Outside Yourself
Apollo Shortcuts on the watch, insights from Tarkovsky for young filmmakers), Sky is acquired by OpenAI, insights from academic writing for non-academic writers
I’ve been working hard to put out the video I promised a while back on AI dictation. I’m in the middle of production so last week was pretty intense. I expect this one to be crazy busy too. Hoping to share more on this soon.
For now, here’s some stuff that stood out from my previous week:
On Apollo
I discovered that Apollo, the iOS app I use to access Alter’s models while on the go, not only offers a lot of flexibility with its Shortcuts integration, but these Shortcuts also work on the Apple Watch. I don’t know exactly how the app does this—my guess is there’s some sort of sync in the background—but I was surprised to find this actually works. It means I now have quick AI access on my wrist.
On Art
I’ve loved cinema for years, and I’ve made some short films myself. I’ve always found a lot of inspiration in the great masters of cinema, among them Tarkovsky. This past week, I came across a post where he shared advice for young filmmakers. His advice is deep and poetic as always, but at the same time I found it very relevant for creative work beyond filmmaking.
First, he suggests young filmmakers should make films that are personal, films that relate to the creator’s life. Don’t live in one way and try to make art about something else. Another point he mentioned, closely connected to the first, is that serious art requires sacrificing yourself. He puts it like this: “You should belong to it. It should not belong to you. Cinema uses your life, not vice versa.”
I know that Tarkovsky is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially those who look at cinema only for entertainment. But from a creative perspective, I’ve heard related insights from artists across different areas—literature, painting, music. There’s something special that happens when you let go of control. Inspiration comes when you become a vessel for something outside yourself. I think that’s what Tarkovsky means here: being open enough to let art or creativity speak through you.
An interesting question I like to pose to myself sometimes is: How can I bring that same curiosity and openness to whatever I’m working on—not just artistic projects, but anything—so it feels personal and actually results in something meaningful?
On Sky
Some months ago, when I was getting a little frustrated with some of the changes by Superwhisper and was actively looking around for an application that would help with AI assistant tasks, I discovered Alter. Together with Alter, I also heard about Sky. Actually, around that time I was debating whether I should just wait for the release of Sky or go with Alter (this article was very compelling), but the release of Sky was already delayed and the guys over at Sky were pretty quiet.
This past week I was very surprised to find that Sky was acquired by OpenAI. By the way, the creators of Sky are also the creators of Workflow, which is the app that later was acquired by Apple and became what we now know as Shortcuts. So that’s just a little tip of the potential of the people behind this app. I think this integration with the system opens up A LOT of possibilities. I am overall happy with Alter. I do think I made the right choice to get the app, but I am still curious.
On Writing
To be honest, I’m not into academic writing. I don’t think I’ve read an academic paper in more than a decade, since I was in university. But I stumbled across this video that presented some very interesting ideas. This lecture on academic writing was special because the speaker is so knowledgeable and passionate about the topic. Even though I don’t think this applies to a lot of creative or journalistic writing, I love insights that present contrast to my own perspectives.
One point that stood out: writing isn’t always about conveying your ideas, but it can also be about changing your reader’s ideas. You can leave a mark in the world not only by sharing thoughts or a perspective, but by changing other people’s thoughts through how you communicate. I also found very interesting the point of how writing can help you arrive at new ideas you haven’t seen before. This is very related to my own perspective on why I don’t see typing or writing going away anytime soon, even though we have a lot of amazing dictation tools available.
Here’s a couple of highlights I did on the lecture:
On the purpose of writing:
“Your writing is not communicating anything about you. That’s not its job. Its job is to change the way your readers think.”
On school vs. professional writing:
“Teachers read text because they are paid to care about the students. You’ve learned to write in a system where you’re writing to readers who are paid to care about you. That will stop.”
On the writing process:
“You are using your writing to help yourself think. If you don’t do this, for most people, you cannot think at the level you need to think.”
On value vs. content:
“Value lies in readers, not in the thing. The question is whether this particular community of readers values it.”
On what makes writing work:
“If it’s clear and useless, it’s useless. It’s organized and useless, it’s useless. It’s persuasive and useless, it’s useless.”
On Cinema
Babylon (2022). I love Damien Chazelle’s work. I avoided this one because of bad reviews, I just didn’t want to get disappointed. Recently, I was reading a blog where people were suggesting this film might gain appreciation over time, so I watched it and found it amazing. I don’t understand the negative reviews. Of course, the director aimed high after La La Land, but I believe it delivered; it’s personal, honest, it feels like a homage to other cinema masterpieces, and I give it five out of five. Synopsis: A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood’s transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
Bone Lake (2025). It was sort of predictable, but it still took some turns that were not expected, or that were expected but still surprising. It’s a weird combination of modern horror with independent filmmaking that I have seen a couple of times in movies like Pearl or Strange Darling. Synopsis: A couple’s romantic vacation at a secluded lakeside estate is upended when they are forced to share the mansion with a mysterious and attractive couple. In this darkly hilarious and seductive horror story, a dream getaway spirals into a nightmarish maze of lies, and manipulation—bringing terrifying secrets to light and triggering a bloody battle for survival.
Humane (2024). It was a good film for an evening. Definitely not what I was expecting from a Cronenberg, but still. Synopsis: In the wake of an environmental collapse that has forced humanity to shed 20% of its population, a family dinner erupts into chaos when a father’s plan to enlist in the government’s new euthanasia program goes horribly awry.
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