Stealable AI Slides, Worthless NFTs & Clankers

We don’t care that your kids are actually enrolled in their fall semesters—Summer School is a state of mind (plus, the person editing the majority of this lives by the Pagan calendar).

Yes, we’re back with more cultural detritus, tech takes, and stray obsessions. Got a question? Reply and we’ll probably answer it.

Don’t want to get this? Hit reply with a “not for me” and we’ll expel you from Summer School, no hard feelings.

Someone just asked me to make a presentation on AI. What do I do?

Naomi: Don’t panic. We made a baseline deck with our agency perspective that you can steal, remix, and pass off as your own (including some very cute AI space pigeons). I have played with some of the AI slide generators, but they’ve still got a ways to go. So why not just put your own thoughts intermixed with ours? Instructions in Figma. 👉 Steal our slides here

Tucker: Alternatively, if when you hear the term AI you want to burn it to the ground, you will enjoy reading this incredibly long Ed Zitron post.

How much is my NFT?

“Your office sounds like my 8th grade science teacher’s desk” — my running friend this morning. I took this as an extreme compliment and I am sure Naomi does as well. We try to live our lives with that “wacky science teacher” energy. Actually, I’m probably the Liz to Naomi’s Ms. Frizzle.

(Naomi’s note: If you don’t remember, Liz is the class pet lizard in this reference. However accurate that is, Liz actually didn’t speak in the original series, so the similarities stop there.)

On the desk right now is a taxidermied alligator head, $30,000 in prop money, a pigeon in a space helmet, and a range of other silly toys. We collect things to keep the space interesting. This also means that a while back, we dabbled in NFT acquisition, mostly for research (but not NOT for fun). You, too, may have purchased a rogue NFT in the past few years. Here’s how you find out if it’s worth anything.

Step 1: Find NFT. I have lost this NFT. Where did I store it? On Coinbase? No. On the Base App also by Coinbase? Why do they have two apps? Nope. Not there either. Is it on OpenSea? I need an ethereum address to login to OpenSea. WHAT ETHERIUM ADDRESS DID I USE?

Step 2: Look at your NFT. Decide what it was. I found the address and logged in. I am utterly shocked I could accomplish this step. Look! Here is my NFT.

Step 3: Remember what you paid. Ahh yes, I was in a Tom Sachs phase (prior to his cancellation due to a weird job post for a nanny). He was doing an interesting thing with model rockets. I wanted one but they were a bajillion dollars so I bought a different thing from a different collection. I paid close to or around $100 USD. Naomi found this old Instagram profile that talks about this micro project. It sounds like my NFT is called “Pearls Before Wine” and its “Composition” is 95% Kosher Wine, 5% Pearls. Yep—that tracks.

Step 4: Find its current price. The floor is $1.36, which is almost but not quite equal to nothing. These are worth nothing.

Conclusion: Making (and buying) physical things for the office continues to be infinitely more fun and roughly the same quality of investment. Want an excuse to make some art? Sign up for The Creative Post (a very physical chain letter we are working on).

How do I make IRL friends with other parents in my neighborhood without using Facebook?

Tucker: The Kobayashi Maru of modern parenting! Someone once told me: “Your best new grown-up friends will come from your kids’ school.” They were right. Ten years later, I bought a house from one Pre-K family and go ice climbing with another dad who has kids in the same classes as mine. But I realize this seems harder for men. Men are rocks. They don’t roll until pushed.

I’m not sure if men feel less connected thanks to many generations of social change or too often relying on the women in our lives for the organizing or arranging (but clearly, it’s hit the zeitgeist, as our highest-clicked link in these emails has been the “Men, where have you gone?” piece from the NY Times). The solutions to that are global and long-tail. But I can say on an individual level, I do understand loss aversion and commitment biases. Meaning: if you commit to something ahead of time you are more likely to go to it.

So pick something you have always wanted to do (rock climbing, a local brewery), tell a fellow parent you are doing this and invite them along. If you pretend an event is happening already the other person is more likely to say yes. And just going to things (good or bad) ends up bonding people. (If you don’t have kids the system works the same. Apparently, Ira Glass’ best friend was an octogenarian he met at the dog park.)

Words we learned and taught

• Clankers = slang for robots. “I tried to talk to United customer support but it’s all Clankers; you can’t find a single human. Guess I better start practicing Gibberlink.”

• Sloppers = people who rely too much on ChatGPT (derogatory). “I thought my friends would have good advice on where to meet other parents in my neighborhood but most of them are just sloppers now and can’t answer a simple question without their clanker.”

• Pie in the Sky = a reference Naomi made to two Gen Z staffers this month that they didn’t recognize. (Perhaps too lofty a goal?)

Weird internet finds

• This chaotic engineering YouTube (cars that shouldn’t exist). “Home of the world’s fastest mini jet boat, the off-road Tesla, the 60 MPH Barbie car and plenty of other absurd vehicles.”

• This Substack describing how “the future of software development might just be jazz.” Nobody actually knows how to build with AI, and that’s the point. Everyone is improvising. Nobody is following the sheet music.

• Wet Leg’s NPR Tiny Desk — if you follow the Isle of Wight band, you’ll be just as surprised as us to hear that their jam “Chaise Longue” was actually four years ago. Yeesh.

• This AMA on vacuums is lauded by the founder of Reddit as the best AMA of all time. When you feel like it’s all sloppers and clankers, just remember there’s suction experts out there who love what they do.

Field Notes

• HOT TICKET: the new immersive Phantom of the Opera is probably worth $200. Giant chandelier, fire, murder—all present. But it’s the intricate logistics of the train schedule (how they orchestrate multiple groups through the space) that sold me. Shows are booking up fast. Grab a ticket now if you’ll be in NYC this fall.

• SMALL TICKET: for $16.25 you can read a monologue to a tree (run by The Cell Theatre). This feels like the logical endpoint of a Tisch graduate—a bit eco-therapy, performance art, and a hint of witch. But for the price of two lattes, it’s cheaper than therapy.

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Well, you survived Summer School Dispatch #3.

Got a dumb question, real concern, or weird cultural itch? Reply here—we’ll answer it in the next dispatch.

We really only meant to write a few of these but you all keep opening them. Should we keep going? Vote here.

Stay shady, Naomi & Tucker