🔗 OpenAI announces leadership transition

Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI.

I didn’t have ‘OpenAI mutiny’ on my Bingo card for this Friday, particularly after all the success they’ve been enjoying. But a “deliberative review process” makes it sound like he really fucked something up. I’m curious to learn more.

🔗 Unauthorized “David Attenborough” AI clone narrates developer’s life, goes viral | Ars Technica // Benj Edwards

On Wednesday, Replicate developer Charlie Holtz combined GPT-4 Vision (commonly called GPT-4V) and ElevenLabs voice cloning technology to create an unauthorized AI version of the famous naturalist David Attenborough narrating Holtz’s every move on camera. As of Thursday afternoon, the X post describing the stunt had garnered over 21,000 likes.

This video is amazing. I so want David Attenborough to narrate my life.

🔗 Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year - 9to5Mac

Apple has announced today that it will adopt the RCS […] messaging standard. The feature will launch via a software update “later next year” and bring a wide range of iMessage-style features to messaging between iPhone and Android users.

Heyo! Good timing on the part of Clockwise. I got my thoughts down on this topic just last week when I crashed their show. I’m surprised but glad to see Apple jump aboard. Hopefully they can influence the global standard to be more secure for iOS and Android users alike.

🔗 Excuse Her Dust | Outside

In the interest of testing herself one more time, in late August she traveled to France to run the UTMB again. She won that race too, becoming the first person in history to win all three races in a single summer. “She’s one of those humans who defy even the concept of an outlier,” says Clare Gallagher, a former Western States winner who has raced against Dauwalter in the past. “I look at her summer and I have no words. It’s truly hard to conceptualize.”

These race distances and the times that Courtney Dauwalter is putting up on them boggles the mind. 🤯🏃‍♀️

🔗 Should You Exercise While Sick? // Heather Eastman

There are a number of infections we can pick up throughout the year, some worse than others. While we’ve always been told to avoid working out while sick, it’s tempting to ask how sick is sick, and what counts as “working out”? Is a light walk OK, or should you avoid any activity altogether? Can you do weights at home? Here’s the real question: When (if ever) is it OK to exercise while you’re sick?

I overdid it recently and have been facing the consequences for a couple of weeks now. It’ll make me think twice next time.

🆕📝 Crashing Clockwise #529: ‘Dear Tim Apple, You Fix It’

If you’re not on the recording, but you still answer all the questions afterward…are you considered part of the podcast?

I just released version 1.0 of my ‘Make Spoken Audio of Text’ shortcut.

This shortcut creates an .m4a audio file from any text that you pass into it. By default, it’ll generate an audio clip with one of the default Siri voices, but you can change the voice to any one loaded on your device. It will ask you for a filename, and then will save the audio file to your Downloads folder.

Get it here from the HeyDingus Shortcuts Library.

🔗 Interpreting Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Based on Recent Events – Pixel Envy // Nick Heer

Yaccarino is proud that Twitter extends its permissiveness to the limit of local laws, which means it would rather censor users in Turkey than withdraw its services in protest. Also, it is only to happy to censor posts worldwide critical of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Also, its owner threatens lawsuits in the U.S. against legal speech. That is the kind of free expression Yaccarino is proud of for Twitter.

Nick Heer, as usual, cuts through the bullshit with a honed knife.

🔗 IBM pulls X ads as Elon Musk endorses white pride - The Verge // Jacob Kastrenakes

Why do some people insist on sucking so bad? Also, I’m quite disappointed that this headline doesn’t read “IMB and Apple pull X ads…” Come on, Apple.

🔗 Amazon announces online car sales for the first time, starting with Hyundai - The Verge // Andrew J. Hawkins

Starting next year, you’ll be able to buy a car on Amazon for the first time. The company announced a deal with Hyundai that will allow dealerships to sell cars through the site.

Okay, but does it arrive with free Prime shipping?

Someone should probably mention to Apple’s gift guide team that they haven’t sold an iMac with an Apple logo on the chin for over two years now. Not even on the Refurbished store.

🔗 Windows is now an app for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and PCs - The Verge // Tom Warren

Microsoft has created a Windows App for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows, and web browsers. The app essentially takes the previous Windows 365 app and turns it into a central hub for streaming a copy of Windows from a remote PC, Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, Microsoft Dev Box, and Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Services.

I kind of think this is going to be Microsoft’s preferred solution instead of Windows for ARM via Boot Camp on Apple-silicon Macs.

🔗 tvOS 17.2: Apple TV app upgrades its preshow trailers with ‘add to queue’ button - 9to5Mac // Benjamin Mayo

But now, the skip button has been joined by a new ‘Add’ button. Pressing Add directly adds the title to the user’s Up Next queue, allowing them to keep track of it and get notified when new episodes drop.

A small logotype of the show is also displayed above the buttons, which helps contextualize the action.

Better would be an option to turn off those trailers, but if they’re sticking around then they might as well be more useful.

🔗 YouTube previews AI tool that clones famous singers — with their permission - The Verge // Jon Porter

Google is testing new generative AI features for YouTube that’ll let people create music tracks using just a text prompt or a simple hummed tune. The first, Dream Track, already seeded to a few creators on the platform, is designed to auto-generate short 30-second music tracks in the style of famous artists. The feature can imitate nine different artists, who’ve chosen to collaborate with YouTube on its development.

Oh boy, here we go!

🔗 watchOS 10.2 Beta Reintroduces Option to Change Apple Watch Faces With a Swipe - MacRumors // Juli Clover

Users can now choose to use a swipe gesture to switch the active Apple Watch face by enabling the option in the Apple Watch Settings app. With the feature turned on, swiping left or right on the watch face scrolls through the available watch faces that have been set up.

Horray! I’ve been using way fewer watch faces since watchOS 10 made it harder to swap them.

🔗 Apple Vision Pro gets new onboarding videos with visionOS beta 6 // Filipe Espósito

Another video added to the beta shows us a more detailed look at how users can create their 3D “Persona” for FaceTime calls using the headset. The process is similar to registering a new face to an iPhone or iPad with Face ID. Users must hold and point the Vision Pro at their face, then move their face sideways, up and down, and then smile and wink.

The video looks pretty slick. I hadn’t considered that the outer front screen could be used for showing stuff other than your passthrough expressions.

Orange is the best color. That’s it. That’s the tweet.

You might be tempted to pick up a hot pocket from the gas station because you fancy a warm morning meal and they have a microwave. Do not do it. It will not taste good and you will regret it.

The more I think about my blog as my personal-but-public online journal and less as a “capital-W” Website, the more I appreciate (and long for) Tumblr’s tools for easily dumping just about anything onto a webpage at your own domain and having it look pretty good.

I’ve been intrigued by the Johnny Decimal system since hearing about it first on Hemispheric Views and then again on Ruminate. I think I would love it. But I struggle with the idea that I’d have to recreate the system in all my apps that have their own data organization structure. And that I’d have to make the upfront time investment to move all my existing stuff into that system. I should probably do the workbook.

I’ve always considered myself an app-first guy. But I might be turning into a web-first devotee. I still think native apps offer the best experience for creating and consuming, but I’ve come around to the idea that the “one true source” should live online where everyone can get it. Still pondering…

🔗 Make Something Wonderful // Arun Venkatesan

Pick any idea Steve mentions and you’ll find it again and again throughout his life. What you see in Make Something Wonderful is Steve’s process of observation, learning, and revision. His world view and vision of a brighter future sharpen as he tries and makes mistakes.

Add to that the sheer amount of time covered in the book. Many of Apple’s breakthrough ideas like the iPhone were there in Steve’s words, but took decades to come to fruition.

Another poignant observation.

🔗 Make Something Wonderful

This book taught me that my life is just a blip in the timeline of humanity. It is up to me to decide how I will use it. Steve’s words show not just what can happen if I dedicate myself to making something wonderful. They also show the tremendous amount of hard work and time that it can take.

Make Something Wonderful will remind me to follow my curiosity and to keep trying and failing.

Today’s adventure: 5 pitches of über-classic Gunks routes with a dear friend. A crisp, late fall day with gorgeus views but surprisingly few folks at the cliff to share them with. Few things can quiet my mind while simultaneously requiring intense focus and intricate movement like climbing.🧗

🆕📝 AI Idea: Catch Up on RSS

All this talk of custom GPTs has my mind racing with plausible ideas for how AI/ML could solve specific problems that I face — using tech that seems entirely possible in the near future.