📙 #062 - I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary; life with an AI

Plus some cool links, and mild notebook & riso updates.

Often, when I’m alone in my studio, my inner voice will burst out a small snippet of some random song, in this case “I don't want to be buried in a pet sematary” from the Ramones.

Meanwhile I’m trying out Bee (https://www.bee.computer/) an always on (except when it isn’t) bluetooth listening device, which records everything and everyone around it; pinging it over to your phone to be transcribed, before being sent on to an AI in “the cloud”, which will kindly try and learn everything about your life; helpfully distilling it down into facts, tasks, reminders and summaries of your day/life/emotional-state.

Horrific, I know.

So when the AI overlords come to take over, at least they have it down on record that I don’t want to be buried in a pet sematary, a surprising fact I learnt about myself in an end of day summary.

Similarly, having switched the device off, it turns itself back on when plugged in to charge, something I discovered when I had to explain that I wasn’t in fact a Crime Scene Investigator, after binge watching some TV.

It’s fair to say it has trouble with context.

There’s a lot wrong with having a wearable that records everything all time.

So much so that I only use it in my studio, and only when I’m alone. As soon as I leave, someone else arrives, or I jump on a zoom call it gets switched off and placed into a faraday box (the CSI thing happened the weekend it arrived and I was testing it and charging it at home).

However in the context of having Kitty my AI PA help me with stuff in the studio it’s interesting.

Kitty (see past newsletters), my AI, asks me questions about what I’m doing in the morning, evening and throughout the day, from this it helps me write to do lists, keep on track of tasks and useful for interrogating: “Hey Kitty, what was that thing I was talking about the other week, you know, that I said I had to order from the stationery shop?”

Kitty, also consumes all my notes from Obsidian, a handy dandy note taking app, that saves everything as simple markdown text files.

Meanwhile I’ve taken to narrating what I’m doing in the studio throughout the day; “Now, I’m going to try this [new ink] in this [new pen] in the drawing machine to see how it works” … some time later … “well it looks like that ink worked well, but I need to remember to do x, y and z first”.

Ideas while I’m tidying the studio? I just say them out loud. Trouble while writing some code? I talk my way through it. Things to go in the newsletter, I speak them!

The reason I picked Bee, is ‘cause it has an API; all those transcripts, “facts”, tasks, summaries that Bee comes up with, I can grab them from the API and stick them in Obsidian.

Here’s a whole bunch of “Facts” from last month, one fact per markdown file…

…and here’s some summaries from last Thursday morning, again slorped into Obsidian.

And because that all goes into Obsidian, Kitty gets its paws all over it, and I can ask questions about what the heck I’ve done, and what I’ve been thinking (out loud) about.

☝️ ☝️ ☝️

This is all part of my Arts/Practice Based Research into using AI as part of my artistic process (not making AI art), and running an art studio, and what happens when AI gets involved in journaling, which is why it’s contained to the studio.

But I must confess there’s been a couple of times, mainly visiting the doctor and the dentist, where I kinda wished I had it with me, because those are places where I seem to be blasted with important information, with very little time to take it all in.

If the whole pesky privacy thing wasn’t an issue, it’s be great for those “What did I just walk into this room for?” moments. Or perhaps we should just embrace forgetting rather than remembering everything.

As for the whole handing everything, my thoughts, my voice, my handwriting, my videos, over to AI, perhaps I should go back and rewatch Per Sematary.

---

---

# THREE GENERATIVE THINGS

Only Yours 'A’ poster, from Rosetta Font Foundry

This first one, a font, I thought was pretty interesting, and will make perfect sense to the code artists out there.

https://rosettatype.com/OnlyYours

Only Yours is a conceptual type system challenging established retail practice, in which an identical digital font is licensed to many customers. Although usually justified by economic constraints, this practice does not allow for a unique visual voice in written communication. […snip…]

In the same way that a myriad combinations of a few blocks of DNA form the blueprints of all living things, Only Yours combines design features to create a unique font variant for each customer. Once a variant is purchased‚ it will be yours exclusively. We guarantee that no other customer will ever be able to purchase a variant identical to yours.

Currently, we estimate there can be 1,179,648 unique variants. We do not expect them all to sell out, but we will try.

It’s lovely to see type foundries playing with combinations and permutations like this, and selling the unique outputs.

It probably isn’t the first (and there’s definitely code based fonts out there), but it’s the first one I’ve seen being sold like this.

More info over on Creative Boom: https://www.creativeboom.com/resources/only-yours-a-bold-new-approach-to-typography-based-on-personalisation/

🖋️ 🖋️ 🖋️

Amy’s generative handwriting

Amy continues her exploration of her generative handwriting, which is looking great.

Grabbing creative momentum where I can

📓 📓 📓

Meanwhile Mark Webster’s Hyper & Cosmic book comes out soon from Vetro Editions, and I can’t wait! I believe you can get 12% off with the code HyperEarly (not affiliated or sponsored!)

And it comes, slightly annoyingly, with a lovely duocolour riso print.

I say slightly annoyingly because I look at Amy’s handwriting, and Mark’s amazing letters/symbols on a grid, and think about my own generative handwriting code, and letters/symbols on a grid on the rubber stamping machine. Along with the new (old) riso machine in the corner, and sort of think; oh well, it’s been done.

But then I remember two things…

Someone was the first person to paint a watercolour landscape, and the world would be a terrible place if everyone else saw that and went “well, guess I can’t make a watercolour landscape now”.

And second, while I do have some code working that sort of does the above things in a far far far less developed way, both Amy and Mark are actually putting the work in, and I’m obviously not, because I’ve got it in my head that I need to get these pen plotting tutorials done first, because I do!

That Riso print is really tasty though.

---

# UPDATES

Last newsletter I promised some mild updates, so here they are.

On the notebook front, I 3d printed a couple versions of a paper creasing box…

…the base has a curved groove in it, while the lid has the opposite, so when you put a notebook’s worth of 12 pages and a cover in, you can place the lid on top and press down…

…and it puts a fold in all the pages, with guides for stabbing holes in the right places along the crease for me to stitch them.

Along with a notebook cover & A5 guide, that lets me preview what a cover may look like, and mark where I need to cut it & add trim marks. I’m far more please with myself about all this than I probably should be.

On the riso front, I managed to wire this very modern laptop, to this very old printer, with a USB-C to USB-2 cable and horrific technical shenanigans. But it works, just as long as I turn the whole thing off and on again between each colour 🤷‍♂️

A test FALLiNGWATER print

No update on The Sea Howls From The West, ‘cause I got distracted.

I have updated my website, but not enough to write about here yet, as I’m still uploading a bunch of photos and trying to get things up to date. Probably best if I don’t mention it at all tbh.

---

# THE END

The next newsletter should be sent out on the 12th of July, and I think it’d be a terrible idea for me to predict what’ll be in it.

I’ve already written something about how I’m using Spectral.js backwards to turn images into the ink colour separations needed for riso printing, but it turned into a long, technical, and honestly boring essay. Perhaps a couple of weeks will give me the strength and wisdom to throw three quarters of the words away, and replace the remaining with better ones.

Love you all
Dan
❤️