AI and jobs, watching TV on the Vision Pro, and painting with AI
Plus, Whoopi Goldberg explains Star Trek, dying may be even creepier than you thought, and why our ears work the way they do.
I’m David Gewirtz. Welcome to this week’s Advanced Geekery newsletter. It’s been an exciting week. Let’s dive in.
My articles
Let’s kick it off with a quick recap of the articles I published in the last week on ZDNET.
I watched an hour-long TV show on Apple Vision Pro and it was glorious, unusual, and tiring: The future of television? I watched one of the best TV shows on Vision Pro, enjoying spectacular immersion and facing real discomforts.
How to selectively modify a Midjourney image to create an artistic statement: Uncover the secrets to transforming AI-generated art into personalized narratives, as demonstrated by a unique take on Hopper's iconic diner scene.
AI taking on more work doesn't mean it replaces you. Here are 12 reasons to worry less: We can harness the best of generative AI despite job disruption fears. David Gewirtz delivers good news, bad news, and asks: What else is new?
Must-watch YouTube
Moving on, let’s queue up some interesting YouTube videos for your entertainment and edification.
Still on the fence about watching Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery? If you want a quick catch-up on all four previous seasons, nothing beats this overview by the inimitable Whoopi Goldberg.
A guy combines his Mac with a drone and the Apple Vision Pro. It works shockingly well. This may be one of the Vision Pro’s first killer apps.
This band does a musical evolution of the Friends theme appropriate to music from the 1920s to the 1990s. The Rembrandts (the duo who wrote the song) make a cameo appearance. I love the YouTubes!
Interesting reads
And now, some good stuff from around the Internet, well worth reading.
Interesting WSJ commentary about why AI may lead to an electricity crisis. Could be a bit overwrought, or it could be spot on. What do you think?
How did we get our ears? Not something you think about every day, is it? These new fossil discoveries help trace just how the ears we know and love evolved into something we can use to listen to everything around us.
Weird, creepy stuff happens in the brain as we die, according to a new study.
Reader projects
I’d like to regularly spotlight a reader project or two here. Your project doesn’t have to be a big Kickstarter launch. If you’ve built something cool, it has some pretty pictures, and you’re proud of it, I might be able to share it here.
If you have a photogenic reader project, send an email to me at david@zatz.com with the subject “READER PROJECT,” a few pictures, and a short one-paragraph description. If you have a social media link or a link to the project, include that, too.
More clicky
I’ve got a lot happening all over the web. Here are links to my various stuff:
House of the Head: home for my published music
ZATZ Labs: where I host my published software projects
Feel free to dig around, visit, and say hey!
Leave some comments
Substack supports comments, so feel free to leave some. I promise to read them. Just, please, let’s keep our personal politics out of any discussion.
That should do it for this week. This newsletter is really starting to pick up subscribers. Please help it out by sharing links on all your socials.
Have a great week!