Once upon a time, in a village, a robot salt block resting on the fireplace almost killed a baby

Hey there 💌

Hope you’ve been well, Reader!

I’m writing this on an unusually cold Sunday evening, in May, two and a half months after my last newsletter. As much as I wanted to stay consistent with my newsletter sends, work got in the way. I hope, however, I’m still welcome in your inbox.

Today, my email brings a Romanian folk tale with a twist.

Read time: 5 minutes

Once upon a time, a man lived with his wife, their baby, and his mother in law in the same house, as it so frequently happened back in the day when life was slower.

One day, as the man was out working, the woman washed the baby and left him to dry right in front of the fireplace. As she was going about her day, dusting the house and fluffing up the pillows, she suddenly stopped and started screaming.

“My baby! My baby!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

“What happened?” her mother rushed into the house.

“Mother, see that big block of salt sitting on the fireplace?”

“Yes…?”

“Mother, if the cat goes there to play with the block of salt, it’ll kick it right on my baby’s head!”

The mother looked at the block of salt, looked at the baby, and then looked at her daughter.

“You are right, child! It’s clear the baby hasn’t got many days left, that’s what’s in the book for him”

And then they both started crying, in despair, looking at the baby, and waiting for the block of salt to be tilted over by the cat.

When the man came back from work, he found them all cried out, swollen, and sad.

“What’s going on?” he said, thinking something bad had happened.

The two women proceeded to tell the story of how, if the cat jumps on the fireplace and moves the block of salt, the baby will die.

Listening, the man couldn’t believe his ears.

“Well, I have seen a lot and done a lot, but this is beyond my understanding” he said, leaving the house, thinking to never come back.

And so the man went and found someone who was trying to catch the sun in a bowl, someone who built a carriage inside the house and was now considering to demolish the house so they can take the carriage out, and someone who was trying to get walnuts in the attic of his house using a pitchfork.

With every encounter, the man missed his wife and baby even more. And while he may have thought his wife and mother in law are not the brightest lights on the Christmas tree, he realized that, as they were, they were his (plus, the things he saw since he had left home were even more shocking than the block of salt and the baby story.)

So he went back home, where he lived until old age.

Needless to say, the cat never killed the baby.

If you’re in marketing and you’ve been feeling like there’s been a salt block hovering over your head over the last few months, it’s because, well, there has been a salt block hovering over our heads.

And with Google Bard out, the salt block’s about to be spikier — especially for those of us who’ve been making a living off SEO content.

The thing is, just like the baby in the story, you don’t have to stay put. You can embrace the salt block, dilute it in water, or simply adjust your position so it doesn’t hit you in the head (totally OK if it scratches your foot, though.)

The end’s not near. Or at least not yet.

As scary as it may be, Google Bard is likely to have some positive outcomes. Like, competition for ChatGPT, for example (and we know just how important it is for competition to exist in a capitalist market, right?)

Plus, remember Google’s making money with ads. Without search links, they have no Search ads. Without traffic on websites, they have no Display ads. It’s unlikely they’d want to kill their main source of revenue for the sake of scAInce. Right?

Right.

Let’s all take a collective breathe, brace for impact, and hope for the best.

Procrastinatr's Hall of Fame: 3 links, 2 social posts, 1 video (05/14/2023)

• ​This article about hip hop and mothers​
• ​This article on the AI being far from sentient — and where the real danger is​
• ​This absolutely shameless plug I’m making to my other newsletter, on Substack, about a traveling blue vase, the 90s in post-communist Romania, and the passing of time (dramatic, I know.)​
• ​This (older) post on how to upgrade your Siri with ChatGPT (haven’t tried it yet, but looks legit — let me know how it goes)
• ​This very apt Tweet from Erica Schneider on how silly the hustlebroculture is​
• ​This legendary Ted Talk by Rory Sutherland​

Yours truly,

Octavia, the bard.

113 Cherry St #92768, Dumbravita, Timis 307160
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