First Impressions of Substack Notes: Decouple Subscriptions From Email
I paused Twitter last year not wanting to be part of the Elon Musk hypocrisy show. When Elon Musk purchased Twitter (and I made a small profit on my shares), I had high hopes. I wanted Twitter to succeed and be a bigger and better platform than it already was to me.
Twitter had served me well: I discovered new trends and technologies and learned from a people I came to trust. Often their opinions pointed to newsletters or articles. Somehow the vileness and trollosphere of Twitter had escaped me. Yet, the Twitter threads had to go.
Enter Substack, the subscription newsletter and long form platform, with Substack Notes.
Substack serves free and subscription newsletters. With Substack Notes, the platforms allows to you comment and share recommendations and opinions on those newsletters. Substack Notes is free, although the newsletters may not be.
This post is for Paid Subscribers.
At first glance, Substack Notes matches most of my reason to be on Twitter, without being sucked into doom-scrolling. Happy mind.
I can appreciate that the platform supports content creators through built-in subscriptions. Perhaps it is indeed easier to add comments to newsletters, than it is to add subscriptions and long form to Twitter
My main beef is with the Substack email-subscription model, more so than with Substack Notes: how can you to follow somebody without getting more email?
Generally, I am not the biggest fan of email newsletters. Who needs one more email? Instead, I favorite Read-Later applications like Matter, Pocket, or InstaPaper. (What happened to RSS anyway and why did Google kill Google Reader?)
My temporary workaround is not working. I subscribe to newsletters using my Matter App direct-to-queue email address. The intent is so newsletters show up in my Matter App and not in my inbox. Unfortunately, these type of subscriptions do not show up in my Substack app nor in my Substack Notes subscriber list.
Substack subscription options appear to be “In email and app” or “Only in email”. The “Smart notification (get notified in app or email, not both)” is a mystery to me.
Bottom line: allow subscriptions without getting an email.
April 13, 2023
This Week in the World of Artificial Intelligence
Here are a few things I learned this week about the fast moving field of artificial intelligence.
Lawyers are wakening up and entering unchartered legal waters. Ars Technica had a nice article on the imminent legal earthquake for AI.
“Stability AI has copied more than 12 million photographs from Getty Images’ collection, along with the associated captions and metadata, without permission from or compensation to Getty Images,” Getty wrote in its lawsuit. Legal experts tell me that these are uncharted legal waters.
The larger concern, Sag told me, is that these infringing outputs could “make the whole fair use defense unravel.” The core question in fair use analysis is whether a new product acts as a substitute for the product being copied or whether it “transforms” the old product into something new and distinctive. In the Google Books case, for example, the courts had no trouble finding that a book search engine was a new, transformative product that didn’t in any way compete with the books it was indexing. Google wasn’t making new books. Stable Diffusion is creating new images. And while Google could guarantee that its search engine would never display more than three lines of text from any page in a book. Stability AI can’t make a similar promise. On the contrary, we know that Stable Diffusion occasionally generates near-perfect copies of images from its training data.
ChatGPT lies. We’ve heard it or seen it in action. There is a lot of focus on the quality of the results. Using Github Copilot to solve Simple Programming Problems evaluates limitations of OpenAI’s Codex natural language model and of CoPilot in an education setting.
https://github.blog/2023-03-22-github-copilot-x-the-ai-powered-developer-experience/ shows how advances to aid developers are coming fast and furious. Key will be to understand how these work, while protecting your company’s IP. It is one thing to have this work for you on open source projects. It is another to have this run on your proprietary code. Some clarity around this will be important.
I also heard about GPT4all, a chatbot trained on a massive collection of clean assistant data including code, stories and dialogue](https://github.com/nomic-ai/gpt4all. The GPT4All Technical Report is still a bit gibberish to me currently.
Steven Wolfram getting giddy about AI validates this is something to pay attention to.
People have been wondering what Meta has been up to. Last week, they released SAM - that’s not a bot. Meta released the Segment Anything Model (SAM), which aims to revolutionize image segmentation. That seems to be more a building block for other systems.
I closed out the week reading Stanford’s AI Index report.
April 9, 2023
This Week in the World of Artificial Intelligence
Here are a few things I learned this week about the fast moving field of artificial intelligence.
The Future of Life Institute letter to pause giant AI experiments may have had a chance if it didn’t have the name Elon Musk attached to it. It is difficult to take him serious at this time.
… we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.
AI-powered magic erasers galore: Canva and Google Photos (even without the new Pixel 8) both offer powerful magic erasers. “We had to fire Phoebe … erase her from the company picture!” … “That’s a nice picture of you in Hawaii, did you go alone? … no, it was our honeymoon but I erase him after the divorce.” … or Shaggy now has (doctered) photographic proof: “It wasn’t me!”.
After listening to the last MFM podcast episode on Brainstorming ChatGPT Business Ideas With Billionaire Dharmesh Shah, I head over to chat.com and chatspot.ai. (Prompt.com is still being transitioned over to Dharmesh, he mentioned.)
Thanks to AI, now we all can rap like Kanye West.
Adobe not to be outdone by DAL-E pitched Adobe Firefly. I started to experiment with DAL-E for images for my presentations. Firefly seems a bit more impressive to that goal. I added myself to the Beta list.
April 2, 2023
March AIDS/Lifecycle Training Recap
This month, I logged 263 miles, climbed over 11,000 ft, and achieved 192 personal records, in rain and sunshine. I suffered up the stiff climbs of Sierra, Shannon, and Kennedy Roads. You can see a few of my travels on my Instagram Reels.
In addition, I rode a few hours on my indoor trainer, watching the Flemish cycling shows (Vive Le Velo and Wielerclub Wattage), leading up to the Ronde Van Vlaanderen this Sunday.
My fitness level has peaked in Strava at 102. The rainy days became mandatory recovery breaks and allowed me to not overtrain. My weight unfortunately hasn’t dropped as I hoped for.
Those California storms and atmospheric river also freed up time to get my bike a full tune up and a new chain. Just in time for the sun!
My fundraising stands at $4,201. There is still time to donate and help me get to the $5,000 mark. Our team, the South Bay Blaze, has raised over $79,000 already, and the AIDS/Lifecycle organization as a whole just crossed the $5,000,000 mark. Wow!
What’s next? The miles are starting to go up rapidly. The first ride of April is already 56 miles to Calero Reservoir. After that, the mileage increases 10-15% with each weekend ride.
I am also looking forward to The Day on the Ride, a fully supported 70-miles training ride, leaving from Sausalito, that simulates an actual day of AIDS/LifeCycle.
Finally, I need to start thinking about tenting and what to pack.
March 31, 2023
ALC2023
Revert Revert
Yesterday I wrote how Apple Music Classical needs a native MacOS application. Today, I feel less emphatic about this.
Who really cares if there is a MacOs native app, when you have Apple Airplay. I didn’t realize this earlier: I can stream classical music from my iPhone, using Airplay, to my MacBook and its my Bluetooth-connected speakers. Problem solved.
March 29, 2023
Apple Music Classical Is so Good That It Needs a MacOS Version of the App
To get in the flow, I alternate between EDM, DarkWave, and instrumental music.
Anjunadeep on Souncloud and Studio Brussel’s Untz are my bookmarked electronic music streams.
I enjoy listening to goth music on Twitch, especially Sean Templar’s Gothic Brunch on Sunday afternoon, Viktor Novatron and Sea Wraith on Monday evenings, and Vox Sinistra.
I ask Siri for instrumental focus streams on Apple Music or tap into my Explosions In the Sky Radio on Pandora when I want to hear great instrumental music.
I’ve been missing a great place for classical music. Not that they didn’t exist. However, Apple Music Classical app makes it very easy, and it is included in my Apple Music subscription.
After a few days listening to it while working, I am hooked. Apple Music Classical is a great way to listen to classical music. It offers a wide variety of pieces, from well-known classics to lesser-known gems. I enjoy listening to a variety of classical music, and Apple Music Classical has made it easy to find new pieces to enjoy. I grew up listening to a a wide range of classical music, from Mozart and Beethoven to Shoshtakovich or Brossart. I studied music theory for years and spent a year long deep dive into the history of classical music, spanning from basso continuo to Aaron Copeland. Apple Music Classical is so good that it needs a MacOS version of the application.
March 28, 2023
This Week in the World of Artificial Intelligence
November 30, 2022 may be a lot like June 29, 2007. On that day in June, Steve Jobs and Apple launched the iPhone. The faithful, myself included, were beyond excited. I still remember that launch and frequently pull it up on Youtube.
Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.
On November 30th, OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT to the world. It quickly became the fastest growing app in history, faster than Instagram or TikTok. The launch of ChatGPT may very well be a watershed moment, similar to the iPhone.
So I am setting out to follow along and read a lot about what’s going on in the world of AI. Here are a few things I learned this week.
March 26, 2023
How to Get Rid of the TicketMonster
I love all kinds of music. Yet, I am not a big concert person. Except when the Cure comes to town. Their concerts are amazing and abundant. The Cure plays all their hits and so much more: a three hour goth extravagance. I wish they would play more from their darker Pornography or Faith albums.
The Cure just announced their US spring tour. So I tried to get tickets for their show at the Mountain View Amphiteater, their “San Francisco show”. Sadly, I was unsuccessful. That’s why I don’t like concerts or festivals. Getting tickets is such a hassle, not to mention the Ticketmaster fees.
Cure’s head goth Robert Smith is not having it with Ticketmaster: Ticketmaster pissed off the wrong goth.
There has to be a better solution. Why not get back to getting tickets in person? Register with a real ID and stand inline. Six or eight tickets max per person. Scalpers and Taskrabbiters are welcome to join the queue. Tickets are digital and can only be transferred at face value. Problem solved, no?
March 19, 2023
Life360 Is a Missed Opportunity for Google Maps
Every Saturday, a few of us gather in a parking lot in Sunnyvale, to set of on a 40-50 miles bicycle ride. As soon as the road goes uphill in the hills around Los Altos and Woodside, the group splinters. Soon, the question arises, “Where is everybody?”.
Our group is training for the AIDS/Lifecyce ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. On those longer distances, the problem is only amplified. “How far are they behind or ahead of us?”
I’ve been looking for simple solutions to this problem. The iOS “Find my Friends” feature fits the bill. Yet, it requires that all riders have an iPhone. My kids voluntarily share their location using Google Maps. Unfortunately, using Google Maps, it is a big hassle to share your location with many people: you have to share it with each person individually. If you group counts 30 people, that means 30 invitations. A few years ago, we used Glympse to share our location as headed to the Livermore wineries. Glympse fits the bill.
At the moment, we are experimenting with Life360. I heard about Life360 from concerned parents who want to track their kids. We never went that route, and our kids voluntarily share (and control) their location sharing.
Using Life360 for the cycling group is simple: we share a code among those want to join our circle. You can then control when you want to share your location. That’s it. So far, battery consumption is limited.
Group sharing is a missed opportunity for Google Maps. The commercial value is not to be underestimated. I see folks checking into and endorse locations. Imagine pairing it with reviews.
March 8, 2023
A More Than Solid February!
After a stormy January, February started out more promising. With the weather initially cooperating, we were able to put in a bit more miles. That all changed in the last week: the Bay Area mountains got dusted with snow and it got cold quickly. Ice on the mountain roads made us adjust the Saturday route. And yet, we still went out riding.
I logged 258 miles this month! I am very pleased averaging 64 miles weekly or over 107 km.
I learned how to make fun Instagram reels to aid with my fundraising. I crossed the $3,500 threshold and earned my ticket to ride. We are only 100 days away from day 0.
Pedal On!
February 26, 2023
ALC2023