June 18th Newsletter
Thought for the week: Sometimes taking action is careful planning and organization, thinking through roles, responsibilities and structure. Sometimes it’s acting now and thinking less. It’s important to know the difference.
I recently bought a home and I've had a million questions about home maintenance and I'm just getting started. I built a little app to help with this.
Introducing the New Homeowners Hub
If you like it, toss me a little tip. Thanks!
Thanks for the coffee! paypal.me/JeffreyC184
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I've been building out my store.
You'll find several guides available for purchase, as well as preview chapters available to download.
Data analyst jumpstart - covers my process for data analytics work
AI guide - I've been testing and learning about generative AI for over a year, this will help you skip all of that
Much more!
There have been several episodes lately on Ryan Broaderick’s podcast “Garbage Day” about how we all have relatives and friends that have lost themselves in internet conspiracy theories. It’s not just themselves that are being lost, it’s relationships with those around them.
I suspect you have someone in your life who’s gone off the deep end (or maybe is swimming in the deep end) of internet conspiracy theories. Whether it’s anti-vaccine nonsense, paranoia over immigration, drag queen story hours, or even holocaust denial, I suspect we all have a relative or friend that’s read so many posts that they’ve gone a little bonkers.
I have seen many theories about how to combat this - everything from cutting off the relationship to arguing with them to just trying to ignore it.
I have an idea that I think is actually better than all of those.
The problem is the technology! Address the problem.
If they’re a Facebook head
Facebook wants you addicted to their application.
They want you mad or scared because their data shows that if you’re mad and scared, you’ll stay on their app and look at more ads.
If something you’re reading is making you mad or scared, that is Facebook trying to show you more ads.
If you don’t want to see more ads, close the app.
The problem isn’t the conspiracy theory, per se, it’s that their brain can’t handle the torrent of bullshit that Facebook throws at them to keep them addicted.
Maybe we should all try that one to counter the torrent of bullshit.
Lest you think it’s just your crazy uncle or your friend from high school and doesn’t matter, I assure you that there are people who have been brain broken by Facebook at the highest levels of every organization and government in the world.
Save the people in your life and we might save the world.
I am a big podcast guy, I listen to an astonishing amount of music but nearly every time I'm listening to my phone I'm listening to a podcast. Maybe I just need more human voices while I'm working from home (that I can turn off when I get tired of them).
I haven't, knowingly, listened to an AI podcast.
I'm not sure if I would like this or even notice if the voices and conversation sounded human.
This is what I mean about AI forcing us into this odd space with regard to human interaction.
Is a human enough interaction enough that people will start to not care if it's AI generated?
I think the uptake of AI generated media will be correlated with whether people like the content, not who made it or even who's talking.
We are in for a weird ride, particularly for us older folks.
Speaking of AI and social media, the other thing that seems to be a growing trend is AI and social media being used for surveillance.
Imagine a world where your drivers license gets scanned at the airport and the AI generates a report on who you are in seconds.
This isn't only possible, it appears to be already happening.
There are people getting turned away at airports for what they've posted about, it's no big secret how they're doing this. Deep research from chatgpt and Google, with guardrails off, could knock this out before you got through the security line.
Some might say that I shouldn't be posting on the Internet using my government name in this environment. Probably true.
You can either choose to live in fear or fight for the world you want. I know what I'm choosing. Do you?
As political violence has escalated in the US, I think my perspective has changed on what thoughts this violence triggers in me.
Obviously it’s horrifying and that’s my first thought.
The next thought is “what are they reading online”.
And weirdly, a scarier thought, “who else has read the same thing”.
When I see cops provoking protestors, I wonder where the cops congregate online and what they’re reading there.
I wonder what that guy who killed the politicians was exposed to online. You can take some guesses based on what he did and some of his previous work, I definitely wouldn’t rule out this being a qanon guy.
Or the sheriff in Florida who felt the need to give a wrestling promo before the protests there. What website and content had him so fired up and scared?
People are getting brain poisoning and it’s leaking out of their ears and into more and more violence.
