My Weekly Creative Summary for the Week of 2023/46

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The sunset is near where I’m living. That one was great back a few years ago, during summer. Can you feel the heat? #sunset #colorfulsunset #clouds #iloveclouds

pixelfed

I could call this week: the week of AI experimentation with ChatGPT. I played a lot with ChatGPT, Dall-E during the week.

👨🏻‍💻 11 articles posted on my blog posts & 2 articles shared on my main website 🙂
🏞️ 12 photos shared 🙂
🎙️ No podcast episode published 😔
📺 2 YouTube videos published 😃

📖 Reading

1️⃣ “Some things don’t change and won’t change. Only the tools used to convey those lies change – from high priests and mass media to social networks and artificial intelligence.” — Om Malik 2️⃣ “ChatGPT is the most important consumer-facing product since the iPhone” — Ben Thompson

🗺️ Discoveries

1️⃣ I made my first GPT: Describe this photo. I use it to create the ALT description of a photo when posting on Pixelfed. It's super handy and generally 100x better and much faster than what I would do. Making a GPT is easy and requires a paid subscription to ChatGPT. 2️⃣ I'm also learning more about ChatGPT query formulation for text and image generation. 3️⃣ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Is Out, apparently.

👨🏻‍💻 Writing

1️⃣ This weekly newsletter is another creative project similar to another monthly newsletter I published a while ago (The Numeric Citizen Introspection Newsletter — what a weird name!). The last issue (edition #24) can be found here and was published about a year ago. Looking at this weekly newsletter, I can see a few points in common with my previous project. I’m more confident in this weekly version because of its nature: writing about my creative journey instead of sharing my discoveries made during the month.

🌄 Photography

1️⃣ In the exhibit section below, you'll find one of my photos of a guy walking in a park by night. It's very dark, but lights along the walking path light up the scene. This image was uploaded to test Dall-E, an image generation engine from OpenAI, as input to my query, and Dall-E created a beautiful black-and-white illustration. I find the results impressive and beautiful. What's more amazing is that a machine or set of machines could produce such a result based on learning a massive amount of data. I mean, that's something that any capable artist would have created in days if not weeks. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what Dall-E (and Midjourney) can come up with. 2️⃣ Now, one question: is the resulting image still one of mine with copyrights? 🤔

🎙️ Podcasting

1️⃣ I’m often thinking of publicly, while on Micro.blog, to ask for volunteers for an interview for recording a podcast. I’m pretty sure I would be good at this. Interviews generally make great podcast episodes! Who's in? 🤔

🍎 Apple

1️⃣ Apple software is generally stable and without too many issues for me. But I would say that things are not so bug-free since this year’s releases (iPadOS 17, iOS 17, etc.). Like for the wine, there are good years and bad years. I wouldn't consider this year as a good one for Apple. A recent report by Bloomberg states that Apple, for a week, paused all new development so that the developers could focus on fixing bugs. What? This is not how software development at scale works. And this link post from 9to5Mac is good at stating the possible reasons. However, the article fails to mention the possible work related to adding the required change to enable third-party App Store support for next year. I think this isn't necessarily easy to tweak. 2️⃣ Similarly, fixing software requires much effort, especially for operating systems. Apple has a lot on its plate. A somewhat well-known developer started asking other developers to boycott one crucial tool that Apple depend on: The Feedback Assistant. Why this boycott? Because he thinks that Apple doesn't care enough to process them and pay attention to fixing bugs reported within the tool. If you use Feedback Assistant, consider reading this article. I remember using Feedback Assistant in two scenarios: when I was an indie iOS developer (2009-2013) and as a regular user testing their beta releases. I would say that I got replies from the engineer in many cases. My experience might be representative, though.

🚧 Special projects

1️⃣ Since releasing the subscription for The Craft Bible on Gumroad, I spent quite some time working on its content. I want this thing to expand because it fills a big void in the Craft community. People like to go to one place and find all related information curated by a Craft enthusiast and experienced user. I find this project to be exciting and gratifying. Eventually, the intensity of my contribution will stabilize when Craft gets to a certain level of maturity. But for now, there is much to be done for the Craft company or myself.

📱 Apps & Services

1️⃣ As you might know already, I've been testing Midjourney and Dall-E for a while now. I'm trying to figure out which of the two I prefer. Both are impressive, but their interaction mode with the end-user differs. I find Midjourney to be easier to grasp as a beginner. I feel in control of the outcome. Dall-E's simplicity makes it harder to master because everything happens in a written conversation. I'm getting started to write an article about this; I'm gathering all my thoughts and observations. At some point, I'll probably need to drop one of them because of money! 2️⃣ I encountered a severe bug in Craft the very same day I was about to record my YouTube video introducing the Craft Bible v2.0: all images weren't displaying on the website, affecting my subscribers! I couldn't record without using Craft, the app, to demo the website, which was awkward. I'm not sure if people who watched the video noticed this. I involved the Craft team to help me on this early morning, and I got a dedicated guy who helped me out... 3️⃣ Still no Craft update this week. The last one was on October 16th. It's been over a month. The team behind Craft might be working on something more significant to close the year. 4️⃣ Notion is out with another update: “Ask AI" to search through your Notion workspace. As you might expect from the feature name, you can search inside your workspace by asking questions and getting all the places where the content is available. Very interesting. This is something that I’d like to see coming to Craft, for sure. *️⃣ I often mention Raycast, a Mac utility for helping with a gazillion different things. They started an affiliate program for paying subscribers like me. If you subscribe using this link, you get one month free; I get one month free. It's a win-win deal! Get it!

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Personal

1️⃣ I got two vaccine shots this week: COVID and the flu. They hit me hard. 🤒

📺 YouTube

1️⃣ Early in the week, I produced the video announcing the release of The Craft Bible 2.0. It's a shorter than usual video, less than 10 minutes, and I'm okay with the end results. I felt the need to create this video to explain in more detail what's new with version 2 and how potential subscribers can subscribe. 2️⃣ It didn't take long before a user complained about subscription fatigue. In return, I asked if he would be willing to make a one-time purchase instead. I think I already know the answer. 🤔 3️⃣ I had enough time Saturday to create a second YouTube video about Craft and task management. A guy on Reddit found my approach to be a bit "trollish”. 🤔

🔮 Looking ahead

1️⃣ I’m really looking forward to my DJing course (four weeks) next week. It's a twelve-hour course. I’ve always been fascinated by music, and electronic music is the closest to what I'm willing to explore for music mixing. 2️⃣ A Craft update is planned for next week, and I’m looking forward to it. It's been more than a month since the previous release.

I wish you a great week!

Exhibits 👀