Anyone else have this strong urge to go back and watch every episode of Black Mirror all over again to see how far we've caught up with the show? In the past week alone I have designed my own Nike SB dunks in a split second (see below), watched a robot do unnecessary 360's with uncanny agility, and found out that the the filmmakers who made "Fall" used an AI neural network to reconstruct the actor's faces when they dropped F-bombs so that they could be dubbed over with Ned Flanders curse words to get the film to a PG-13 rating.

Also this week I learned that one of the ways fast fashion retailers get rid of their clothes is by burning them. Next time you walk through think of all the clothes in the store that they are not going to sell before the new season of clothes comes out. Now think of what exactly happens to those clothes? There's a business idea in there somewhere, I bet.

This week's issue is a 4 minute read:

👟 The shoes AI created

🏀 The most wonderful time of the year (spoiler alert, it's not Christmas)

☕️ Cuffing season & cannabis tea

Move over Nike I.D.

I have this one friend where for some reason we always compete on shoes and all we do is go back and forth talking about how trash each other's shoes are. In reality we both have probably spent easily $300-$400 on a single pair of shoes, so they can't be that bad. Yes, yes, I know, I know, expensive shoes can be trash too...I digress. The other day we were talking about the SB Dunk High's he was creating on Nike I.D. and he asked what I thought about them. Of course I said they all looked like trash and said I could design a better shoe in a heartbeat. So I pulled up trusty Midjourney and proceeded to tell the AI to "design Nike SB Dunk Highs Andy Warhol style" and the above image is what I received back in a matter of seconds. How much do you think I could sell these to a hypebeast for? OR a better question, do I finally have a career in shoe design?

The future is definitely in tools that can provide outputs you need from a simple request. So, as much as I might have a career in shoe design (I answered the question for you), you might have one too! All you need is the right prompt - check out the kinds of things people are telling AI to do:

"A mountain range made of tortilla chips, photo realistic" - Reddit user Flyingkyte710

"A husky with samurai clothes on the top of a mountain, dramatic lights, Van Gogh art style" - Reddit user Mememanstonks

"A white male lawyer with a moustache and a trucker hat drinks a Bud Light while looking over some important legal documents in a cubicle" - Discord user rorytyer

It's (almost) Time!

You'll probably never read anything to do with the NFL in this newsletter unless something exceptionally interesting happened in football and I deem it worthy of being written about. There's probably an 80% chance that I don't write anything about the Super Bowl so I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. That said, we're getting to the point in the year where as soon as the Super Bowl finishes we are blessed with the NBA All-Star Game aka when the league gets serious and teams come out of nowhere to make the playoffs, trade deadline happens, and we continue to watch as the Lakers flop.

I don't want to talk about the dunk competition

If there's one thing you can count on in the NBA it's the innovation the league office continues to drive around the All-Star Game. Five years ago they introduced the draft format for team selection so it was no longer pure East players vs. West players - teammates could be and were matched up against each other. And like the gym class hero he is, LeBron James has been a team captain for each of the 5 years this format has run, winning every time. Let me just point out that there is a TON of irony in LeBron winning a game where he gets to pick the players because didn't he kinda sorta do that with the Lakers...? But he won in the bubble in 2020?? That championship is the equivalent of your gym class holding a tournament for the basketball unit and your team winning and you getting an A+ in gym as a result - it means nothing.

This year the players will be picked for their team ala gym-class styles right before the game starts and so other than knowing that LeBron and Giannis are the captains, the East and West starters, alongside whoever gets voted in as a reserve, will all stand up against a brick wall and be picked for a team - it would be hilarious if they actually made them stand against a brick wall like it was recess. Cudos to the NBA for making All-Star Weekend something to look forward to every year *still not talking about the dunk competition*.

Snuggling up with a cuppa

A couple weeks back I said, "F*ck it, I'm gonna get high and then build my daughter's bed"

And so I did, in very efficient fashion. Now it was 10:30 at night and about -10 outside so there was no way I was going out to smoke. But I remembered a friend of mine gave me this THC tea bag from Wesley Tea Co. and so I had a cup and somewhat felt something but even more so, it was just a nice warm buzz. Then I decided to steep the tea bag again and the light bulb turned on. I hadn't tried THC infused tea before so I didn't expect it to be such a nice calming warmth feeling but man, it was great. And I know I built the best bed ever because my wife came upstairs and said, huh, it's done already?

Wesley Tea Co is just the brand I had on hand but I think more so than anything, tea seems to provide a slow release, calming and focused high. For a cold winter's night where you're looking to escape the world I'd say it works well...damn I sound like a Folgers commercial. But, would I drink this in the summer? Nope - I would probably stand in my garage and stink up the neighbourhood like I usually do.