My guess is the Commodore Callback will sell, but it would sell a lot better if it was priced lower. I love the idea of it though. Not crazy about the form factor though.
Nick Cave answers a question in the Red Hand Files about whether he has used any of the generative AI music tools.
I often wonder why musicians don’t seem more alarmed by the rise of these songwriting generators. But perhaps I am hopelessly out of touch with how the world functions, and don’t fully understand the immense positive potential they may offer. No doubt there is some truth to this, but at the same time I believe we musicians and songwriters are sleepwalking into a situation where we allow this technology to strip the world of one of the last genuine transcendent experiences left to us – man-made music – by surrendering our souls to a machine. What does this say about us, that we so passively acquiesce? Are we not the valiant knights, the truth-tellers, the beauty-makers, who journey to the dark side, slay the dragon, and bring back the dripping treasure? Are we not the guardians of the world’s soul?
I continue to hold Nick in the highest regard. He is a sage of our time and a damn fine musician.
Dave Eggers on the survival of physical books (and other stuff)
I’ve been listening to Dave Eggers’s appearance on Tetragrammaton over the last few days. I’ve only read two of his books—A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Circle—but I’ve been a fan of his other work for a long time. I subscribed to Might and McSweeney’s when he started them. I think I might even have some McSweeney’s issues sitting in a box somewhere in the garage. They really were special, often exceptionally intricate, artifacts. I loved what he had to say about spending the extra pennies (literally) to make physical books special objects.
I went to Reykjavik and walked the floor of the printing plant. It was all these blonde men with blue jumpsuits. I mean, it was like an Oompa Loompa type of thing. But I could walk around and i’d see they printed all the bibles in Iceland and I could see the Dgilded edges and foil stamping and a leather cover and a ribbon marker and all these beautiful add-ons. I was like how much does that cost to do? Two cents. How much does that cost? Three cents. And you realize that all of these things that make beautiful books really beautiful cost pennies to do and how it’s such a shame when somebody’s not spending the extra six cents to take it from a cheap looking thing to make something really beautiful. And so we became determined to just invest in cloth and color art inside and foil stamps and all of these things that all the printers are ready to do and willing to do. Foldouts and pop-ups and, really, anything that you can imagine, some printer will be able to do it.
Then he gets to heart of it.
I think if we’re going to have physical books survive, you do have to take that extra step. You gotta make these things radically better than looking at a screen. It’s an existential moment where if we don’t do better, then bit by bit people will choose screens because everything is channeled through one object as opposed to having to hold all of these different things and pay for them.
He’s so right. I remain optimistic about physical objects. I think people, especially young people, are so tired of renting everything on screens.
Apparently my Apple Watch Ultra (1st generation) will not be able to upgrade to watchOS 27, which is a bummer. It was released in 2022, which isn’t all that long ago. Four years and now it can’t run the latest watchOS? Pretty lame. It’s my third Apple Watch since they were released and has been the absolute best wrist wearable I’ve had. I did try a Garmin for a while, but the software was offensively awful. Assuming Apple releases a 4th generation Ultra in the fall, I’ll probably get one. I love the heft and especially the battery life, which has held up pretty well. It has 85% maximum capacity remaining. There’s a chance I’ll hold off since iPhone prices are going to increase and I plan to get a new one when they’re released. I’m excited about the foldable, which I’m sure will cost a fortune.
If ever there was a way to get me to go see a movie in a theater, it’s knowing that I might be the only person in the theater. Bless you, Riley Walz (h/t Lisa Olin)
I’ve always admired Craig Newmark, especially his approach to philanthropy. The fact that he’s being put in a position to defend his philanthropy is absurd.
Related: I enjoyed his appearance on Tyler Cowan’s podcast.
Shiny Frog, the fine people who make the wonderful Bear app have a new Markdown editor called Lettera. It’s currently in beta and looks great. (h/t Sippey)
John Gruber has a nice write-up about Cotypist. Like John, I actually enjoy writing, so I don’t end up using it for writing much, but I find Cotypist absolutely indispensable for everything else. Also worth mentioning that I am using Superwhisper for voice-to-text input. I use local models so nothing is sent to the cloud. All of these cool tools that run locally and aren’t dependent on the cloud, I think, are going to be the future.
“being real with yourself” is the most important cognitive skill for the AI age
AI makes it easier to lie to yourself. you gotta be able to honestly answer: am I actually thinking with AI, or am I letting it do the hard part for me? is this uessay/product/business a good idea, or did AI convince me it was?
then you won’t need hard rules like “always/never use AI for X.” if you pay attention and avoid self-deception, you can feel when you are doing real work
From Jasmine Sun on Substack Notes via Diana Kimball Berlin via Robin Sloan
It’s not even optimistic to say we have to try, it’s just necessary. To give up, to stop trying, is to accept that things can’t change. As Audre Lorde put it: “despair is a tool of our enemies.” Despair is a gift to those that want you to believe that what we’ve got is all we’ll get and there’s no way to make things better.
From *A pep talk in the face of despair (or: trying redux)* by Dan Sinker