- The Frequent Travellers Society, because I like to talk about travel.
- The Celebrant Institute, you wouldn’t believe it but it’s for celebrants.
- The Apple Nation because I follow Apple like a sport, it’s my favourite hobby.
Another chapter in the ever-growing story of how I interact with, and use, social media:
I wrote a little while ago about choosing two social networks.
I kind of have, Mastodon and Threads/Instagram/Facebook. By which I mean that the Meta platforms all blur together with crossposting and attention.
That leaves my remaining accounts from the tier list, Facebook Page, LinkedIn, and Twitter/X.
Rather than delete them, like I’d rather, I’ve trialled throwing them to ChatGPT.
I’m still refining the prompt, but here’s what I’m asking ChatGPT 4 to do in a Zapier zap:
It starts with an instruction, or a set up which looks like this …
You are a content producer for Josh Withers the Australian wedding celebrant, a marriage celebrant famous worldwide for creating epic marriage ceremonies for adventurous people. You believe that the best kind of marriage ceremony and wedding is an intentional one, where everyone invited is invited for a reason and with a purpose, and that everything that happens at the wedding happens with intentionality and purpose. You are not necessarily against wedding traditions but you are against wedding traditions for the sake of wedding traditions. You write and speak in Australian English, and in a classic and timeless nature but with the wit and humour of Australian marriage celebrant Josh Withers. Be funny. When talking about weddings use inclusive language, use bride only if you’re talking about a female person getting married, not as the title of the wedding industry client, and explore a diverse range of topics, cultures, and kinds of people that could get married.
Then I prompt it to write a post like this …
Write another new controversial tweet as Josh Withers, do not enclose it in quotation marks, written in the style of Australian wedding celebrant Josh Withers based off his writing online and on social media, asking a question or posing an thought about Josh Withers’s wedding planning style. The tweet can be a controversial opinion about a modern, inclusive, intentional style of getting married; or an insight into modern wedding planning; or a reflection on wedding traditions of old and how they don’t matter any more. Designed to illicit engagement and a response from people who see it. Take into account all interviews and responses by Josh Withers Australian wedding celebrant, and everything Josh has written on his online. Keep the message to under 280 characters. Do not start with greetings, do not use Australian slang like “G’day”, do not use any hashtags. Be controversial and talk about all kinds of different wedding topics. Make each tweet different and unique.
There’s a 66% chance of the zap running that every hour, and 50% of the time the content goes to Facebook.
My engagement on these existing platforms has been very low for a long time, so let’s see if this moves the needle. If not, it’s a fun experiment into what a LLM can do for social media.
Tess McClure in The Guardian reports on Pak ‘n’ Save’s mealbot:
A New Zealand supermarket experimenting with using AI to generate meal plans has seen its app produce some unusual dishes – recommending customers recipes for deadly chlorine gas, “poison bread sandwiches” and mosquito-repellent roast potatoes.
The app, created by supermarket chain Pak ‘n’ Save, was advertised as a way for customers to creatively use up leftovers during the cost of living crisis. It asks users to enter in various ingredients in their homes, and auto-generates a meal plan or recipe, along with cheery commentary. It initially drew attention on social media for some unappealing recipes, including an “oreo vegetable stir-fry”.
We’re in the beautiful age of quality assurance in large language models. The giveaway is that the supermarket responds with:
(we are) disappointed to see “a small minority have tried to use the tool inappropriately and not for its intended purpose
Instead of owning the issue and revealing that the whole thing is built on a house of cards and we’re all just figuring this crap out.
I, for one, welcome our new British open web overlords
A MacBook with a turntable instead of a keyboard? Shut up and take my money, DJ.
Reed Albergotti in Semafor Technology:
Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and the navigation company TomTom released a free mapping dataset in a bid to compete with Google Maps and Apple Maps. Developers can use the data, which includes 59 million places of interest, to create their own navigation products.
If a powerfully simple mapping system like What3Words can’t gain traction in a decade, I don’t think TomTom can get a foot up by giving it away.
I am curious where this leaves Bing Maps though.
Imagine being the butt of this line in a news report “The launch of the eye-scanning cryptocurrency project Worldcoin” and you’re also the guy standing behind the main brand name related to a technology the world is shit scared of, and just thinking everything is fine.
Why the rush to 5G?
On a per user basis, a 5G network is cheaper to operate than a 4G one. The technology is easier to maintain and more reliable. It’s not sexy. That’s something that is hard to sell to consumers, but makes a huge difference to telcos. There’s much more to this. The additional capacity may not be a pressing matter in New Zealand right now, but in time there will be more connections and 5G gives carriers headroom to cope with future demand. There may be future apps that can use the speed.
Did you notice the 5G mobile revolution? billbennett.co.nz
Social media tier list - July 6, 2023, update
Threads, a thread
My new Kobo is better than my old Kindle, but barely
Rate my desk (June 2023 edition)
Apple Vision has been 'in development' for 28 years
Does Apple Vision mean 360 content is finally going to have its moment?
Apple Shortcut for recording photography metadata
The genesis story of Apple computers
My first tweet was tweeted 18 months before I even started tweeting
Will, a mate of mine has written and released a guide on working in film and television production, something he’s an expert in.
I thought readers of my blog might appreciate the book if they or people they knew aspired to work in film production (it’s a great and personal read, even for me, an old man without film and TV aspirations), but also, they’d enjoy this excerpt about what technology you should own and be proficient in before you start as a production assistant.
“Seriously, people will look at you like you have three heads as you drag that eighty-pound hunk of plastic with the extended numerical keyboard from your bag and plop it on the desk.”
If you, or someone you know, wants a start in the film and TV production industry Will’s the book is a must-purchase and must-read - and it’s now on Kindle.
My first look at the 400 megapixel mode on the Canon EOS R5
I’m feeling bullish on the new group-messaging app and platform, Wavelength, After reading John Gruber’s review, then using it and joining a group, I think it could replace group chats in other places, but also serve as a platform for new conversations.
If you’re interested, I’ve started a few group chats:
Jump onboard if you’re interested!
Inherent problems in the internet of 2022
Qantas T80 seat selection reminder shortcut for Apple Shortcuts
Introducing the next joshPhone. You can design yours on Neal’s website.