You can’t purchase trust

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From an essay by Kevin Kelly:

In the digital world, copies are so easy to make perfectly, they are free. The internet is basically a copy machine. The copies flow so fast and easily you could think of the internet as a superconductive fluid that transmits copies everywhere, all the time. Once a creation is brought into contact with the internet, it will be copied forever, and those copies never leave. With copies free and freely distributed, the traditional livelihood of creators selling copies is gone. When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. Well, what can’t be copied?

Mr. Kelly enumerates eight “generatives” better than free, but my favorite was trust.

You can’t purchase trust. You can’t duplicate it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, a stranger will always prefer to deal with someone they can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy-saturated world.

We seem to have figured out how to make AI ever more intelligent. I wonder if it’s more difficult to make them more trustworthy?

Here’s a prediction from the World Economic Forum in 2017:

“Distributed trust, combined with technology, also means that within the next decade, we’ll be comfortable trusting well-trained bots, whether they’re driving us around, giving us financial advice, or telling us if we have cancer.”

Asides

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aside | əˈsīd | • a remark that is not directly related to the main topic of discussion

When I started this blog in 2002 it was expressly for the purpose of having someplace to save stuff. A line from a book or a movie; a clip from a movie or TV show; something from a news story or someone else’s blog. Very little of what I’ve posted throughout the years is original. But what do I do with a great one-liner from The Office or Seinfeld? I  used to park these on Twitter back before they fucked it up. Used a little sidebar widget to post my recent tweets. I loved the 140 character limit. The perfect length.

So earlier this week I started looking for a simple way to do this. There are plug-ins out there but most have way more features than I wanted so I asked my friend Phil how he’d do this. He gave the assignment to his AI agent Milton who cranked out the perfect tool in about 50 minutes.

I’ll probably lose the date/time stamp and the archive page needs a tweak but nothing Milton & Co can’t handle. And the name of the plug-in (Asides) is perfect.

The death of the stick shift is almost here

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Until six months ago all of my vehicles had manual transmissions, going back to 2011 when I got my MINI Cooper. My mom taught me how to drive in a 1953 Plymouth with “three on the tree” and dad gave me a used Ford Falcon my second year of college. Also three-speed on the column.

To say the Land Rover had a manual transmission is something of an understatement. Ditto for the Jeep and the F-150. You needed two arms and two legs to drive them (three legs if you got stopped going up hill). I was borderline disdainful of manual transmissions (“That riding, not drive”).

After six months in the Ford Bronco I’m a changed man. Automatic transmission, AC, backup camera… I love it all. And I still drive the pickup and the Jeep but far less often. But according to an article in The Washington Post (by Dodd C. Frankel), “the death of the stick shift is almost here, A few excerpts:

Less than 1 percent of new vehicles in 2025 were manuals, a drop from 34.6 percent in 1980. The rise of automatic, electric and autonomous vehicles has contributed to this trend, with many automakers phasing out manual options.

The average new vehicle today comes with seven gears, thanks to computers, twice as many as in 1980

“The more the car becomes your couch, the less you’re going to want to shift your gears,” he said.

Ford CEO Jim Farley reassured journalists during a visit for the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix earlier this year that he has no plans to make the Mustang automatic-only.

Drivers often feel the need to be more practical about car-buying than in the past because cars are so much more expensive today, with the average new car price reaching about $50,000. And the total cost of ownership is more than $1,000 per month for a new vehicle

Another problem for stick shifts is that only about 60 percent of Americans know how to drive a manual transmission

Land Rover’s new home

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Mr. Wolf: “The Rover’s new home is up in Jenner, which is a cute little village right where the Russian River flows into the Pacific. It’s not much of a town – a small gas station and a coffee shop – and Kamal’s place is really off the beaten path. You pass through “town”, go another ten minutes on the pavement, then about 20 minutes on dirt. Perfect Rover country. He has only driven the Rover once, across Redwood City, then he left the country for most of the summer. I’m excited for him to come back and get to know the Rover.”




Land Rover somewhere in northern California

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Mr. Wolf reports: “The Rover did about 200 miles over two days – about 30 on the freeway, the rest on gorgeous twisty roads through the valley and up the coast on Highway 1, with plenty of dirt roads mixed in. It never missed a beat.”

“With all windows open, cowl vents and “tropical” roof vents open, it’s like driving along in a very loud pergola. I even got to use the heater going through foggy SF and across the Golden Gate!”

“It was loud, the steering was vague, and there wasn’t exactly an abundance of horsepower… And I just couldn’t stop smiling.”

Scouting movie locations

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We had a visit from two young men in town scouting locations for a movie. They got Barb’s name through the garden club to which she belongs. If they decide to shoot here –we’ll know in a few days– at Rancho Barbara there would be a few exterior scenes. Not sure about interior. They told us a little about the storyline but I wasn’t paying close attention. Here’s the info provided by Gemini:

Mark Reichard has carved out a career in Hollywood working in production management, line producing, and assistant directing for prominent reality television, independent film, and streaming projects.

1. Television Production & Reality TV
Reichard has significant experience working behind the scenes on high-profile, intense unscripted and reality TV television series.

Key Work: He has been heavily involved in production work for major reality hits, most notably “Naked and Afraid” and its spin-off “Naked and Afraid XL” for the Discovery Channel. Producing and managing these types of shows involves massive logistical challenges, given the remote and extreme wilderness environments where they film.

2. Independent Film Production & Assistant Directing
In addition to unscripted television, Reichard works frequently in independent features and specialized streaming content, often stepping into roles as a producer or First Assistant Director (1st AD)—the person responsible for managing the daily shooting schedule, crew logistics, and on-set operations:

  • Darkness Reigns (2017): He served as a producer on this meta-horror film alongside director Andrew P. Jones.
  • The Mortuary Assistant: He worked as the First Assistant Director on the film adaptation of this popular horror concept.

Streaming & Comedy Production: He has lent his production expertise to major digital and streaming spaces, serving as a 1st AD for modern comedy platforms like Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor) on projects like Game Changer spin-offs.

3. Theatre Roots at SEMO
Before transitioning to the logistics of Hollywood sets, Reichard built his foundation on stage at SEMO. During his time at the Dobbins Conservatory, he was actively involved in both performing and the technical side of the theatre department, working on major university productions like the musicals Into the Woods and The Pajama Game. He effectively pivoted that classic theater training into a successful career keeping complex Hollywood and television sets running smoothly on schedule.

Ryan J. Sloan is an American independent filmmaker who transitioned from working as an electrician in New Jersey to directing.

Key Highlights & Background

  • Education & Career Transition: Sloan attended William Paterson University. He spent years working as a licensed electrician before shifting his focus to filmmaking.
  • Production Company: In 2021, he co-founded the New Jersey-based independent production company **Telstar Films** alongside creative partner and actress Ariella Mastroianni.

Directorial Debut: Gazer (2024/2025)

Sloan’s feature directorial debut is Gazer, a psychological mystery thriller/neo-noir shot on 16mm film. He self-funded the movie’s micro-budget of approximately $80,000, shooting on weekends over the course of two and a half years. Sloan took on multiple roles for the production, serving as director, co-writer, co-producer, and co-editor.

  • Premise: The film follows a young mother suffering from dyschronometria (a condition that impairs the perception of time) who takes on a risky job to support her family.
  • Release & Reception: Gazer premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (specifically in the Directors’ Fortnight section) on May 22, 2024. It was later distributed in the United States by Metrograph Pictures, releasing theatrically on April 4, 2025. The film received favorable reviews for its paranoid, Memento-style narrative and atmospheric, low-budget execution.

Bluer blues. Whiter whites.

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Pointless trying to describe this… sensation? Phenomenon? Can only be experienced.
Since my cataract surgery (two months ago) colors have gotten more intense. More so in the past couple of weeks? The feint yellow tint caused by the old lenses is gone. For some reason this is most noticeable with blues and whites. A clearer, brighter world awaits you.

Kevin Kelly: My Exoself

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“Someday real soon, most of us — starting with young adults — will carry an always-on AI. This agent will help us navigate our journeys, answer our questions, tutor and teach us new skills, remember people we have met before, remind us of what we once knew before, offer advice and recommendations, do simple errands, and remember everything we say and do. Before long, it will know us better than we know ourselves. It will be our exoself.

While we will use more than one agent, we’ll primarily favor just one that knows us best. Always-on means this agent is listening, watching, tracking, present during all our waking hours, and maybe even while we sleep. We will allow this intimate access to our inner life because it gives us superpowers: knowledge, judgment, decisiveness, confidence, and most important, speed. We will feel productive, creative, smart, capable, and on top of it when it is on. When it is off, we will feel amputated.”

— Quiet, My Exoself by Kevin Kelly

[see link below for more posts about Kevin Kelly]

Why Perplexity?

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From the Perplexity web page:

Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that transforms how you discover and interact with information. Simply ask any question, and it searches the web to deliver accessible, conversational answers backed by verifiable sources. Each response includes citations and links to original sources, enabling you to verify the information and explore topics in greater depth.

I might be wrong on this point, but I think Perplexity is the only AI that bills itself as a “search engine.” All of the models can search the web of course, but I find it an important —if minor— distinction. I also like the “links to original sources” feature. Again, not sure if the other LLs do that consistently.

One of my favorite features is how Perplexity handles downloads. Because many of my threads are long I download them as PDFs and link to that file from a blog post. Or, send to a friend via email. I like the way Perplexity formats those threads.

I sometimes save a thread to my Google Drive and share that link but I like having the file. And I like Perplexity enough to pay $200 a year.