Dancing with the Fishes

You’re a business tycoon, you know how it goes. Deals here, offers there, and that constant, nagging question of where to put all this money? It’s always about stowing the cash, isn’t it? What do ya do, buy another bank? Invest in Squishmellows, or whatever those things they sell at Costco are…

Costco – don’t get me started. I read somewhere that straight white men buy their pants at Costco. I think I have a pair of Levi’s that I didn’t buy there, but my pants, my shirts, my jackets, my hats, my socks, my underwear, and most of the stuff I eat… jeez, it’s creepy when you look at it like that!

Creepy, isn’t it?

So, that’s not the point of this post, is it? No, no it’s not.

The point of this post – oh, yesterday I was working on a new post for my NEW website – that’s what we’re talking about today – but we bought this absolutely epic-sized wardrobe for my grad-student daughter’s room. Like she’s going to use it, because she’s only here, like, three weeks out of the year, between school and archaeological digs and her west-coast boyfriend’s family that owns cabins in the woods… what? Anyway, I needed some direction from the Ikea directions – I swear, sorting them out was like trying to sort out cooked spaghetti without the sauce, knowwhattamean?

Not the point except that, to find help for the instructions online and not be forced to watch a half-hour video that may or may not apply, I had to turn to AI.

So, AI is answering the questions that used to go to Google, because the Google answers have all gone to AI. AI now stands for Ain’t It Interesting…

THE POINT OF THIS POST

There’s a new website in the world, and it’s mine. It’s called TumbleBump, and it’s got a huge collection of one post. One.

From the mighty oak springs the walnut, or something like that.

I’ve been wrestling with the 3D-making program Blender for three days now, and my wee little walnut is fried beyond smoked. True story!

You see, my friendly sister-site, Skippity Whistles, features really nifty illustrations. It’s a friendly site all about the why of DIYing stuff – not why you would fix it yourself, but the why behind you’d use linesman pliers instead of slip-joints – you know, that kind of thing.

The illustrations are popular enough that I’ve been encouraged to start a podcast, called The Three Point Line, that details how I make the details in the drawings.

That encouraged me to release this dopey video called Who Ate the Fish that I made before I left California, the success of which prompted me to put it in a playlist called John D Reinhart Unsupervised. Don’t ask me, because I don’t know.

And now TumbleBump, a screwy name for a site dedicated to explaining the why behind cooking, aimed at Gen-Zers who are facing their kitchens and thinking “I could use this room for something…”

My wise idea was to create distinctive illustrations in Blender – it’s all kitchen stuff, right? How hard could it be to make that stuff in 3D? Honestly? It turns out there are folks who do it for a living.

Let’s just say the graphic artist seems to be the bottleneck in production over at TumbleBump. And at Skippity Whistles. And at The Three Point Line. Hmmm. Seems to be a pattern.

Why all these sites? They all LEAD to something, you see. Passive income, my friend. Skippity and Tumble sell Amazon products, while The Three Point and Unsupervised sell me. Clever, you say. You don’t know the half. Sadly, neither do I!

All this because the contract I’ve been waiting for since December just hasn’t arrived, and Central Casting New York hasn’t finished my paperwork, and the remote jobs on Indeed are about training AI and I’m not the droid they’re looking for. Move along.

It’s all a vast, vast puzzle – you know how it is when you open the jigsaw box and spread the pieces out on the table. Nothing relates to anything and you wonder why you opened the box in the first place.

Because it all results in something terrific.

Curse the Inky Poo!

If you subscribe to my sister site, Skippity Whistles, I do apologize for the deluge. It’s not pretty, I know. But there’s an explanation, I promise!

If you’re freaked out by AI and thinking maybe it’s takin’ your job, you are not alone. Looking at the Google newsfeed (a mistake by itself) easily half of it is churned out by an AI somewhere.

Churnalism has reared it’s ugly head again.

So, thinking, as I am wont to do, and looking for the next Fred Flintstone Get-Rich-Quick Scheme, and goofing around with ChatGPT, I stumbled upon an IT.

As in, by George, this may be IT!!!

Or not.

Asking the Chat to write a post for Skippity Whistles was truly disheartening. It wrote a better post, with better research, and real warmth, in about 15 seconds. Not only was it good, it was SEO ready, with tags and everything.

The post was everything I shoot for, except better and had SEO.

I think to myself, so why am I struggling through writing a post on how to use a socket wrench when AI blazes past me like Inky Poo?

All right – Inky Poo. If you don’t remember, it’s okay. There’s a famous stop-motion movie called John Henry and the Inky Poo, made by the then stop-motion master, George Pal. In this unintentionally horrifying retelling of the legend, legendary John Henry laid railroad track by hand. The Inky Poo was a steam-powered tracklayer. Things came to a head as they do, and Mr. Henry squared off against the ‘Poo.

Son of a biscuit, it was close, but John Henry beat that old machine by an inch. And then died of exhaustion.

And that, children, is why railroads are no longer laid by hand.

What ChapGPT cannot do, like Inky Poo, is choose the route. You have to point it in the direction you want it to build, and let ‘er rip.

Suddenly my writer hat flies off into the corner, replaced with a hat that says EDITOR in big, bold letters. Now we’re GETTIN’ somewhere!

The riches in this scheme come from links to Amazon products in the text of my how-to videos. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve use the phrase “As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.”

So, now the posts have SEO attached to them, making them easy for Google to find. And I’ve got the Inky Poo dishin’ ’em out a dime a dozen. And each one says “buy me” right on it… what could go wrong?

It’s a little more subtle than that, but you get the drift.

If I still lived on the West Coast, I’d be out lounging by the pool, sipping drinkies, while Mr. GPT would be inside, churning out fine works of art.

But, today’s high in New Jersey was 21 degrees, and I don’t really enjoy drinkies, and there’s, like, snow on everything!

Sigh.

Guess I probably should go take a a look at what the robot made.

Ah, the work never ends!