Thoughts on structure
And other exciting details.
Welcome to
/Michael Williams fans. We’re glad to have you. Prepare to be disappointed.We are pretty organized here at Three Point Four Media. Part of the TPF origin story—world’s worst superhero movie; greenlight it, Zaslav, you coward—revolves around how both of us were good at the business side of freelance writing. The emailing. The invoicing. The following up. The stuff no one really wants to do. We knew we would make a good team because we could both send invoices and respond to emails on time, a weirdly rare skill.
Monday through Thursday, we have a meeting at 9 a.m. This is a Covid-era innovation, one that we kept doing. It’s a nice way to get into the day. A little work before, a chat, a lot of work after. A bit of structure, but not too much. A one point, we tried doing meetings only Monday and Wednesday morning, and both found that Tuesday and Thursday became increasingly unmoored. For me, it never felt like those days really started. Gotta see Billy’s smiling face to make it an official workday. (Except on Friday.)
In the context of TPF business, I’ve been going to a lot of additional meetings lately. I’m very much in the Bezos school of thought. Less talking, more reading and thinking. More preparation. That said, going into a meeting blind and winging it is a real joy sometimes. You haven’t lived until you’ve live-vomited thoughts on a 12-person Zoom you were only half-paying attention to in the first place because it’s Masters Thursday and I can’t believe Rory doubled 15.
Live dangerously, within reason.
An article
This article about Phish is so good. (Also, very very long.)
The sheer number of times Trey Anastasio texts the writer, Amanda Petrusich, is astonishing. I appreciate how much Petrusich genuinely enjoys the band and how much of that knowledge she brings to the reporting without coming across as too fanzine. A tough line to walk, walked exquisitely.
Plus, PDFs! Who doesn’t love a good story about PDFs?
A Phish jam is usually preceded by an enormous amount of preparation. The Mondegreen jam was divided into seven parts, and each was assigned a key, an image (“Organic Architecture,” “Shape Shifting Trees”), and an energy level (a number between one and ten). Despite the planning—there were PDFs—it still required what Anastasio called “a willingness to fail right in front of people.” He finds parameters generative. “If I know what the image is—flying saucers in blue air, or whatever—and I know what the key is, and I know the level of intensity, and I get handed a guitar, those limits allow me to play with raw emotion, which is what everyone responds to, anyway,” he said. “The theory is, art lives by limitation. You develop the theme, you can go backward, forward, stretch it out. But don’t keep bringing in more material.”
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Another article
AI 2027 might better be described as “a project” or “dystopian nightmare fuel” but we’re not picky around here. The authors (Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean) start at today and look ahead into the not-so-distant future, hypothesizing about where AI goes from here. For me, the biggest takeaway is the rapid uptake and the AI’s ability to improve itself. Humanity could be in trouble.
I also liked the choose-your-own adventure part at the end.
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A project
Speaking of AI, we’re hard at work on a website for a company that’s pivoting their business model from consulting about SaaS models to reshoring a complex manufacturing processes here in the United States.
Just kidding. They are pivoting to consulting about AI.
Joking aside, it’s good work for a good company with good people, and it’s a pleasure to be a small part of something bigger. Cyberdyne Systems pays well, too.
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A thing I liked a lot that is also an article
Sorry, a lot of articles this week but c’mon! Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town
In the small town of Kawara in Fukuoka Prefecture, something unexpected is happening at the Saidosho Community Center. While kids in most parts of Japan are obsessed with Pokémon cards — or perhaps the franchise’s latest smartphone game, Pokémon TCG Pocket — the children of Kawara are clutching to something a little closer to home.
They are playing a trading card game (TCG) where the stars aren’t fantasy creatures, anime heroes or even famous baseball players, but ojisan (middle-aged or older men) from the local community of Saidosho.
Amazing. Just amazing. This link came from the exceptional For Starters. Recommend subscribing.
Also from For Starters: this amazing drawing platform. I drew a site map! Much better than my usual plan of scrawling something on a piece of paper I found in the apartment and taking a blurry photo with my perpetually broken iPhone camera. No, I will not buy a case it’s a beautiful piece of industrial design that’s ruined by bulky cases even if they do “protect” the “product.” Why do you ask?
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A run
I can tell I’m starting to inch my way back to fitness because running 2.5 miles to the start of the 6:30am run feels like a fun thing to do rather than a hell no I’ll Citibike thank you.
The run clubs were out in force on one of the nicest Tuesday mornings so far this year. Love to see the crews running their repeats while we jog around, chatting. Rise and grind-ish.
A few -post loop strides on Prospect Park West as well, then ran back home, too. Admittedly, it’s quite downhill. Seventy minutes total, the longest in many months.
Next week, another interview. Until then, this one:
