@pawelhalicki

And… Poor things.

Julian Bleecker

Um… Things are good. What's going on over here? It's having a discussion that's kind of like lingered through the week. It gets just like kind of on my mind. But. Talked to a guy the other day. We'd never talked before, so we're just kind of chit-chatting, and um… There was a… part of the conversation was, um… Like, when is, it was kind of like talking about, how do I describe this? Like. you know, quote unquote, I guess what people mean when they say slop, which I think really is just like, I'm aggravated that you're using that kind of thing.

But when, when is it, when does it have some meaning in, in kind of human terms, maybe? I don't know. It's, it's so fast and loose, but I think you kind of get. I'm not being very precise, but it's like, when is it… when is there a soul there? And I think they… I think that… I think it started around the… the… around music. And, you know, so we're just listening, kind of talking back and forth about it. He had a long, kind of, um… been had. In other words, you write a song… or just, like, you know, reason for the song to be there, other than, I don't know, why not, kind of thing.

It's like, well, you know… and then my mind flipped, uh, to… uh, the David Byrne concert that we went to, Hollywood Bowl, you know, I don't know, four weeks ago or so, and at some point, I realized, like, oh, uh, he's… he's telling stories before the… each song. I don't know if it was each song, but there was one where I was just like… I think because it hit me, the story hit me, I was like, oh my gosh, I've been listening to that song for, like, 40 years or whatever, and now he just told me.

Like, I've never heard that story before. Maybe he's told it. People are like, oh, yeah, we've known that for ages. Like, what were you thinking? I was like, I don't know. I just thought it was a cool song that I recognized. And the lyrics are beautiful. And the melody is like, you know, wonderfully infectious. And it's David By. So I like it. Um, and so, you know, my kind of, like, reflection on this fella's, you know, our conversation, and it wasn't an adversarial conversation at all. In our conversation, I was like, yeah, maybe there needs to be, you know, maybe there's a category of things where there, where there, there needs to be. collection of weights and vectors and stuff. is… has been trained, and maybe part of that train… you know, blah blah blah blah.

And I think, you know, that's an interesting discussion. I wouldn't take a hard and fast line either way, but I'd be like, okay, say more. let's… let's… let's ponder this, because then you might be on to something. But why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because I just got off the call, like, you know, hour-long call catching up with my brother, and he had sent me… he's on… in different time zones, so it kind of was, like, on my phone in the morning. Or maybe it was… it was on when I was, like, making coffee. he's not a… he's not a… he's not a singer, but he can, you know, he'll… he'll… he can rough something out, kind of thing.

We'll be like, yeah, cool, amazing. My brother, you know, is playing the piano, he sent me a song, it's amazing. And I and I listened to that. And I was like, Oh, okay, he's playing a song.

@pawelhalicki

But this is quite interesting because all this hinges on this concept of a frame of reference. We used to have this idea of the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And it seems to me that the very same will be with slop. Like, AI slop is in the eye of the beholder, because you need certain taste or certain frame of reference to point out, like, the sloppiness of the slop. So, for people who have no frame of reference, or no taste, or no judgment.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah.

@pawelhalicki

related to, let's say, music, or mushroom breeding, or kitchen recipes, or, you know, stuff like that, this may be completely invisible. And this is also quite interesting, that you need to be some kind of, maybe not an expert, but you need to have some kind of expertise in the field to actually. uh, see and experience the sloppiness of the slop. So, it is also quite fascinating as, um, more and more people are, uh, experiencing this idea of having, uh. Let's say a companion who knows much more about 99% of possible topics. I'm not really into mushrooms, but I'm pretty sure that any AI model knows much more about cultivation of mushrooms than myself.

And the list goes on. So, you need an expert to actually, uh, discover the sloppiness of the slop. So… Um, it is a really fascinating topic, especially when you put art, um, into it, or other things which, you know, relies on some kind of, um, emotions.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah.

Marc B

Yeah, there are state. I was gonna say, there are stakes, too. Um, if you're wrong about identifying a mushroom as a human, the stakes are higher than if the AI gets it wrong, right? It's just an interesting thing here, but… And I don't know if it relates correctly, but I do remember architecture school and that fine line between building and architecture. Right? Like, what… like, where does that get defined? Right? It's when there's some intentionality behind a given thing that has a metaphorical quality, is kind of where we ended up, right? So, if a wall is more than a wall because it intends to do something.

Right. Then you have this kind of like intention behind it and you begin the, you have the start of a framework for being able to define those things. Right. And again, that gets to like the, the, the sloppiness. boundary. Right. It's kind of interesting. Anyway, sorry, Rafael.

Raphael Sisa

Oh, no, I was just… the thing that you guys were talking about, uh, made me think of a few things. Like, one was, um, like, suspension of disbelief. Um, you know, when you go to see a movie, or you hear a song, there's, like.

Marc B

Mm-hmm.

Raphael Sisa

I don't know if there's any kind of, like, you know, inner thing that's happening, with, like, music at least, like, if you. Because I often can hear a song that might be made by, like, Suno, and like, wow, this is kind of amazing. And I immediately, like, lower my defenses.

Marc B

Okay.

Raphael Sisa

Uh, to it being, you know, created, uh, or it being slopped. And then, uh, there was something else I was thinking about while you were talking, Julian, about, um… not a real bird. There's a… this, like, uh, simulated territorial intrusion. I'm just… these are some words I'm just, like, picking out here. Uh, anyway, I don't know if any of that made any sense, just stuff that was coming up for me as you were talking.

Julian Bleecker

I think the the thing that I that that where I went to the is. conversation about the. project long. with other. other parts of the the team were not creative. So like, basically like the the lawyer guy. And… He cause he was telling me the story about how he created this thing, and how he was like, man, this is this is amazing. He's like, I'm not not a musician. I mean, he is a musician, professional musician as well. And he's like, if he's like this song. I know who I want to. I want to, you know, get in the studio to lay down the tracks, but it's like, there's old, you know, they've been in a bunch of bands together, John Marks, he's like.

Germany based. He comes back to the East Coast. And so he's like, Okay, when John Marks is in town, then I can get the guitar track. And then I can get I can get Ray when he's in town to do the vocals. You know this. So you're talking about months and months and months and months and months.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, uh…

Julian Bleecker

like prompting this thing to, you know, kind of take these different shapes. And it's just like this is what I this is what I need, and it kicked me back to. There's a little section in this book that I'm working on, which may not be a book, but who knows? Uh, that I'm talking about the TRA to wait, the rolling TRA to wait. And one of the early. from from the from the documentary, and kind of like, you know, reading about it. The the early idea, the early Ksp. Keep proposition. This is like 1,945. For Roland was like, this would be a great tool for producers.

Raphael Sisa

Thank you. Okay, okay. Right.

Julian Bleecker

So this, you know, so. triggered, I guess we would say now, by that, that they, you know, they riot. No one wants it. Musicians are humans.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, thank you.

Julian Bleecker

And I guess my take on it was like, okay, each one of these, you can't… it's too complex, it's too rich a topic to just kind of blanket with a uniform… Like. Um, who was it who was, who was doing it? You know, like, would you, would you ever point, would you ever point at Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and say, you are not a musician?

Raphael Sisa

No, that's fair.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah, you know, they're just a bunch of punks. Really?

Raphael Sisa

I say that every day. That's my… I wake up, and I'm like, Feasty Boys are probably… No, you're totally right. I'm thinking about… I had a dream last night, actually, it was kind of weird, uh, where…

Julian Bleecker

Sorry, the app. Ha ha. Okay. They're on my end. Is that me?

Raphael Sisa

Oh. Oh, uh, is that better?

Julian Bleecker

Alright, nevermind.

Raphael Sisa

Nope. Uh, I had a dream last night where, uh, for some reason I was in a party, and there was this French guy who was DJing, and I was asked to go and DJ, and then I had no idea what I was doing.

Julian Bleecker

the…

Raphael Sisa

then. But maybe useful at some point.

Julian Bleecker

No, no, no, it's fine. I just wanted to finish my thinking on that, just finish the story with my brother. for completeness.

Raphael Sisa

Mmhm.

Marc B

Is there a difference if it's kind of like a prototype and placeholder? Then if it's the final thing?

Julian Bleecker

Uh, I don't… yeah, I mean, I think, again, it's, like, kind of situated, like, what are we talking… you know, let's get in, you know, like, do the deep…

Marc B

Yeah, yeah.

Julian Bleecker

Purpose and all those kinds of things. Which I think was key to it.

Marc B

Yeah, but like. Because we get, now. and it's really interesting, I'm kind of thinking about, like, how the rule changes. We get a ton of mock-ups that are made by Claude, or whatever, instead of specs, or instead of loose, kind of hand-wavy requirements. Right? People will send us, oh, here's a prototype that I did in, you know, whatever.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

Marc B

Right? And it becomes a, it becomes a way of sketching. Right. The flip side of that is that we fired a client this week because they said, no, no, do it exactly like this. And we were like, yeah, don't worry. We're not, we're not, we're not a reverse centaur, you know, in, uh, Cory Doctorow's language, right? So…

Raphael Sisa

I just came across this term, I think it's demoitis. This is not a scientific term here, obviously, but a phenomenon where a psychological trap. Happens where a band or producer listens to a rough demo so many times that the temporary improvised elements become fundamentally baked into the track. It's kind of interesting. There's a thing here with Bill Withers. Uh, where he does, you know, uh, in the sunshine, he says, I know, uh, all these, you know, 26 times. I'm reading this off the… I'm sorry about this, guys. That might be sloppy in itself, but I'm just reading it off of a Gemini thing here.

But, uh, that… that was just a filler. The whole track. or some other example.

Marc B

I have examples where mistakes were left in, and they led to hilarity on presentation day. We, uh, we had a, um… we were working on a spa back in my architecture days, and the young dude that I was working with asked what was going to go in the room, and I said, oh, it'll be FIR, like F-I-R. And he just wrote fur everywhere, if you, you know, like fur, and it stayed on. It got like posted on a giant poster board. And then the lead architect had to go and present in front of a bunch of Austrian clients.

And it said fur everywhere. For like a little sauna room, which would have been a really interesting.

Raphael Sisa

Could be.

Marc B

But yeah, yeah, so you know. But yeah, not kind of… There is, um… There's a component to making things that relies on chance. That have left in happy accidents and stuff like that, right? that remain. But to me, that's just part of the… process and part of engaging with whatever material is talking back to you. So… I do. I have thought a lot about. I kind of look at… Everything as a material act. mainly. It's a leftover from my architecture education. So I think about kind of I think about it materially. And one of the things that. when you're working materials, especially as an architect, is sometimes you're removed from the making of the thing.

It's that kind of alienation from the object, in a way. Because often what you do is you create models of things that either describe how something is going to be, or as an instruction for what's going to happen. And so you get used to not having immediacy. And so I wonder where that overlaps with something that's not only less immediate, like, I mean, it's immediate in terms of, like, the speed at which it can generate something, but it's not immediate in terms of your contact with the material, and it's also… not as reliable. It's more probabilistic, right?

And so now you're in the kind of room where you're making something, this thing can be seen like an instrument, it's not immediate.

Raphael Sisa

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Marc B

Um, and it's also not kind of predictable, it's more probabilistic, and is that still an instrument? Is that still a tool? Is that still something? And at what point, you know, do we lose that, right? Which, I guess. kind of comes back to taste and assembling things in the way that maybe originally mixing and DJing wasn't seen as. you know, being music, right? Or being, you know, an artist or something like that.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, interesting. Uh, I mean, my mind goes immediately to improv, because, uh, I mean, every scene will be different. And, like, the same kind of, like, like, ingredients are there, like, if you, if you, uh, ever studied it, like, or you ever saw a show at UCB, like, it's.

Marc B

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Raphael Sisa

Uh, so you have similar kind of elements, but everything that's expressed is, like, you can't control. What's gonna happen? And that's certainly an art form. So in the same way, I mean, yeah.

Marc B

Here. No, there's an emergent quality to making stuff to some degree, right? And something like improv, I think. Improv to me is closer to design than people…

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

Marc B

Kind of talk about regularly.

Julian Bleecker

Totally, yeah. Are you talking just improv in general, or any particular that is on your mind, Raphael? Theater, comedy.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, look, improv, improv, theater, comedy, I mean, like, I used to take classes at UCB, uh, Upper Citizens Parade, and like, I.

Julian Bleecker

Oh, right, right, right, right.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, you go see a show, and uh… I mean, they're fantastic. Yeah, I'll think of that.

Julian Bleecker

The last time I went to see improv at a little local. join… my wife, I think I've mentioned, my wife, she did improv during COVID, which was crazy.

Marc B

Oh, great. That's cool.

Raphael Sisa

Really? Whoa, that's. On Zoom? Hmm, okay.

Julian Bleecker

You're like… like, what… what is… what is going on here? How do you… how do you, you know, describe the dynamic that is happening there? They did the thing, whatever they… it's probably a name for the kind of bit where it's just like, okay, so, um, yeah, you in front, so just tell me a little bit about yourself. What's your name, first of all?

Raphael Sisa

Mm-hmm, yep.

Julian Bleecker

And what do you do? And they're, you know, they're just spinning material, right? And then, at one point, you know, the guy's in the middle of telling a story about how he's the guy who turns a valve on a, on a, on a water pipe for, you know, water distribution in LA County or whatever. And they're like, no, no, that's enough, stop right there. And then, then they just point and say, I'll go sit there and sit there, and then they just start.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay. Oh yeah, Harry Mack, the freestyler? Yeah, yeah, he's good. That guy's amazing.

Julian Bleecker

Wow, that's beautiful.

Raphael Sisa

Yes.

Julian Bleecker

That's amazing.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, it's, it's really, when you see, when it's really, really good, like, people are connected to each other, it's, uh, and they're really in the moment, it's, it's pretty incredible. If you ever watch Silicon Valley, I think he played like Jared. Um…

Julian Bleecker

The tall… the tall guy with… who always wore the quarter zip?

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, yeah, that guy is incredible, uh, Zach Woods. Oh my gosh, he's, like, probably one of the best.

Julian Bleecker

Oh, really?

Marc B

Yep. No. You're Casey and Zach Wood!

Raphael Sisa

You gotta, I mean, watch it when you have the time, but yeah, they're amazing. Julian, have you gone off to watch them? That's kind of rude. Come back.

Marc B

Okay.

Raphael Sisa

Don't do it. Hey, Mark, what are you doing now, if not in architecture? Because I'm actually… I've been a product designer for the past, like, 10 years, and then I'm actually now taking an architecture class, because I want to go more into, like, spatial design.

Marc B

Yep. Uh, yeah, I'm a product designer.

Raphael Sisa

Oh, okay, so you understand, okay. What made you sort of steer away?

Marc B

Yeah, I, yeah. Oh, it was a mistake. I, uh… no, no, it was… it was happenstance. I went to grad school to try and specialize, because I was doing a lot of interactive interiors. And so I went to grad school and did a kind of a self-directed master's on space as a medium for communication. right, so interior spaces and that kind of thing, and then when I got out of that, I, uh, ended up at, like, an interbrand, and, um… And just, like, really briefly, and kind of talking to them about stuff, and it turned out that my skills were more, um… I was the one who understood space, so I became a generalist.

And then when I moved back to Canada from the UK, uh, it was… there just wasn't a lot of money being poured into interiors, so I became a design director and product manager and that kind of thing.

Raphael Sisa

That's okay, yeah.

Marc B

Yeah. But yeah, yeah, no, I've now got an agency that kind of deals with kind of complex apps and stuff like that.

Raphael Sisa

Oh, cool!

Marc B

Yep.

Raphael Sisa

That's good.

Marc B

Yeah. Yeah.

@pawelhalicki

That's that's quite interesting because.

Raphael Sisa

I really, I'm enjoying this, yeah, sorry.

@pawelhalicki

Sorry, please go first. I was just about to share that I'm also a product designer, and I'm also trying to transition right now more into, like, speculative fiction and, like, using it for, like, facilitation and workshops and, you know, things like that.

Raphael Sisa

Sooner. Oh.

@pawelhalicki

Um, so, so yeah, that's, um… It seems that a lot of, like, product designers are looking for something else right now.

Raphael Sisa

It does feel that way. I actually was curious about speculative fiction in terms of… how they use that, uh, or design fiction for… for architecture, because what I understand is, like, architecture has this really long timelines, like, it could be, uh, you know, a decade or more until a project… I mean, like, the Lucas Museum that just opened, I don't know how long that's been, um…

Marc B

Yep. Yeah, but one of the things I noticed the most on my transition was the lack of theoretical footing that exists outside of architecture in design. Right. Architecture is very much… well, first of all, there's… you know, liability overheads and things like that, like the actual practical part of making buildings happen. And my background in architecture is big sports facilities.

Raphael Sisa

Uh-huh.

Marc B

So, like, I planned, like, Olympic Games facilities and big arenas and that kind of thing, and those are, like, really long-term. So, like you said, 8 years. 2 Olympic cycles, right? From the time that it gets awarded. And so, uh, you also are spared from… having just one project, because they cycle through. So you're in different phases of different projects at the same time. Right? And so there's a part, like, the reality of it is a part of. being at, you know, having 4 or 5 different projects at different stages that you're kind of working on, and that keeps you from having just, like, a singular goal with some, you know, 8-year project or something like that, just a reality in an office.

Um, it's also the canary in the coal mine.

Raphael Sisa

Mm, mm.

Marc B

If the economy is going to start to circle the toilet. I found that, like, projects get canceled. Big building projects, big capital projects get canceled first, right? So. It is a boom and bust cycle.

Raphael Sisa

Interesting.

Marc B

as well.

Raphael Sisa

Is there, you think, is there, like, an index somewhere of, like, architecture, uh, you know. Like, projects getting… getting canceled? Over time, so you can see some trends.

Marc B

Uh, yeah, you can… there's, like, the… what's it called? The Architect's Newspaper? Things like that, where they announce new project starts and hirings. It's kind of like a gossip rag for the… for that. I'm sure the AIA has some stuff and research on that. A lot of the stuff is… happens at the… you know, when that capital is allocated, so it kind of comes from different parts, depending on where you're at. I don't know that there's a consolidated view of… that. Yeah.

@pawelhalicki

There could be also a different lens to figuring out this index. You could look at M&A activity because usually companies, when the time is not right, they will either keep to their assets or to their cash.

Raphael Sisa

Interesting.

@pawelhalicki

So, like, anytime you have increase in M&A activity, and this is, like, fairly simple to access, um, you can assume that certain things are moving. in certain direction.

Raphael Sisa

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Marc B

Yeah, also, public and private spending are out of sync.

@pawelhalicki

Yep.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

Marc B

Right. That's the other thing to think about. You can look at those too. Like here in Canada right now, there's gonna be a ton of public activity.

Raphael Sisa

Mm, okay.

Marc B

And maybe some private activity to follow, but there's a big, you know, public push right now to make certain things happen.

@pawelhalicki

It is also quite interesting to see this new dynamic between Canada and the European Union. This could be quite an interesting thing.

Marc B

Yeah, well, I mean, it's… it was… it makes for a good talking point. I think there's a meeting at the end of October where we might see some details about what it actually means, but as somebody who has spent my life traveling between the two, I'm very comfortable with the… Connection. I've lived and worked in Europe a lot, so. It's, uh… You know. I already feel connected, so we'll see what happens. Oh, yeah.

@pawelhalicki

Just one thing came to mind as we discussed all those strange mistakes or mishaps before. I used to work at a company doing a lot of market research, like the Nielsen company. So like audience measurement is quite a popular thing to do in multiple different countries and different geographies. And at some point, we were, um, starting a new ground-up project in, uh, in the Middle East. I believe it was, uh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, or something like that. And at some point, just, like, hours before the presentation, someone figured out that, like, all the assets, like, all the, um. all the, um, pictures, like, all the stock photos in the presentation are using the wrong type of traditional religious, um, headpieces, because in Middle East, like, every single country has, like, a slightly different design, or different color, or, like, you know, different.

Marc B

Okay.

@pawelhalicki

set up, and it turned out that that could be actually quite offensive, uh, to the recipients of the presentation. So it was, uh, you know, a Hail Mary kind of a situation where all hands, um, and everyone were trying, you know, to basically recover, um, from that by, uh, looking for new. assets with like a matching headpieces. That was quite an interesting thing.

Raphael Sisa

Dang, how did they catch that? Who caught that?

@pawelhalicki

Uh, just, you know, someone realized that, you know, all the people, uh, when we were researching, like, you know, all the participants of the presentation, we just realized at some point that, uh.

Raphael Sisa

Uh-huh. Hmm, okay.

@pawelhalicki

well, their headpieces are not matching, you know, the headpieces used by every single character in the presentation. So that was quite an interesting thing. And it's also like this cultural blindness kind of a thing, like, if you're not, like, really, if you're entering a new space. Like there will be a lot of mistakes like that for sure.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

@pawelhalicki

So this idea of, like, cross-culture communication, this is also quite an interesting thing to witness in terms of the outputs of AI, because more and more countries are interested right now in, like, training their own, like, local versions of certain models on their own data, or, like, you know, certain cultural sensitivities, or, you know, trying to bake in.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, just thinking. Mmhm. Mm, okay.

@pawelhalicki

um, some additional things, um, because, uh, for sure, most of the internet right now is, uh, let's say, like, a Western or, like, you know, Anglo-Atlantic kind of, uh, culture sphere, so it's quite interesting to see more initiatives, like, there is, um, in Switzerland, there is this, um, model called. I believe it's Apertus, and basically they trained it on data in four local Swiss languages, including Romance, which is, like, you know, this very, very niche one.

Raphael Sisa

Well, thank you.

@pawelhalicki

And it is being right now used in all the chatbots in, like, um, you know, railway… public railway company, uh, you know, all the local, like, energy suppliers and stuff like that. So, um, it is an interesting direction, and maybe this will also lead to some…

Raphael Sisa

low.

@pawelhalicki

Interesting new mistakes very soon. It's called Apertus. I will try to share the link, but I'm on mobile.

Raphael Sisa

Interesting. I think, is this the one here? Apertus AI, that one?

@pawelhalicki

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's this one, yeah. And it was, like, a public, um… it… yeah, and it is, like, open source, and, uh, like, the biggest companies basically financed it, and it's all, like, trained on this particular set of, like, language and cultural assets. So, I'm pretty sure that we will have something very similar coming from Japan and South Korea very soon, as well.

Marc B

Yeah, there's a Canadian model. There's a Canadian model as well from Agur. Um, and their Ossington 5 model actually is even… even has, like, French-Canadian language built in, and there's some other ones… And. I'm trying to remember what the other guys are. But, um… Yeah, there's 2, there's 2 sovereign models in Canada that are growing, and they're both done like based on Canadian law. Right, and Canadian healthcare, um, legal requirements and things like that, so these kind of specialized models.

Raphael Sisa

Whoa, okay. Interesting.

@pawelhalicki

That's, that's a really interesting, like, topic, I think. Like, we used to have this, um, I believe it was, like, a sociology, um, kind of a scientist, and, um, I, I can't remember his name right now, but there was this idea of digital worldview, and basically, in, uh, in Polish courts, a lot of people are being fined. when they are, you know, just standing up during the proceedings and shouting objection, or something like that, because there are no such things in Polish law. So it is basically, like, against the law to interrupt the judge, or, you know, doing all those.

Raphael Sisa

Oh!

@pawelhalicki

things, because all those people, they watched so many different series, and so many different movies, so they assume that certain things work this way. So when they are in real, let's say, like, Polish court, or in Netherlands, in different places, where the legal system works in a slightly different way, especially in terms of formal proceedings.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

Marc B

Okay.

@pawelhalicki

Uh, there can be fines involved, and this idea, like, this mismatch is called digital worldview, where people basically incorporate a lot of, like, ideas from the culture, uh, like, the cultural assets, like, you know, movies or. or series, or like, or even, like, games. So, I'm pretty sure that with AI, it will be quite an interesting thing to witness very soon, as well, given all those sovereign models.

Julian Bleecker

That's, uh… That's like, um…

Raphael Sisa

That's really interesting.

Julian Bleecker

uh, the lab coats in Hollywood, which was very inspirational. Um… people's… because they show, like, on Law & Order or whatever show that… if you got the DNA evidence, it's like, you're… that's it, you're done. And it's… it's because that's efficient for… you know, a… 39-minute police procedural. They got 39 minutes to wrap this damn thing up. now we gotta get to the DA, so, no, we're not gonna have any kind of, like, quandary about the DNA evidence. And so people are like, you know, that… and juries, so then juries are kind of like, well, they got the DNA, I mean, what's left for me to do?

@pawelhalicki

I'm pretty sure there was even like a phenomena named after this CSI series. Someone tried to measure the correlation between the participants of the jury.

Raphael Sisa

Amazing.

@pawelhalicki

and, you know, their exposition to the CSI series, and it turned out that a lot of decisions were based on, you know, what people saw on TV.

Raphael Sisa

Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Can someone find that study? That is really interesting.

@pawelhalicki

It… Yeah, it's, like, I'm pretty sure you can, you can type something like CSI and, um, and, like, legal jury. Yeah, yeah, so something like that. I'm sorry, I'm on mobile today, so it's, it's quite hard for me to…

Raphael Sisa

Effect on jurors. Oh, no, no problem. That is really interesting. Okay, I think I found something here. I'll share this in the chat. I don't know what I've just actually sent you guys to. Oh, yeah.

Marc B

PSI effect. That's great. Yeah.

@pawelhalicki

Yep.

Raphael Sisa

That is really… that's cool. It's really interesting.

Julian Bleecker

Well, and the… Yep.

Marc B

Look at that!

@pawelhalicki

Yeah, so this is also a very… Sorry, Julian, please go first.

Julian Bleecker

My god. No, no, no, please, no.

@pawelhalicki

Because this is also quite an interesting effect because right now there is this concept of AI psychosis where you have a lot of people who should be seeking medical help with certain delusions or certain problems. Those problems may be manifesting much faster. Because AI, like, or conversations with AI, are reinforcing all those problems. So more and more, uh, more and more, um, psychiatrists or psychologists are basically, uh, having patients, um, you know, with certain, like, you know, delusional problems, like, you know, AI. Uh, disclosed only to me a secret about optimal investing strategy, or, like, about this conspiracy, or things like that.

I'm the chosen person for all that. So, it may be quite an interesting thing to see more and more, um, situations influenced by the output of AI.

Raphael Sisa

Uh-huh.

@pawelhalicki

retrained or certain cultural artifacts. So all this can basically come. together into something that may be very, very troubling.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay. Interesting. I've been thinking a lot about, uh, like, placemaking, and then this kind of, uh, this, like, concept called place information system. Which is, like, you know, you go somewhere and then you get, like, all your information from all the digital stuff before you actually experience the place, or even if you experience the place, you still rely on, like, you know, Yelp. and all this kind of stuff. And I was thinking like, how does that fit in with the… digital worldview, and I think it's probably, like, maybe a subset?

@pawelhalicki

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm pretty sure that a lot of, um, like, destinations are, like, uh, are destinations because people saw them in certain series, or, uh, or, you know, I'm pretty sure that most of the streets in New York, for example, played in so many movies that everyone. before even like walking them in person, they, you know, saw everything on those streets for even for years for some situations.

Raphael Sisa

Oh, yeah.

Marc B

Yeah, LA was like that for me the first time I went down. I was like, this is eerily familiar.

@pawelhalicki

Thank you.

Marc B

And I was like, Oh, shit! This is scene out of Beverly Hills Cop, or something like that.

Raphael Sisa

Oof. Good reference. Good reference, man. Fantastic.

Marc B

Yep.

Raphael Sisa

Interesting.

Marc B

Yep. I mean, there's also that Instagram phenomenon, too, which is… kind of… I don't want to say it's problematic, but it's interesting, right? Or people traveling… was it to Dubrovnik, because they're G. So then, yeah.

@pawelhalicki

But I'm pretty sure that with Instagram, there is also like this idea of ownership, like owning the moment, like owning the frame. Like there is a mandatory photo spot that when you're in some place, you need to take it and you need to post it. And there are like more and more cafes in China and in South Korea, which rely only on like the opportunity for people. for guests to basically take certain pictures, which are, you know, popular on certain platforms. And, like, you know, the coffee or, like, you know, the seating is, like, a second thing.

Raphael Sisa

What would you call that?

@pawelhalicki

I'm not sure about that, but it's an emerging phenomenon right now, that more and more places are focused on the content you can produce there, instead of, you know, just providing space for, like, you know, casual conversations, or meetings, or tasting the product. And, like, the coffee scene in South Korea is, like, it's crazy. Like, cafes over there, they can look like a rainforest, or like a weather station, or like, you know, an ancient temple, or things like that. And usually a lot of, um… Architectural studios are basically using them as showpieces for certain.

Marc B

Yep.

@pawelhalicki

Um, for certain, um, yeah, like, presentation reasons, or promotion, or marketing.

Raphael Sisa

Oh my gosh.

@pawelhalicki

Thank you.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, that reminds me of like the museums that I remember before the pandemic, there's like the Happy Place. these kind of places you go to just to take, like, photos, and that's all it is. I mean, you know, they were interesting. Um, so… Yeah, I've been really interested in, like, urban, uh, kind of planning and design, especially, like, city design. And I wonder, like, these kind of places that pop up and are just for, like, that consumption, uh, I think it could be called maybe spatial salience? I'm just looking up some terms here that came up.

Marc B

Yeah, thank you. I, I think… so, Vancouver is a, uh, it's a tourism-based city.

Raphael Sisa

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Marc B

And I know, like, there was a 3-day Taylor Swift-a-palooza a couple of years ago, where they kind of came in, and there were these giant hashtags of words, love and whatever, that were all over the city with kind of scenic backdrops, and it became a… It became kind of like a scavenger hunt. for, like, the den mom and the 4, 5, 6 young girls that, like, came with her, and you could see them all over the city. I… to me, it was… interesting for the fabric of the city. For a city that is based on, you know, aesthetics, as Vancouver is, I think it was… like, it… It met the brief.

You know, of getting people, like, to certain parts of the city to, you know, help with tourism dollars and that kind of thing. And they learned a… they took a trick from it when they turned the science world into a giant soccer ball for the World Cup this summer.

Raphael Sisa

Thank you.

Marc B

right? Which had the same kind of effect. And now you see these like, you see, Espn is like ranking the best cities for the World Cup. And sure enough, you see the big soccer ball on top of science world. And so it, I think, from a city branding perspective, which I think is an interesting. kind of concept. It has legs in a highly visual and kind of digitally distributed culture, so… This is the… Um, the flip side of something like Barcelona or somewhere like that, where they, you know, have the Airbnb. tourism kind of… or anti Airbnb tourism demonstration.

So I think it's a again. It's. city by city basis. But I think that's the…

Raphael Sisa

Thank you.

Marc B

visual economy that it fits into.

Raphael Sisa

Ooh, Visual Economy, that's interesting.

Julian Bleecker

I like this phenomenon of the… Coffee shop isn't a coffee shop anymore or something. What was it you're saying? Like, is there a term for that?

Marc B

Yep.

Julian Bleecker

When the, uh…

@pawelhalicki

Oops.

Julian Bleecker

The place becomes not for it's a sensible purpose. That you and I might think it's worth.

Marc B

Hmm. Okay.

Julian Bleecker

Who knows, like, the kids coming up might be like, why would you… Why wouldn't it be for also having an experience that you can share? Which could be a fair point, you know, like, uh…

Marc B

Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Till it turned out that those peanuts on the floor were like a huge fire hazard. Things they didn't care about in the 80s. Yep. Yep.

Julian Bleecker

Jerky drumstick. that was, you know, medieval and ridiculous, and butterbeer, which is like… I think they call this a root beer float, but okay, whatever y'all call it.

Marc B

Muted.

Julian Bleecker

But it was, you know, so you had that experience, so I guess it's not so surprising. In a sense. There's a there's a there's a legacy to. having themed oriented. Places.

Marc B

Mmhm.

Julian Bleecker

I mean, I guess there's got to be a little bit of a difference.

Rick Griffith

I believe it. wasn't there that place called Medieval Times, right, that showed up in a lot of movies, and they were using it as this sort of date simulation backdrop history lesson slash.

Marc B

Yeah. Medieval times, yeah.

Rick Griffith

you know, arc backwards into campiness. Right? So it could be anywhere in the there's like maybe 3 sliders. One is like super campy. The other one is like high level, you know, levels of education that's available like whether it's a. undergraduate or high school education level or grad school education simulation, right? And one of the things that… one of the things that we have in Denver, which I'm certain not a lot of other places have it.

Julian Bleecker

Mm-hmm.

Rick Griffith

Because we do… We do contradiction particularly differently here, but we have a… the owner of the local aquarium is a fish restaurant. And so, so, so there's, so you don't know whether the aquarium is built around the restaurant or whether the restaurant is, you know, happens to be the owner of the aquarium, the person with the, the organization with the most.

Julian Bleecker

Mmhm.

Rick Griffith

the most branded, uh, sort of equity around, uh, you know, fish in a, in a landlocked state, you know? It's just something.

Julian Bleecker

Oh.

Marc B

It's pretty good.

Raphael Sisa

Wild.

Marc B

That's pretty funny. There's also now, I mean, I read this last week, I think it's really interesting, as a kind of a flip to this, uh, Claude and, um, so Anthropic and OpenAI are opening cafes. Like, real-world places.

Rick Griffith

But you, do you, the trend right now in opening cafes is, um… is private equity banks that want you to feel really, really close to them, like BILT, the guys with the credit card where you can pay your rent on BILT. They're building a cafe across the street from the Whitney Museum of American Art. And I'm sensing that there's a couple of reasons why. Number one is that coffee is a really lucrative. 9 x multiplier retail thing. So it's easy to make your money back. It's also easy to not make your money back, because you could figure that out right?

So like you could. You could have coffee beans. You could have baristas. You could have a hangout space. You could make all sorts of money off of a pastry.

Marc B

Okay. Yeah.

Rick Griffith

Um, but you wouldn't have to make your money back if you were also the, the private equity bank and you were giving people free coffee or points or, you know, turning that, turning that retail experience into a, into a card carrying benefit. So you get a toilet in whatever city you show up in, you're like, oh yeah, just, uh, use your credit card and you can enter the toilet. Like… Because it's one of our toilets.

Raphael Sisa

That's really interesting. So, they are opening cafes, and the, the sort of, um… The business model for them that makes it, like. Something… how do they sort of… Yeah, how do they make the case for, like, that as an investment? Is it that it actually, like, retains… is it, like, a loyalty thing? Is it increases, like, people who want to sign up with their bank, or…

Rick Griffith

Yeah, I mean, that's what I get. It's a relationship-building instrument in their marketing. They're like, why are we throwing away all this marketing on, like.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

Rick Griffith

print ads. Let's just take up a street corner and be a cafe and, you know, bring the general benefit of belonging to this global digital bank situation, you know, into focus for people who are traveling. And, you know, I mean, it… it jives with me, like, I would be… If… I don't know, if cafes weren't so culturally sensitive for me, I would… I would be okay with it all, but, but then it just looks like Starbucks. It just looks like Starbucks, which doesn't have the same mission, right? The, the mission of Starbucks is to deliver a globally consistent products, yada, yada, yada.

Marc B

Bye.

Rick Griffith

Which is cool. That's not my goal of a coffee shop.

Marc B

Yep.

Raphael Sisa

Hmmm.

Rick Griffith

So… So I kind of understand the other goal more, like, people who belong to a regular global club. Like, I always… I'm mad at myself for not having figured out the airport lounge thing. Because who doesn't want to be around people who are cool? when they're at the airport, right? Who wants to be herded like cattle, right? But at the end of the day, I'm just regular people, so… I just show up and be herded onto the airplane like regular people. And when I get one of these, like, I get excited when I find a drink ticket from Southwest.

I get excited when I find a lounge pass from… United, and I usually save it until it expires, you know, that sort of thing. Um… I mean, I think… I think these large companies are… are barking up the right tree, but… I guess I'm on the outside, so it doesn't matter. It's sort of like, I don't know whether to feel loss or whether to feel…

Raphael Sisa

Mm, okay.

Rick Griffith

Like, I've just got to earn my way back into their favor, you know? Like, spend harder, Rick.

Marc B

You have to life hack it a little bit on international flights that the clients are just paying for like a kind of premium economy. I pay the 50 bucks for access to the lounge out of pocket. You basically fly like business class at like a third the price and still get the lounge.

Rick Griffith

Hey, look at you giving all sorts of shits about that. I love it.

Marc B

True. Okay, if you're… if you're good at 4 hours to wait in Delhi.

Rick Griffith

Yeah.

Marc B

I don't know. It's worth it.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, I mean, I, I tend to feel like I, I would make the decision like at the time, right? I'd be like, yeah, okay, let's go.

Marc B

Yep.

Rick Griffith

Okay.

Raphael Sisa

Okay.

Marc B

So, Julian, I have to say, I was working on something very similar this week when I saw Expeditionary Engineering. on that post. I really like the, I like the term a lot.

Julian Bleecker

What were you… what were you working on?

Marc B

Well, so our firm is set up, um, along the lines of missions, because we do, like, ongoing missions with clients. And so I was looking at that kind of. Uh, at a sprint that is a kind of like a… it's like a future sprint. Right? And so I was looking along, because we already used the kind of, like, missions. kind of metaphor in the work that we do. It was. It was just I was thinking about the you know that that crew member that gets sent like forward in time, bring something back like that kind of thing.

And so that expeditionary engineering was an interest just as interesting term. I just, yeah, it just kind of aligned with the metaphors that I was playing with at the time, which I really liked.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah. Yeah, I've been kind of enjoying making up. Generative job, jobs, job descriptions.

Marc B

Yeah.

Julian Bleecker

The goal being that someone sees it and they'd be like, hey, we need that kind of character. Are you one of those kind of characters? Hell yeah, I'm an expeditionary engineer. What do you think I've been doing my whole life.

Marc B

Yeah. I especially like the compensation level.

Julian Bleecker

Oh, yeah, then you just… yeah.

Marc B

I was like, yeah, I'll be an expeditionary level for that range. Anytime.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah, yeah, then you're getting into the kind of, like, manifesting realm of voodoo.

Marc B

That's right, yeah. Exactly. No. No, it's great.

Julian Bleecker

I also like the… just the metaphor of, like, the, you know, the expedition, or the… the thing that…

Marc B

Mm-hmm.

Julian Bleecker

Back when there was… there were unexplored places where it's just like, hey, we're gonna just go… we're gonna get into this wooden boat. And we're gonna sail across this ocean and see where we're gonna end up in this new terrain.

Marc B

Yeah, we'll see.

Julian Bleecker

I'm not sure what's going to be there.

Marc B

We'll see if there's another side. Mmhm. Mm-hmm.

Julian Bleecker

without that. If you didn't bring that, if you kind of showed up and you're just kind of like… I want, you know, I want to… I want to learn your epistemology and your ontology. I'm curious. And what can I learn from that? And what can I maybe bring back in a generative way? Doesn't happen, but… As a… as an illusion. as a kind of, you know. Metaphor is the wrong word, but as a vision of what it is to…

Marc B

Mm-hmm. You know.

Julian Bleecker

we kind of orient around it, and we try to identify, you know, what is the more resonant, and that kind of thing, which I always, you know, very deliberately did not learn that stuff, so if you ask me to do that stuff, I'm just like, fuck right off. You can get anyone else to kind of pull those levers if you want.

Marc B

Yep.

Julian Bleecker

I'm Julian Bleecker, goddammit. You're trying to tell me how to play the song? What? That's not how it works. Which then makes it very difficult for people to kind of get what you do. So what is it that you do?

Marc B

Yep. Isn't there a… was it non-interference treaty or some kind of, like, rule for Star Trek anyway? There's some kind of, I think, rotten area. What's that?

Julian Bleecker

The prime directive?

Marc B

Is that the prime? Was it the prime directive? Was the non-interference?

Julian Bleecker

I think so, yeah.

Marc B

Part of it.

Rick Griffith

Yeah. Yeah.

Marc B

Yeah, thank you. Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah.

Rick Griffith

I mean, prime directive's a few things, but it's definitely that first contact comes into the prime directive, like… You don't interfere in the technological advancement of any culture.

Marc B

Yep.

Rick Griffith

Um… And then, after that, you have first contact protocols.

Julian Bleecker

Rick's like, it was right on page 37, you guys, Jesus.

Rick Griffith

Okay, cool.

Marc B

Yeah, that's true.

Rick Griffith

I'm a very confident driver.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah. First contact protocol is our interpret.

Marc B

That's right, yeah, yeah. And at minute 32 of episode 7, he held up a document, and Picard or Kirk said to…

Julian Bleecker

Yeah. Now, Rick's like, what is this show of which you refer to? What are you talking about? This is…

Marc B

Yes.

Julian Bleecker

Television show? No. What do you mean? You must be, was there some documentary that I missed?

Rick Griffith

Okay.

Julian Bleecker

Oh, hmm.

Rick Griffith

Uh…

@pawelhalicki

I need to jump early. So again, thank you for a fantastic conversation and enjoy the rest of it. See you.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah, good seeing you, Babo. Take care, by.

Marc B

No problem.

Rick Griffith

Jay Powell.

Marc B

Take care.

Julian Bleecker

Uh, Rick, I haven't seen you in a minute, how are things.

Marc B

Yep.

Julian Bleecker

And every day, I'm like, I got to call Rick. I got to call Rick. I got to call.

Rick Griffith

Uh, there… Oh, that's funny! I'm feeling exactly the same way. You know, here's what's up for you and me. I think that we're in this ritual of seeing each other in this, which is fairly reliable, and then it's Thursday, and I'm like, I don't want to rush it. I don't want to call him first thing on Friday morning, and then just be like. Oh, uh, you know, like the dog just ran off. Let me catch that, you know, like, I don't want to be in, in the, because last time we tried it, we, I think we both got totally distracted by things that we were working on.

So, so yeah, I feel like I should call you on a Monday. And not on a Thursday or a Friday, you know. My dad died this week.

Marc B

Oh.

Rick Griffith

Which was, you know, like it was not great. It was.

Marc B

Cheese, Rick.

Rick Griffith

But but he was good and old, and. uh, the stuff that makes it not great is usually, like, just how other people handle death. Like, I'm good with it, my partner's good with it, and some of the more mature family members are kind of like, we understand.

Julian Bleecker

Hmm.

Rick Griffith

And some of the less mature family members are super curious. They're just emotionally curious, and they're pokey, you know? And I'm like, hey, I'm good, man. Like, you can… Like, we don't know each other like that, so don't… don't poke. Um… But… but… it was nice for a few days to be at the center of the family stuff, because he kind of… Told me that I was in charge of his project. Umm. And so I got to, you know, direct traffic in the family universe, which was good and also had a little bit of stress.

I'm doing a talk tonight on Octavia Butler. like intersectional conversation about. uh, Colson Whitehead's book and the film Nickel Boys with Octavia Butler with Futures, and… And it's at the, like, a local library. and it's a sold out room at 35 people, you know, like it's it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be really easy and and one of the one of the things I I'm working on is how to articulate this notion of like. It doesn't — like, it really, really matters what you decide to put in the center of your diagram. And if you're trying to make a diagram from the center out, then it becomes about everything's relationship to the center.

And if you make diagrams from the outside in, it becomes everything about like chasing and pushing. material from the center to the fringes, and so and so forth, and and when it comes to. talking about Octavia Butler's, like, sort of, uh… mythic clairvoyance of the future, you know, like, it leans into a little bit of, like, well… she had an experience that kind of guided her towards thinking about futures in this way, so it makes really good sense for… the center of her diagram to be, how do we survive? And because that's the question of how do we survive, she knows that certain… Certain bodies, certain… you know, sort of certain biologies won't make it.

So she thinks about hybridization, but then she thinks about hybridization with what? You know, like, with cockroaches, with, you know, things that would make it, like, things that are bad, things that are, you know… So I love the idea that… that… If you put at the center of your futures diagram, like, how do we make it, then it looks really different to how do we live? Meaning, like, we're thriving, so what's new and convenient for you, you know? And so I love that notion of taking a small. public library audience and just going, how do you think about the future?

Like, what's in the center of your diagram? And, um, and how far-flung is your projection? You know? And, and, and so, you know, depending on how far flung your projection is, it really depends on like what your imagination is doing for other people. Because if you've got this in, in some, in some sense, science fiction that's flung into. the far future, then it's an imaginative document. If you have something that's in the near future, it's speculative design, right? It's something else. And if it's in, like, tomorrow future, this afternoon future. then it's hard to distinguish or pull apart the future from the present and the present from the past.

So that's all.

Marc B

I'd show up to that. If I was back in the Denver area and it wasn't sold out.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, you know, like, the thing about free lectures with the public library is that they have a lot of false positives. So I would come out, like, I would just hang out in the line with the people who are on the waitlist, and, like, hang out with them for half an hour or 20 minutes before the whole thing starts, and be like.

Marc B

Mmhm. Yeah.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, it looks like we're all getting in.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah.

Marc B

Yep.

Raphael Sisa

Do you have plans to give any talks outside of Denver at any point soon?

Rick Griffith

Um, yeah, I have one lecture in South Dakota.

Raphael Sisa

Yes.

Rick Griffith

in October. I have another. I don't know if it's a lecture, or if I'm just being included on a panel. But. I think it's a panel that's happening on Bainbridge Island, because they bought some work from me, the guys at BEMA. Um… So I'm going out that way pretty soon. uh… I think I've got… Oh, one in one in France, one in Paris. Um… I think that's it for this semester.

Raphael Sisa

Mm, okay.

Rick Griffith

Um… But yeah, you know, it's not always easy traveling during the semester, because you're free on Tuesday, you're back by Sunday, you know, and then you're not even ready for class, you know, that sort of thing, so…

Raphael Sisa

Hmm. Okay.

Rick Griffith

And then all the rest of the things that we try and get done around here. What's your geography, Raphael? Got it.

Julian Bleecker

We meet up. Where? I haven't. I haven't heard of that. Where? Yeah. Let's see.

Rick Griffith

Hey, Jay, do you know anybody else in the Los Angeles area that has letter presses like me?

Julian Bleecker

Do I know anyone?

Rick Griffith

Yeah.

Julian Bleecker

No, no one comes to mind. I would figure that you would be the guy who I would ask you that question.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, sometimes the… sometimes the power is so concentrated that it is really, like, if one person's not, like, jivin', is not, like, ready to play, then you're kind of like, uh… Who else has got stuff they can spare? Because, you know, like, the museum that's in Carson…

Julian Bleecker

Hmm.

Rick Griffith

There's an international printing museum down there, like, they do a lot of, like, prop lending to Hollywood when they've got printing presses in there, old printing presses in their stuff. Those guys will… would normally be, like, exactly who I go to, but…

Raphael Sisa

Oh, wow.

Rick Griffith

You know, the director is not returning emails. Maybe he's not down with it. You know, he's kind of one of those dudes that's like, I let, I let the request come to me, so therefore I'm never, I'm never not popular.

Julian Bleecker

Mm-hmm.

Rick Griffith

But that doesn't make him great at communication. I'm trying to borrow a press because like I'll be in Los Angeles for November 7th. Um, Karita Day at… and it's in the parking lot of SciArc. And so we're doing a big Karita festival in the parking lot of SciArc. And I want to try and find somebody who's going to lend me a press so I don't have to try and crate up my press and put it on an airplane, you know? Um… because I'm forced to do that. I'll just be mad at the world. I'm looking… I'm looking for a tabletop or a Vandercook Zero, which is a pretty… a pretty modest size press.

And or anything that's a tabletop press that I could put on site for a for a festival. Yeah. That'd be amazing, yeah. I'm really… it's like a one-day borrow, um… I really don't need much more support besides that because I know how to, you know, I can put together most of my own other stuff somehow. Um… But anybody who's willing to lend a press. knows that, you know, you borrow it, you bring it back, it's not broken, everyone's happy. You borrow a little ink, you borrow a palette knife, you know, no one gets… no one gets their… No one gets upset about stuff, it's just… Everyone does their best.

But but it's I lent a press to.

Marc B

Okay.

Rick Griffith

Somebody in New York one time. And then, like… A month later, I find out that they didn't return it.

Julian Bleecker

What?

Rick Griffith

And I'm like, where is my press? And they're like, oh, yeah, we didn't have time, and then we had to leave town, and then we're… it's… and it was in a closet. Like in this place. And somebody had to like go and get it and then return it to my shop in New York. And I was like, that was rude. I don't think I'm gonna lend you my press ever again. And they're like, yeah, sorry, sorry. And they didn't do anything nice, like, they bought things, they… they bought tools to support the press in this location for a month, they were doing public programming on it, and at the end of the day, they bought this really nice, like. red, um… whatchamacallit, like, tool… toolbox on wheels.

And I was like, oh, that's dope! That's really sweet. They're like, yeah, we already gave it to so-and-so. I'm like… Right. Got it. You know. So it can be like. you know, the thing that people want to charge for, or take a deposit, or something like that, and I'm not… I'm not against any of that, because… because I've had negative experiences too, but… But I'm kind of like, I'm a different person, like, you know, trying to take care of the people. So, yeah, if you… if you… if you can ID it, that would be amazing, but I'll keep looking.

There's I've got 3 or 4 friends out that way that are not. letterpress printers, but they're regular printers, and they might be able to dip into the community and fix it. So…

Raphael Sisa

Can I ask you, can you just make a letterpress? Like, I'm sure you can. In fact, yeah, of course you can. How do you, like, would that be something? If someone made a letterpress?

Rick Griffith

So… Joshua Howk, Part of the problem with. making this type of tool in an ad hoc way is that you. Even though it looks rather primitive. There is a… whole bunch of. interoperability with tools and with type that is. Calibrated to a thousandth of an inch. So… so, if I get the actual press, the big steel bed that's heavy to carry, and blah blah blah, and I put it down on a table. And I work with that. I know that… Within about three or four thousandths of an inch, this surface is calibrated, which means I can do a whole bunch of work there and I can know that like anything that's intolerant is only going to be out of whack by this much.

Raphael Sisa

Hmm, okay.

Rick Griffith

If you're making a letterpress, like, the way that we think of steamrollers, the way that we think of, like, heavy round things rolling over not round things. Um… You find yourself going, oh, I have to mitigate this shift with this, and then I have to change that with that, and then I have to do this with that. And by the time you're done with that, it's sort of like you've burned through two or three days of like trying to calibrate. some ad hoc thing, and and then the results are not going to be even quite as.

They're not gonna look as good, so you would have spent more time. trying to come away with a less useful. product. So it's… you can. You can improvise making a letterpress. And all the time, people do it with steamrollers. And those steamroller prints are like, I need to build a rail so that the steamroller can hit this rail, then I need to pad it with felts and do this and do that.

Raphael Sisa

So, all those little bubbles.

Rick Griffith

So, yeah, you're right, but… not for a one-day thing. You just want to borrow a press and put it in place and go forward.

Raphael Sisa

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so… Interesting. Wow, that's… Okay, yeah, I'll ask around, uh, is there… Are you on Discord?

Rick Griffith

Uh, I am so… yeah, I'm definitely on Discord. I run my radio show playlist off of that every week, so I'm definitely on Discord. Do I know what my username is? No, hold on.

Raphael Sisa

Oh, are you on the, uh, the NFL Discord?

Rick Griffith

I am on that, yeah. And I sometimes even read it.

Raphael Sisa

Okay, okay. Oh, okay, great. Perfect.

Rick Griffith

Right now there are 11 messages. Andrew thinks there's no office hours today.

Julian Bleecker

Andrew, Andrew.

Raphael Sisa

And then, I'm particularly interested in…

Julian Bleecker

He's Andrew.

Raphael Sisa

Doo doo doo doo do.

Julian Bleecker

There's never not been an Office Hours. It's, you know, I kind of slightly give up on, uh, trying to invite people. It's like, I invited you through Luma, I sent an email, that's all I can do. That's really all I can do. If your email's broken, that is…

Bulldog & Fisk

Andrew Korf.

Julian Bleecker

Totally not of me. It might, it might be, and who is that? Is it Corf?

Rick Griffith

Yeah, it's Court, yeah.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah, no, he's, I mean, he gets invited, he just…

Bulldog & Fisk

Correct.

Rick Griffith

He's a regular.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah, his, uh…

Rick Griffith

He walks into the bar. Yeah, he walks into the bar, everyone goes, Corf!

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, let's see.

Rick Griffith

Apparently my name is red though. I don't know why my name is red over here. I don't know. I'm not really good on Discord. Oh, there's two things. I need classes. I need a class on Git, and I need a class on Discord or something. I don't know what I need. But but I'm not that good and. I just gave a. Claude or whatever, ChatGPT, I just gave it access to my web dev server, and I'm really anxious about it. I'm really anxious about it. Like, maybe I just need to, like, actually get Git, you know, and do it all through Git. or… I don't know.

I'm having a little anxiety about this. giving permission and giving the SFTP droplet to ChatGPT.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah… Yeah, listen, the GitHub, I mean. for what it's worth. I use GitHub, you know, obviously connected to, like, ChatGPT or Claude, and then that connected to Vercel, connected to the actual. you know… Like, domain? It depends, like, what are you sort of, like, trying to do? uh… In that workflow.

Rick Griffith

I was just trying to streamline, like, every time I would do work on the web, on the website of things, my, um… My challenge was that I would have to know the names of the files that were changed so I could transmit them over. using my SFTP, right? And it stopped giving me the names of the files for some reason, so I'm like, hey, can you just tell me which files changed, please? And then… and then it would show me, and I'd be picking through various menus, like, okay, this drops over there, that drops… you know, just doing it fairly manually.

Raphael Sisa

Uh-huh, okay.

Rick Griffith

And… and I said, well… I've got this one domain that's, like, on its own dev server, and it's got its own… you know, SFTP protocol, blah blah blah, so why don't I see if it can use the droplet from Transmit and actually just upload shit for me? But it'll ask me first. It'll say, it's done, and I will say. you know. Go ahead and go ahead and upload it. Go ahead and post it. Go ahead and work on it, you know. And it's been, and it was really successful. I, I redesigned my, my radio show website.

Yesterday with that. I'll send it over in the chat if you guys like, because now I have a lot more, um… I have a lot more episodes. And I also have a way of treating the latest episodes. Uh, there you go. Yep. So, so I was able to bang this out and, and it basically helped me move. Help me move a lot of things over. And make edits and tweak, you know, for the radio show itself. So I was able to bang that out in a day or so. um… And it's faster. It's clearly faster.

It's so good. But… I'm like, ugh, giving it permissions on my only computer, giving it permissions on my web dev server, giving it permissions all over the place. I'm like, I don't know…

Raphael Sisa

Uh, yeah, you might want to have a little… be a little more careful there. But, yeah. Uh, I have to hop out, but, uh, I sent you a message on Discord. Uh, Julian, this was a lovely conversation. Uh, Mark, uh, yeah.

Rick Griffith

Nice.

Julian Bleecker

Thanks for coming back into the loop. I appreciate it.

Marc B

Yeah, good to see you.

Raphael Sisa

No, thank you for having me. I'll tell you what. Thank you.

Julian Bleecker

I'll tell you what.

Marc B

It's okay.

Raphael Sisa

No! I…

Rick Griffith

I'll tell you. Thank you.

Julian Bleecker

You don't tell me what. I'm the one. I'm the guy. I'm the guy who tells you what. You don't tell me what.

Raphael Sisa

I will… I will appreciate that. Well, I'm describing the response. My guess.

Julian Bleecker

And, yeah, definitely let me know if you, uh, if you float up here, or you check out your friend's cafe.

Marc B

Thank you.

Julian Bleecker

I saw the link, I know… I know the building that it is in.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, bring your dog too. Bring your little dog too.

Raphael Sisa

I… I will. He's right over there. You bring your dog, I'll bring my dog. We'll see those dogs.

Rick Griffith

Yeah. I'll tell you what.

Raphael Sisa

Okay, I'll bring the other, I'll bring my cat also.

Rick Griffith

Not if my dog sees you first.

Raphael Sisa

Oh, okay. Okay.

Julian Bleecker

Oh, I saw you coming. I saw you coming.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah, well, my bird is already there, up ahead, looking from above, so…

Julian Bleecker

Okay. Birds got me, they did it.

Raphael Sisa

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Bonsai. All right. All right. Bye, guys. This is insane.

Rick Griffith

the…

Julian Bleecker

Um, so, Rick, I'm gonna… yeah, we should, uh… Find time to catch up, there's so many things going on that I… I don't even know where to start. But I. I was, um… what about your guys over at, uh… Typecraft, Smith and Jones? Would they report it?

Rick Griffith

That's totally it. Yeah, Typecraft Wooden Jones, exactly. Yeah, I'll call David in a few minutes, in fact, and just wrap with him today. I haven't talked to him in a little while.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah, wouldn't you? Yeah.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, it's a blur.

Julian Bleecker

Little print projects, obviously.

Rick Griffith

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julian Bleecker

But maybe just say, like, oh, yeah, Julian mentioned you, um… he wants to maybe have a sit-down and just have a… Coffee and a chat about a couple of print projects.

Rick Griffith

Nice. I'll make sure that he knows that.

Julian Bleecker

Which might be might be way too small for them, but maybe they can.

Rick Griffith

He's really good about small things. He's really good about small things. I've… I've… he's… he's just, like, in it for the love of the game. That's his whole trip. And… and you can… you can sense it when he starts getting into, like.

Julian Bleecker

He's talking. And…

Rick Griffith

the bidding process, and just being like, yeah, I can… I can make that work, you know? Like, so… so, I… I think he just might have missed it. I'll check in with him, make sure that he feels like that's an open-ended thing.

Julian Bleecker

Yeah. Yeah, cool. Uh, so we just need to find a time to have a call and catch up. Yeah, ma'am.

Rick Griffith

For sure, for sure. This week was monsters with all the just stuff working on my dad and all that. And I'm like, man.

Julian Bleecker

Of course. Of course, yeah.

Rick Griffith

he had a… he had a girlfriend for 20 years in, uh… in… outside of Richmond, Virginia, and… and my sister just found out about her, and… you know, kind of had a pretty strong feeling about it. And so I'm like, what do you mean? if you haven't seen him in 20 years, like, of course he's gonna have a girlfriend, he might even have another kid, who knows, you know? Like… like, what are you holding out for? It's not your life. You know, so I, I love my kid sister too. She's, she's one of the best people ever.

And, and watching her get a little unraveled, I was like, aw. Yeah.

Marc B

Yep. Yeah, we're all good. Rick, condolences, man. I know.

Rick Griffith

Thanks, bud.

Marc B

Yeah, yeah. Have a great weekend, regardless, and uh, yeah, we'll catch you next week.

Rick Griffith

Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. All right, Jay. Peace, guys.