Fourth Edition - Winter Lingers

Six More Weeks of Winter

Greetings from the basement😈!

When I wrote about early-adopting ChatGPT into my writing and content practice a few weeks ago, I didn’t think it would continue to blow up like it is 😵‍💫.

It’s tough to describe how to use it in one sentence, its a uniquely personal experience—the machine only does what you tell it to do, and even creepier for the less formulaic thinkers among us—HOW you tell it to do something.

Before you go to use this thing for all of your writing, read up on how to prompt the chat bot FIRST. Frankly, I wouldn’t ever use this to write content I was being paid to create (it would probably suck!), but would I—and do I—use it to expand, correct, cross check, test, and assist in creating new versions of my work? Absolutely!

A super basic way to describe this innovation is like a calculator for text. Spell check was like being able to add and subtract, AI chat bots are like graphing calculators in that comparison— able to do more complex computing, but still not useful if you don’t understand how to use it and what you’re putting in.

Because I care about democratizing tools, here’s FOUR things you should try using ChatGPT for in your day-to-day, especially if you aren’t a pro writer:

• Assist in your job search

  • Refine your resume - prompt the bot to shorten your introduction by 20% and see what comes out, you don’t need to be actively searching for this to be helpful.

  • Batch-customize cover letters - ask the bot to combine key skills from your resume that are transferable to one industry and add them to an existing cover letter, then repeat for the different industries you plan to target.

• Proofread emails before you send them - Bot, can you read this message as ___insert recipient__, does it sound professional, convincing, and fluent?

• Read paywalled articles - Paste a link to an article and ask the bot to paraphrase the content.

• Alternate titles when you need an idea - Marketers aren’t the only people making fun and snappy content, ads, or products, everyday people make great concepts, and this bot can help you expand your thinking when in ‘create’ mode.

This ain’t cheating— you will still have to create the bulk of this content, the key points, and instruct the bot properly, then you have to edit the work because it is a literal robot.

If this puts people out of work initially, they will all make their own original content somewhere else that people will still flock to, pay for, and enjoy because humans are humans! We’re always going to make art and communicate.

New Work on Lifehacker.com!

With more than 2/3 of states in the US allowing cannabis for med or rec purposes— you may not need a med card to access cannabis, but there are still tons of reasons to consider becoming registered, like lower taxes on your cannabis purchase!

Read the full piece for info on state tax differences, possession and home grow nuances, and more!

Return of the cookie menu!

These are simply among the best cookies ever made by humans, and they’re made by me. Marbled, speckled, and crisped with a crazy unique blend of mix-ins, they’ve got everything but the🚰kitchen sink, if the sink was a beautiful Terrazzo motif.

I’ve returned to the kitchen, and with more than 12 years of experience, I’m not going to deny people what they want, which is my delicious cookies 😇

Access more info on Terrazzo 🍪 Cookies via the link below:

INFLUENCED: Buying Insights 📲

🦠Sanitize the Demons!🦠

I travel light— literally! Other than my big azz water bottle, unless I need a laptop or have to be on-site for a gig you won’t find me with much more than a utility strap if I’m out to socialize.

To solve the need for cleanliness and safety on-the-go, I clipped a bottle of mini sani to my strap, but the amount of times that it’s opened and squirted lemon-scented goop on is more than one. And that’s too many!

While checking out weedfriends Sackville and Co at the Bulletin Pavilion Smoke Shop at NY Now, I stumbled upon the cutest solution to spilling, bulky bottles, and having to plan ahead altogether for the germy life that is living in NYC: Noshinku Hand Sanitizer! Each credit card-sized sprayer has 300 go’s and is refillable to boot!

Not just a sanitizer, this gives you a bit of moisture, some skincare, and tackles the germs. For the scent-sitive like myself: the fragrances are light and natural, (as always YMMV!) but to me they aren’t offensive, and I think you could use this in an airplane bathroom without assaulting anyones noses onboard anymore than the airline soaps or errrr….other smells..do.

🌿PuffCo Proxy 🌿

When I saw enthusiastic videos of people using the Proxy to make a dab rig out of ‘anything’ I was in love. There’s something so fun and resourceful about it that really embodies the spirit of the stoner, no matter what kind of stoner one is.

Being able to pop this durable, portable dab device into anything (including the two functional pieces that PuffCo makes to use with the Proxy, the pipe-like glass holder that comes included and the add-on purchase that turns her into a bubbler, the Droplet) is like an adventure of its own.

EEEEvents

Check out these fun events in NYC and beyond!

Love is in the air! Valentine's day is a reason to indulge, whether partnered, solo, or in a group.

We’re celebrating our heart’s desires at Humble Bloom’s Pleasure Session.Humble Bloom is a Brooklyn based cannabis culture agency cross pollinating plant advocacy and intersectional experience rooted in education as a vehicle for larger conversation, brand integration, conscious consumption and community engagement.

Join us at The Moxy Lower East Side (145 Bowery) on Tuesday, February 14th for a night of stimulating activations, dosed delights, and tantalizing tunes. Peruse and play while immersed in pleasure + plant-based products and treatments. Tickle your senses through sips, nibbles, sounds, and scents.

Links to Love 💕 or Hate 🫀

When a family sued a health insurance company to get the care they needed for their son, they didn’t expect to unearth an unwillingness to cover his life-changing medicine. There’s levels and layers to this shit, but at the end of the day insurance functions as capitalism itself— extract, minimize quality and availability, funnel profits to small subset.

Andrew Witty, CEO of United Healthcare, made more than $18 million in 2022, but United Healthcare, with a profit (not revenue!) of over $5B last year could not afford the man in the story’s $500K yearly medicine— a medicine that probably reduced their overall and lifetime medical costs for this patient.

When are we going to be done with this crap as a species? 🙈

OK, I’m sorry, winking is just creepy. Unless you are doing it to convey a joke of some sort, I’m with the writer of this Slate piece and going with NO THANKS.

Major sigh. Just to ‘see something’ I tested a viral song vs a big content no-no on a major platform, and within moments my smokey video was deleted. Despite it being BOTH my job, my medicine, and my chosen activity as an adult, no different than a wine glass, the algorithms and AI have not only tanked individual content items, but engagement altogether off the table for people who choose to consume online as a way to educate, entertain, or find community.

It’s why I’ll be spreading the love to other platforms, hoping for a shift in the landscape that literally prevents me from making money by promoting my editorial content, my social content, etc.

Read this deeply infuriating ditty from The Guardian in while AI tools deem images of women's bodies just simply more sexual than men’s, no matter the amount of skin, nipple visibility, or pose. Women exercising? Sexy. Men exercising? Normal public behavior. How can we not question ‘the algorithm’ when stuff like this comes out regularly?

Streaming Sched

• Follow me on Twitch and AMP - @realdanhell

• Streaming music and chat every other Wednesday at 7p ET !

• Next stream: 2/15 at 7p

Ciao amici 😘😘