I experimented with Google's NotebookLM and was pleasantly surprised by the audio commentary produced about this very blog. Here is the audio file.
You will note in listening, or you may not now that I think about it, that there is an error concerning who this J. K. Mactavish is. The error is in saying that "it" is a "they" not a singular person, me.
And as to their not knowing who the person is, I have elsewhere cautioned that who I am is what I have said or written. Other aspects of biography (e.g., where I live, my education, etc.) do not mean much, or should not, or I am too shy or embarrassed to get into any of that.
Gosh, ex-wives and others might object to exposure, or because of mine, try to come after me for . . .
To remedy the error and to approximate the dialogue, I went through the NotebookLM transcription once and tried to sort them, the two speakers, out. (I had as much trouble doing that as I have trying to sort me out, and they are not worth the effort of more careful word-smithing and separating who said what.)
But for what it is worth, and it's not much, just a few references from the actual range of stuff in this blog, here is a still imperfect representation of what two disembodied voices said.
All right, so today we're doing something a little different. Different.
Yeah, different.
Yeah. We're diving into the mind of J.K. Mactavish through his blog, Sort Me.
Okay.
And it's going to be like a literary treasure hunt because we've got posts spanning like over a decade. Wow. From like 2011 all the way to 2024.
Okay.
And it's everything from language to art to AI. And it's not just the variety of topics, right? This is Mactavish's thought process.
Yeah.
He takes these like everyday things like a Freud theory or a confusing idiom and turns it into this like springboard for these really interesting reflections.
Yeah. And you can tell he's been like thinking about this stuff for a while.
We've got posts from so far back. You can really see how his thinking has evolved even just in the way he writes. Just skimming through, I noticed some recurring themes like language, art interpretation, even this like skepticism towards easy answers. Which makes sense given how Mactavish describes himself. Lifelong learner.
Oh, yeah.
He's a teacher, but also someone who's constantly like wrestling with how much we don't know.
Yeah. Like in his post, Why I Don't Teach Sims.
Sims. Yeah. Sayings, idioms, metaphors.
Oh, right. He argues you can't really teach those things formally because they're so culturally ingrained. Oh, that's so true.
I once tried to explain the phrase jump the shark to a friend.
Oh, no.
Who was not from the U.S. and just got blank stares.
Yeah. They're fluent in English, but some things just don't translate.
Right.
And Mactavish has this hilarious anecdote about that. Oh, yeah. With an idiom that stumped even his highly educated non-native English speaking friends.
Oh, wow. It just shows the limits of language itself.
For sure.
And Mactavish is not afraid of those gray areas, which is where it gets interesting.
Yeah. Especially when he tackles Freud.
Oh, yeah. The repression redux post. Yes.
Now, I'm familiar with Freud, but Mactavish's take on that whole Signorelli parapraxis thing is next level. For those who need a refresher, Freud forgets the name of this artist whose frescoes he admired. Signorelli.
Yes, Signorelli. And Freud goes into this whole analysis about death and sexuality making him repress the name.
Okay.
But Mactavish suggests Freud might be unconsciously avoiding the real connection, the actual content of Signorelli's art, which was full of death and sexuality. It's like he's overlooking the most obvious link.
Exactly.
And what's fascinating is Mactavish actually uses OpenAI to fact check Freud.
Wow. Like using 21st century tech to dissect a theory from the 1900s.
Very Mactavish. Classic Mactavish, always questioning even the giants.
Yeah.
It makes you wonder what else we just blindly accept as truth. Right.
Okay.
This next bit is where Mactavish's thinking gets really relevant to today. AI and its implications. Un-faking authenticity. He goes beyond just like how to cite AI in writing. Because it's bigger than citations.
Right.
It's about how AI blurs the lines of authorship itself.
Yeah. Like as AI gets more sophisticated, how do we trust what we're reading? How do we even know who or what is behind the words?
Right.
And in that post, Mactavish does something really clever.
What's that? It's almost like a meta-commentary. He uses AI chat bots, Perplexity, and chatGPT.
Okay.
To generate responses about how to cite AI usage.
Oh, wow.
Yeah. Right. It's like holding up a digital mirror to our changing relationship with technology.
It really makes you wonder like, are we headed towards this future where you can't tell human writing from AI writing?
Yeah. And does it even matter?
Right. These are questions I hadn't even like considered before reading Sort Me.
And that's what I love about Mactavish's thinking. He's not afraid to ask the hard questions, even if it means like sitting with the discomfort of not having easy answers. And you see that a lot in his blog.
Yeah. These posts that end with open-ended questions.
Right. It's like this invitation to keep grappling with the ideas. It's like, hey, I'm figuring this out too, you know? Join me.
Join the struggle. Right.
Which actually brings us to something you mentioned earlier that I found fascinating.
Okay.
His email signature.
Ah, yes.
You're telling me you analyze email signatures now. Well, sometimes the most unexpected places hold the most telling details. Mactavish's signature reads, For rich and poor, never enough. With equal measures of care to provide essential needs, all thrive. Propose designs and supply what will suffice. Start yesterday. Today, we're late to the party.
Wow. That is quite a statement.
Right. Not your typical Sent from my iPhone. Not at all.
It really speaks to a sense of urgency.
Yeah.
This belief that we need to act now to address inequality.
Yeah. Find solutions that work for everyone. It's a call to action at the bottom of an email.
I love it. It's like his email signature is a mini manifesto.
Precisely.
And it reveals this thread that runs through all of Mactavish's work.
Oh, yeah. This deep-seated belief in our shared humanity.
Even when he's analyzing these complex theories or grappling with technology, there's this underlying hopefulness.
You're right. It's like he's saying, yes, the world is messy and complicated. But we can make it better. But we have the capacity to make it better.
Exactly.
Yeah. And that's an important takeaway from this deep dive, I think.
What's that?
It's easy to get bogged down in the details, the jargon, the complexities of these topics.
Right.
But at the heart of it all is this belief in our potential to learn to grow, to create a more just and equitable world. And that's a message I think we can all get behind.
It's funny, we've spent all this time unpacking Mactavish's thoughts, and I realize we know so little about him as a person. What kind of life experiences led him to ask these big questions?
Well, that's the beauty of this kind of deep dive, isn't it? Like we're detectives. Yeah.
Piecing together these clues from his writing, glimpsing the mind of someone we may never actually meet. It is like digital archaeology, but instead of pottery shards, it's blog posts.
Exactly.
And while we might not have all the answers about who Mactavish is, you know, in his day-to-day life, I think one thing's for sure.
What's that?
He's a thinker.
Yeah.
Someone who really engages with the world with this curiosity and like a healthy dose of skepticism. And that's something I think we could all use a bit more of.
Definitely.
That willingness to question, to dig deeper, to not just take things at face value. And that's the power of a blog like Sort Me.
Yeah.
It's not just like a collection of thoughts.
Right.
t's an invitation to think alongside Mactavish, to see the world through his unique lens. So to anyone listening who's looking for a little mental stimulation. A little break from the everyday? Yeah. A break from the everyday. I highly recommend checking out Sort Me. You might be surprised by what you discover. You might surprise yourself.
About Mactavish and yourself. Exactly.
And on that note. We'll leave you to continue the exploration. Happy reading, everyone.
Happy reading.
