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Trying Out Due for Important Reminders

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I’m experimenting with the Due app for iOS. What makes it interesting is the persistent reminders — which will repeat until you mark the task complete.

I started using it for crucial medications for my kids (usually amoxicillin, the miracle drug that apparently cures most common kid ailments), and decided to expand it to things I want to make sure I do.

I want to try to use it judiciously. Right now I have 3 task managers:

  1. Things 3 for projects and most business related tasks
  2. Reminders for most home/family relates tasks, shopping lists, and anything my wife and I need to share
  3. And now Due for nagging reminders.

We’ll see how it goes. If it works well for a limited set of tasks, I can see myself use it for forcing certain habits, like working out, writing, journaling, or anything else I really want to make sure I do.

ChatGPT is Exposing Our Broken Education System

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I was at a talk about generative AI over the weekend, and someone asked about what it meant for students and homework assignments.

The speaker said something I can’t stop thinking about: that if ChatGPT can regurgitate information as well as a student, and the teacher has no idea, what’s really the problem?

Something I’m trying to teach my children, even at their young ages, is critical thinking. I don’t want them to memorize something. I want them to think about a problem, analyze it, and come to a solution.

I want them to question rules that don’t make sense. And I want them to force people in authority positions to explain themselves.

Our education system in the United States doesn’t do teach those skills, and the fear of what ChatGPT means for homework grossly exposes that.

Who cares if ChatGPT can write a paper about the Battle of Gettysburg at a 5th grade level?

If my kid successfully leverages tools like ChatGPT to do their homework and save them time, they’ve gained a much more useful skill than memorizing the Battle of Gettysburg was a major turning point in the American Civil War, lasting from July 1 to July 3, 1863, with the Union Army defeating the Confederate Army led by General Robert E. Lee1.

We’re still in a culture where students are taught to obey arbitrary rules, learn enough to pass standardized tests, and then promptly forget what they’ve memorized.

And it’s so very broken. It’s why 98% of 5 year olds are considered “genius level creative,” and by age 15, that number is down to 12%.

The good teachers will celebrate generative AI. They’ll teach their students how to leverage it to do proper research in a fraction of the time.

  1. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. ?
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Manfredball and the MLB’s Crisis of Confidence – The Dispatch

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This piece by David Kagan at The Dispatch perfectly captures all of my issues with the MLB’s rule changes…and the clear evidence that Manfred doesn’t care about baseball.

Finally, we have the ghost-runner rule, Manfred’s most notorious bastardization of the game. The rule places a base runner at second base to begin every extra-inning frame. Initially adopted during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, it was introduced to spare the arms of pitchers in the 60-game sprint to the playoffs. The purported explanation was that too many games were going deep into extra innings, and the league couldn’t afford overtaxed arms late in the season. In reality, the rule is there to keep extra innings to a minimum. Apparently fans can’t be asked to sit through more than a couple innings of sudden death baseball.

Above all others, this rule is the furthest deviation from the national pastime. Once a game hits extra innings, it’s no longer baseball. As Joe Morgan said in Moneyball, “You have to steal, you have to bunt, you have to sacrifice, you gotta get men in scoring position and then you gotta bring ’em in.” Not in extra inning games. A bunt and a sacrifice fly—or just a bloop single–can win you a ballgame.

Except not in the playoffs. Because the MLB thinks it would be silly to decide important games like this.

Read here: Manfredball and the MLB’s Crisis of Confidence – The Dispatch

The Importance of Positioning

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I just saw a commercial for Just for Men Beard and Brows.

This is mascara. But Just for Men knows that men (especially men concerned with grey in their beard) won’t buy mascara because it’s not masculine, so they’ve positioned it as a totally new product to help you hide grey without dying your hair.

This is this power of positioning.

Trying Out Automation Tools with ChatGPT

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Build live with me! I’ll be trying automaiton tools like Zapier and Make to see what I can do with ChatGPT.

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Join How I Built It PRO: https://howibuilt.it/pro

Get free tips on growing and monetizing your podcast: https://profitablepodcaster.fm/tips

Check out the Make Money Podcasting show: https://profitablepodcaster.fm/

Check out my Live Stream Gear: https://kit.co/jcasabona/youtube-live-stream-setup

Check out my Podcasting Gear: https://kit.co/jcasabona/my-podcasting-setup
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One Week with the Apple Watch Ultra

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It’s been a week with the Apple Watch Ultra and I love it.

I like big watches in general, so the extra screen real estate is clutch. I have a few faces I’ve been using with it, depending on Focus Mode and Context:

Main Face with lots of complications
Weekend face with weather, sports, pedometer
Personal focus mode in evenings
Sleep/wind down face

There are a few things I really love about this watch, outside of the bigger face:

  • The incredible battery life. I can get about 2 days without charging it at all. Which means I get to use another new-to-me feature
  • Sleep tracking. I’ve never been much of a sleep tracker, but at the end of this month, I’m doing a sleep study where I’ll certainly be diagnosed with sleep apnea. I’m excited to compare the data on the watch to data from a proper study.
  • The Action Button. Right now I have it executing my “idea” shortcut, but I might change that (see below).
  • The Swipe Keyboard. I like that I don’t always have to talk to my watch.

There are a few quibbles I have, which might have less to do with the hardware, and more to do with the software:

  • Forced keyboard usage for input. I’d much rather the watch default to talking (or at least make it a setting). Because of that, I might change the Action Button, since that forces the keyboard and using voice to execute the shortcut does not.
  • No Battery Tracking. This was an issue I had on the Series 5 too. I like that I can see battery stats on my iPhone. I wish I could see it on the watch too. Some app (I think Overcast) went haywire and crushed my battery at one point.

Those are it though! Since the battery life is so good, I’ve decided I’m also going to experiment with leaving my phone at home more and rely on the watch for communication and notes. We’ll see how long it lasts.

How to Start Automating

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One quesiton I got recently is “how do I start automating?” So in this live stream, I’ll be talking through how I determine what to automate, where to look, and some simple tasks to get your feet wet!

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Join How I Built It PRO: https://howibuilt.it/pro

Get free tips on growing and monetizing your podcast: https://profitablepodcaster.fm/tips

Check out the Make Money Podcasting show: https://profitablepodcaster.fm/

Check out my Live Stream Gear: https://kit.co/jcasabona/youtube-live-stream-setup

Check out my Podcasting Gear: https://kit.co/jcasabona/my-podcasting-setup
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