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Well, everything sucks, right? I don’t have anything positive to say about the state of the world, but what else is new?

I have been playing around with OpenAI Playground a bit to see what the public capabilities have been lately. I’ve been impressed with how bland that it makes everything, and so I thought, “why not throw my problems at it and see what happens?”

My prompts are in bold, and the platform’s responses follow:

tell me how to make things better when everything seems terrible.

It’s tough when everything seems terrible, but there are always things you can do to make things better. Talk to a friend, go for a walk, or read a book. Sometimes it helps to get your mind off of things for a little while. You can also try to think of things you’re grateful for, even if it’s just small things. Remember that things can always get better and that you’re strong enough to get through this.

How do you keep going as if nothing is happening while the world is burning around you?

This is a difficult question. Some people might say that you have to be in denial in order to keep going, but that is not always healthy. It is important to be aware of what is happening in the world, but it is also important to find ways to cope with the chaos. There are many ways to do this, and it is different for everyone. Some people might find comfort in their faith, while others might find comfort in their hobbies or in their relationships with others. It is important to find what works for you and to hold onto that.

What should you do if you want to improve the world but only have so much time and energy to help?

You should do what you can to improve the world with the time and energy you have available.

Sure, it’s boring, trite, and not extremely profound. But sometimes just being reminded that you only have so much time and energy is enough.

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📚

I Should Be Able to Mute America – Patrick Marlborough, Gawker

America insists that you bear witness to it tripping on its dick and slamming its face into an uncountable row of scalding hot pies.

Gowalla, Foursquare and the (very) brief history of the Location Wars – Jay Hoffman, The History of the Web

If we pit every company against one another, is it any wonder that we’ll end up with monopolies?

Can Democracy Include a World Beyond Humans? – James Bridle, Wired

What do we do in a world where non-human entities (no, not corporations) are given legal rights and protections? Beyond figuring out who owns copyright on art created by a monkey or computer, that is.

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📽

Foreign Words We Need in English | Otherwords

I need a word for knowing that I need a newsletter intro, but not knowing what to write.

How to make the House (Casita!) from Encanto

Studson makes putting together complicated builds from basically trash look effortless. I feel like I could build this complicated structure after watching his video!

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🎧

JOURNEY – Complete score with text commentary

I’ve never listened to the composer commentary for this score, but I love the extra info that I got from it. This still holds the place as my favorite game score of all time.

How One Direction Fandom Shaped the Social Web – 2 Girls 1 Podcast

The social internet is shaped by fandom.

The Real Problem with A.I. with Emily Bender – Factually! with Adam Conover

We were talking about AI and chatbots before learning that was the topic this week. Guess it’s all that Westworld watching 😅

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