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Putting a slide deck together (outside of work), despite agreeing with Tufte on this matter. I’ll also create a handout that tells the story better than the slides and deliver that, too, but was asked to produce a slide deck, and I think that’s part of the “effort theater.”
Using Beamer for the slides, but not a theme that looks like Beamer because humans have eyes.
I started blogging… again
mataherry.bearblog.dev
(Opinion) People don’t like generative AI because it made the {insert creativity} too easy. Saw the HN post on ‘AI music banned from top 40 chart in Australia’ and people had very strong opinions in both directions.
The hot take: If you’re ok with someone’s creativity being outsourced to others, then you should be ok with AI doing the same.
If “AI made this and I call it mine” is bad but “someone overseas on fivver made this and I call it mine” and it’s suddenly ok, time to self reflect.
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My hot take: from the moment you use technology, be it an instrument, a synthesizer, a DAW, and now AI, it is still your idea, your effort, your time spent, and that makes it yours. Others can do the same if they choose. The same way someone chooses a classic guitar over a synthesizer, one can choose an AI over (insert ancient way of doing things).
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You’re rolling the dice whenever you are searching for a sample or a preset in a synthesizer. Eventually it’s what “sounds good”, so still the effort is your judgement and the time spent finding that “dice roll” that sounded well.
I am not a musician, so I lack the jargon to properly explain what I mean.
I used AI for creative writing (nothing too fancy, TTRPG). There, the broader the dice roll, the more generic and uninteresting the results. Slop, if you will. It was surprisingly good to build up on ideas I had however.
I imagine muisic also has building blocks. Melodies, instruments, mixing, etc. AI can perhaps be used in a similar fashion there.
I heard a perspective I sort of like: if AI is a tool then acceptable AI use is, more or less, defined as "when my audience no longer notices or cares". It's dynamic like that. Bad photoshop is detectable and annoying, so are overusing presets. Your artistry needs to expand to meet the tool.
I don't know if I 100% like that or agree. At the same time, it's a pretty straightforward line, a practical take.
Ordered JBL Charge 6, waiting for delivery today. Will mount into my bike and will listen to music while commuting 25km to the office. I'm a victim of marketing, seeing an ad, buying stuff.
Many leaders acquire authority through ambition and manipulation. I’m not referring to them.
But a test of leadership for those who acquire authority organically, with the will of those being led, is to maintain the zeal and principles which put you into that position, after you encounter the machinery designed to exhaust, exasperate, deter, and demoralize.
I was curious of testing the Omarchy distribution this week just because I had some free time to work on it. I saw a lot of hate around it and kind of get the point but so far at least for what I have been doing it wasn't terrible (at least at the point of writing this) although I am not trying to convince anybody to use it. But it just remember me how much do I hate MS.