobody knows what they’re doing

We’re all kind of figuring out life as we move through it. In my experience those who are the most brazen about their superiority and feigned understanding of all things are often the ones most uncertain themselves.

I recently chatted with a friend, a generation older than me, about her own experiences on a topic that interested both of us. I asked her a few questions on the topic and was surprised at her responses. 

“I’m still learning about that.”

“That’s something I’m not sure about.”

“I hope to be able to study that more.” 

These were the tone of her responses on a topic that she frankly knows far more than me on. Her grace in having a learning mind, a willingness to keep discovering new things, was both refreshing and humbling. 

I hope to embed that thinking into my own brain, to be humble, to keep learning, and to ask questions.