In this special episode of The Kindle Chronicles, my guest is ChatGPT. I had no idea I could use OpenAI's revolutionary AI assistant as a Thought Partner. That's how Peter Deng, OpenAI's head of ChatGPT uses the tool he leads.

So, on a tight deadline this morning at the Hampton Inn Capitol/University, I put together an "interview" with ChatGPT and recorded it. I left the gaps where my Thought Partner (TP) was thinking, illustrated on my iPhone as a cloud pulsing, so you will hear how long TP took to come up with pretty amazing answers.

SXSW is going to make Peter's talk available on demand, but it's not up yet. I highly recommend that you watch it if you get the chance. He discusses safety issues, OpenAI's chaotic leadership crisis last year, and many other topics. John Constine of SignalFire, a venture capital firm, did an outstanding job peppering Deng with questions and then summarizing the entire one-hour conversation at the end.

I took notes in a Substack draft post using Vision Pro during the keynote. I plan to tidy them up and send them out, perhaps during my layover at DFW.

This was my best South By ever, after nearly 15 years of covering the event. I hope you enjoy the show!

At left, Founder of New Things Lab

I spoke by Zoom today with Nyckle Sijtsma in Delft, Netherlands, about his inspiring design company. I discovered New Things via an Instagram ad for the Memo White Board, a product I truly love. You will hear all about it in this conversation, along with Nyckle's personal mission to "help people think clearly."

Links:

The Memo White Board, $69

My YouTube video demonstrating the Memo - February 27, 2024

YouTube video of this interview

Right-click here to open and save the audio file for this episode.

                               Author of Daybreak: A Novel

I spoke with Matt Gallagher by Zoom on February 8, 2024, in advance of the release of his new novel, which was released by Simon & Schuster on February 20.

It's a powerful story set in Ukraine at the start of a war that continues into its third year. 

Highly recommended!

Author of Upstairs Delicatessen: 

On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating,

and Eating While Reading 

Photo by Richard Bowditch

YouTube video of the interview

Links

“Inside the NYT Book Review: Pamela Paul & Dwight Garner” (YouTube)

Garner’s Quotations: A Modern Miscellany by Dwight Garner (2020)

Dwight Garner’s book reviews in The New York Times

To the Finland Station: A Study in the Acting and Writing of History (FSG) Classics by Edmund Wilson

“A Book Critic as Wild for Food as He Is for Literature” by Jennifer Reese at The New York Times Book Review - October 24, 2023

Film reviews in The New Yorker by Anthony Lane

Politics columns by Maureen Dowd in The New York Times

Books by Cree LeFavour at Amazon.com

“Jayne Anne Phillips Finds Anguish and Asylum in Civil War America” by Dwight Garner at The New York Times - September 23, 2023

Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips (Buy This Book!)

Joni Mitchell - Blue (Full Album) at YouTube

Joni Mitchell Court and Spark album Part 1 and Part 2 (YouTube)

Books at Amazon.com by Sheila Heti, Otessa Moshfegh and Catherine Lacey

“Review: ‘Martial Bliss,’ a Loving Memoir About a Bookstore for Military Buffs” by Dwight Garner at The New York Times - July 30, 2015

Martial Bliss: The Story of The Military Bookman by Margaretta Barton Colt (not available on Kindle)

Columns by William F. Buckley Jr. published in National Review

Kindle Scribe

Books at Amazon.com by the poets Kay Ryan, August Kleinzahler, Louise Glück, and James Fenton

“Hunger games: A New York critic’s gluttony for books and food” by Adam Begley at the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) - November 3, 2023

If you’d like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. From your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 10 a.m. Eastern Time. 

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Author of To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery

Links

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s website

Neil deGrasse Tyson on The Late Show with Steven Colbert (2023)

Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson - March 2, 1978 (YouTube)

StarTalk Media Network

Hayden Planetarium

“Shot in the Arm,” a documentary scheduled for release in November, with Neil deGrasse Tyson as Executive Director

If you’d like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. From your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 10 a.m. Eastern Time. 

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

Podcaster doing back flip into a black hole after

interviewing Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of

To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery

Links

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s website

Neil deGrasse Tyson on The Late Show with Steven Colbert (2023)

Carl Sagan on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson - March 2, 1978 (YouTube)

Note: To find out what really happened to the lost interview, be sure to download the NEXT episode of The Kindle Chronicles, coming to the nets later tonight. 

If you’d like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. From your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 10 a.m. Eastern Time. 

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

(Graphic for this episode created by Len Edgerly with OpenAI's DALL-E 2)

Author of The Great Transition

Links

Nick Fuller Googins’s web site

Elements Books Coffee Beer in Biddeford, Maine

Alice Eliot Dark

Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster

Rutgers Newark MFA in Creative Writing

Nuuk, Greenland

Green New Deal (Wikipedia)

“In historic upset, 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unseats 4th ranking House Democrat Joe Crowley” by Lee Harris at ABC News - June 27, 2018

The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change by Geoff Dembicki

“New report shows just 100 companies are source of over 70% of emissions” at CDP - July 10, 2017

If you’d like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. From your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, flash briefing.” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 10 a.m. Eastern Time. 

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.

At the closing reception yesterday at HQ2

Links

Full video of Amazon’s New Products Event (YouTube)

Overview of Amazon new devices and features at AboutAmazon.com - September 20, 2023

James McQuivey of Forrester Research

“Previewing the future of Alexa” by Daniel Rausch at AboutAmazon.com - September 20, 2023

"Meet Len Edgerly, Kindle superfan and host of the popular Kindle Chronicles podcast" by Tomas Kellner at AboutAmazon.com - December 2, 2022

If you’d like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. tFrom your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 8 a.m. Eastern Time. 

Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.