Ambiguity, Texture, and Interest
Thoughts on Billy Collins’ Masterclass, Being Inspired by Everything, Snipd Soon-to-Offer Subscription, Open Router & ToolVox Updates
Hi! Here’s some stuff from my previous week worth sharing:
On Learning
This week I took the masterclasses by Joy Harjo, N. K. Jemisin, and Billy Collins. Even though I am not very much into poetry and haven’t written any of it for about a couple of decades, I actually enjoyed the one by Billy Collins the most. I think the insights I got from this class not only apply to poetry, but a lot of the creative things that I enjoy doing. Like cinema, or photography, maybe even when writing prose. Here’s a quote that stood out: Someone said poets are people who can’t say one thing at a time. They’re incapable of doing that. And that’s one of the joys of poetry, I think. a more mature reading of poetry, or reader of poetry, sees that ambiguity is a richening of the poem. It gives the poem more texture and more interest if a poem can support two or three readings.
On the topic of being inspired by things that are not directly related, a quote from R. L. Stine’s masterclass popped in my Readwise feed a few days ago: If you want to write and you want to get ideas, you have to use everything. You have to be alert and open to everything. Everything you read, everything you listen to, everything. You have to allow these things to inspire you.
On Apps, AI, and Shortcuts
Few days ago I received the news that Snipd, my favorite podcasting app is finally coming out with a Premium plan. This is good news for those that have been wanting more features. Unfortunately, this will come at a subscription price. Unfortunately as well, they will be taking away some of the features that are currently free (like requesting the processing of un-processed episodes) or accessing unlimited number of already-processed episodes. They will move these to the subscription plan. They haven’t announced anything about pricing yet, but I am personally not sure I have space for more subscriptions.
The news from Snipd got me thinking that maybe… just maybe I could figure out an audio/podcast highlighting solution for myself. Guess what. It’s totally doable. After all now there’s free apps to make subtitles (with time data) with incredible accuracy from audio. Take Aiko, for example. Not only that, but I discovered that Overcast—a popular free podcast player—has a Shortcut action that outputs the current play position in seconds. Want to listen to any audio file in Overcast as if it was a Podcast? There’s Huffduffer. You got all the puzzle pieces in there. I am excited to share that I got a working solution. While it’s not as simple as double tapping your AirPods to highlight a segment, it’s still pretty low-friction. I just run a Shortcut whenever I want to highlight, and I run a different one when I want to process a highlighted episode. Best of all, no subscriptions, I can highlight any audio (podcast or not), and I’ve integrated with Readwise API. I plan to share more about this soon.
This past week, while using Chat GPT for Javascript generation I discovered OpenRouter, a platform that gives you access to lots of LLMs (like Chat GPT). If you don’t have access to GPT 4, or GPT 4-32k, you can get them through OpenRouter. I personally was interested in trying out Claude 2, by Anthropic. I’d heard a lot about this AI being a direct competitor to Chat GPT. Guess what, I was able to integrate it to my ToolVox Shortcut. It can also be used in TypingMind—my favorite Web-App for Chat GPT—as a custom model.
If you use TypingMind you may find SearchPlus to be a useful plugin. It just had its official release few days ago. I was hoping this was already a feature or an included plugin in TypingMind, but at 5 USD I can’t complain. This plugin can do some complex Googling and web browsing. Fort the time being I find that the web browsing capabilities I’ve integrated in ToolVox are more than enough for me (especially with the 100k token limit of Claude!), but if I am ever working on a bigger project that requires TypingMind and need web browsing I know where to go. I am reserving TypingMind for these kind of projects by the way, and I use ToolVox as more of an everyday AI Assistant.
This past week I did several updates to my private version of ToolVox GPT. I’ve integrated it to some OpenRouter models, and I’ve added a menu for editing conversations and their context without leaving the chat. The response that I’ve gotten so far has been crickets, so I’m unsure if these changes will come to the public version of ToolVox. If you have found the Shortcut useful please do let me know and will be glad to continue updating it.
On Cinema
Scenes from a Marriage (2021) Ok, this is a mini-series for TV but it really did feel like a film. SO GOOD. I usually stay away from ¡remakes, but without having watched the first version by Ingmar Bergman I can tell you this has some incredible performances and lots of real drama. Synopsis: A chronicle of the many years of love and turmoil that bind a contemporary American couple, tracking their relationship as it progresses through a number of successive stages: matrimony, parenthood, infidelity, divorce and subsequent partnerships.
Medusa Deluxe (2023) Lots of tension. Most of it felt like a one-shot film with INCREDIBLE cinematography. Highly recommended. Synopsis: Talented and cutthroat hairstylists at a competition find one of their own murdered before judging can begin. Winding through neon-lit halls, competitors unspool long-simmering resentments and lies as they search for the killer among them.
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