I often think of the grasshopper infestation exhibit at the MN history museum. Multiple years of crops, clothing, and everything else devoured by grasshoppers.
18.07.2025 15:35
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I often think of the grasshopper infestation exhibit at the MN history museum. Multiple years of crops, clothing, and everything else devoured by grasshoppers.
If I could have lunch with one historical figure tomorrow to discuss US / Canada relations, it’d be Simon Girty
I spent a lot of yesterday talking with people about their experience w/ AI.
Which can be summarized as a version of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect or Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
"AI is amazing about the thing I know nothing about....but it's absolute garbage at the stuff I'm expert in."
Oh!!! I get it now, ChatGPT et al are Google without the ads and spam ridden results.
The trade off is questionable quality (trust but verify) … bit that was always the case.
This also helps explain why Google implementation was so cringy…getting high on its own supply.
^ this is why I'm skeptical of the hype around Agents.
ignoring the thing all together, and instead creating a positive alternative, is a better strategy (albeit, it’s the harder option)
A neighbor of mine ran into the same problem a little over a decade ago.
The handmade original art by skilled artists he was repping were being outsold by copies made by the warehouse-full shipped from China.
My current work continually reminds me that price and value are independent of effort.
Things you probably already know....
'Muted words & tags' works really well in BlueSky.
Kudos to BlueSky for having it to begin with & making it work well.
I've 43 muted terms and the resulting feed is not filled with rage or panic.
I always think it's amusing when Generative AI advocates for itself within a prompt response. "Oh, I'm terribly useful and nice to work with, you have to keep me around."
I'm a bit surprised & disappointed how much my 'what is it good for?' from May '23 still holds up against the current applications of AI.
If anything, I'd say I was overly generous and optimistic in that post.
garrickvanburen.com/media-tetrad...
100% agree with all of this.
I was at a place where R&D was expected generate net new things and make them highly profitable very quickly.
Those opposing goals eventually created a static equilibrium.
RE: generative AI, it's much more an incremental improement than we care to admit.
elaborate?
The ones I think about again and again likely come from:
- Conversations w/ Tyler
- Invest Like the Best
Price is Always a Comparison
Often, simply against doing nothing.
forstarters.substack.com/p/for-starte...
ha! I had that many, but am current down to just 2, cuz I could wait and sent them on Monday.
I've heard a rumor that getting an exception - for any size company, even the smallest startup - is so easy as to make the entire thing silly.
Have you tried this exercise in Googles NotebookLLM?
Ping?
I do the same for breweries and kubb team names.
Some of my favorites:
- The Royal We
- Chuck Close and the Long Shots
- Many Hands and the Quick Work
one of the most compelling calls to action I’ve read since the Cluetrain Manifesto.
You've probably heard of these 6 innovation practices...I've used them all extensively, here's what they're all good at....and what they're not at all good at.
forstarters.substack.com/p/for-starte...
feel free to suggest/commiserate/memorialize/get nostalgic in the comments.
Been feeling like we're at the end of an era....
though I'm not exactly sure which era, so I started listing all the things that I've seen pass out of favor....
garrickvanburen.com/the-ongoing-...
seths.blog
what's even more fun, is that both were started the same year, 1971.
Three shifts I'm seeing in the professional services / agency world:
1. simplified billing
2. productized services
3. deliberate niche-ing
forstarters.substack.com/p/for-starte...
