The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

What did you think of the Substack article? Written in a much more modern way, innit? That is, shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs. Contrast that with my typical writing style of lots of words bunched together in a paragraph. Which one is better? These AI-edited articles don’t really lend themselves to a book, but they do lay the foundation. Reading Pico Iyer’s The Half Known Life: In Search...

Too long, Steve! Too long! How was that summary of China? Some automation success! Getting closer to a better blog-writing workflow. DaVinci title success! Chinese captions done and did completely within DaVinci! Still not a smooth workflow, but it’s something to start with. A simple truth about AI: It’s a tool. If you like being a gear head, then ya, you’ll be cool. But it’s a tool like anything...

Oh the Olympics! How stressful! Men’s hockey! Women’s hockey! Relay Speed Skating! Curling! OMG what a stressful game! Women play for gold tomorrow! (And why does the camera guy open the door after the goal? SHUT THE DAMN THING! IT’S UNSAFE! Aaaaand Czechia had SIX PLAYERS on the ice when they scored?! Workout in and one of the best and hardest to date! THREE ROUNDS! Should I start Crossfit? And C...

So much to do, so… lots of time? Website, AI, Chinese, family get togethers, gym, imagine if what I try to do during the day was my job? No fines at the library? But replacement costs after 21 days! How’s the book reading going? Aaaand all these ideas of creating language learning materials from your own content… has been done before. Dogme, anyone? Donate to the show! PayPal link below! https://w...

Happy Long Weekend! It’s Louis Riel Day! Who was he?!-Founder of Manitoba (only declared in 1992)-One of the Métis = French+First Nations marriages-Led a couple of rebellions-Was hanged Olympics continue, too bad I couldn’t live in a city where I could see the Olympics! Canada going for gold, women’s hockey team to play the US! Off to China? Thirty days free! What’s the catch? To the Leaf! The con...

It’s the long weekend! Louis Riel Day here in Manitoba, Family Day in other parts of the country, aaaaaannnddd….Spring Festival! Markets closed until the 24th. (Hope you sold.) Happy Valentine’s Day! Update on that credit card idea. how much interest would you have paid over the last 18 years? (Interesting to note that one of the websites I looked at differentiated between credit card balance and...

Workout in! Including shovelling! Had to get it done cause the weather was nice. World’s best burger in 2026? Toad in the Hole Winnipeg? Hey, can I do that? What about for a podcast? Talking to people, met a guy from the office, from Eritrea/Sudan, came to Canada 20 year ago, church sponsorship, stay at home Dad. But so is his wife? And what about buying a house? What does JL Collins say?https://c...

Workout in, empty gym! Thinking… Wednesday is often circuit day, what if I split these up over the week? At work, it was a networking event. Alllll women. Social media account people. What do I know? Well, apparently, quite a bit about the content creation tools. FCP, DaVinci, Zapier, etc. Interesting conversations. Wordpress success, time to renovate? Not gonna lie, kinda wonder if and why not ca...

Out with the fam for Dad’s memorial lunch. Hug your loved ones! Canadian women’s lose to the USA 5-0! What does it mean? How are the Olympics going? James JL Collins on money, investing, and following the rules:https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/-you’re financially free when you can live off of 4% of your investment income. He assumed people kept jobs or that the income could keep steady. I took...

SEATTLE WINS! LET THE BULL MARKET CONTINUE! But they were also in the AFC for a while? DOESN’T MATTER! What the Superbowl Indicator tells us. (Couple this with the Midterm Election Year and January Barometer.) First client through an ad, what next? Workout in! And Chinese Aiyi’s are the reason for the gold move! … Or so they say.https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/the-chinese-auntie-in...

Feeling much better, but still stuffy. Hopefully this is it. Workout in, though a tame one at that. Neat little APP called “One Thing” that puts a little reminder in your menu bar. What do I have to be reminded of? HSK 6 flash cards. Also working through HSK 1-5, spending about 30 minutes a day so far. I hope to keep this up as it’s something that needs to be done. Should I join a competition to m...

Feeling better, but not out of the woods just yet. If TRUMP is saying the US will build a strategic reserve of rare earths, which names are there in the space? TROX, AVL.to, AMY.v, MN.v, LAC.to, REMX among others. Preparing Episode 70 of the language vlog podcast… is this the year I split it up, or do I keep it together? No one’s reading my newsletter! Should I continue?? Yes. There are other reas...

Feel like garbage! My apologies about yesterday’s mis-uploading! New idea for the daily summaries: interactive Chinese subtitles?! (A la Mandarin Bean and DuChinese). Next week is Spring Festival, will this be the first one I’ve missed in HOW LONG?! GOLD, SILVER and the USD, where will it go? Coming up to the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Donate to the show! PayPal link be...

Off to the gym but feeling like it’s a down week. Am I getting sick AGAIN?! Met a paramedic at the gym… it’s the ethical concerns more than the broken bones that affect you. Cancelled Metricool! A savings of $22 a month. Almost kept it cause of the analytics but I’m just not using it enough. Some accounts I follow on YouTube are posting 2-3 times a day, mostly Shorts. I’m starting to think I shoul...

It’s February already! And Groundhog Day! Is AI for old ladies already?! What did I learn from this past weekend’s networking event? More new tools! Is Claude Code the next iteration, or something else? Nate Herk video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO5aW01DKHo-Kiro (Amazon)-Antigravity (Google) Watch this (an intro to Kiro et al):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73h5Lb_N9r8 Apparently I have ano...

PLOP go the METALS! Why?! The USD! Because of Trump! What about China? End of the month and the last day at the office (for now) and…podcasting ideas for everybody! Should I stay in Winnipeg? Uganda, Dubai, London and Paris! Guy from Uganda has been here 20 years! Never been back. Another lady from Dubai, says Winnipeg is good! Two university-aged ladies? Want to travel! Got my driver’s license in...

AI won’t replace your job, but it will make you do it differently. I thought this was becoming clear.https://www.wsj.com/opinion/were-planning-for-the-wrong-ai-job-disruption-2264d219 End of January already! End of the work space for now! GOLD finally comes down, Chinese STONKS PLUMMET! What does the AI say? (And how can I automate, eh?) And it works! Got the audio files created and sent! Next, le...

New Final Cut Pro out! Still one of the easiest “pro” platforms to use. Am considering the Creative Bundle since I’m already paying for FCP and Logic for iPad… but never using them. Some new updates to play around with but nothing groundbreaking. It takes a while to transcribe files and won’t export just the transcription. How long do you spend editing your work? This is something I have to come t...

“Architecture literacy”… interesting concept - that is, listening or reading something to simply have a familiarity with it rather than rebuidling it. How did those audio files work?-Alloy-Nova-Onyx-LiuPing-Mingyao Audio files here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZVQZ518D3LWgAhbmBVT5GY0giZi3NrDG?usp=sharing Got something working! ElevenLabs voices, OpenAI voices and… the costs! It’s a lit...

DIDN’T WORK! Zapier error and ElevenLabs credits… but waitaminute… OpenAI can generate audio?? Is the deep freeze over? No. Probably not. Talks at the office - software development. And the expat fifteen… pounds. Am I able to keep it off? And got the morning workout in, this could be my new routine? Donate to the show! PayPal link below! https://www.paypal.me/stevensirski?locale.x=en_CA ***Show no...

Workout in! Chest, legs, and some pull ups, but not as many as usual. How many sets is enough? New skill unlocked? Switching hands rope work. US and China relations will define the next generation, good talk on how NATO was what needed during the Cold War, but the Cold War ended with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 - Russia couldn’t do it.https://geopoliticalfutures.com/why-us-china-relati...

The cat’s sleeping on my bed! No wonder I’m reacting! Hey Steve, what about Greenland and Alberta? Weren’t you going to go on about that? Look at the map! Had to sleep. Slept in till 8 am today. It’s cold! Off to the office, getting things done, and meeting people. Substack articles, DaVinci fails, AI automations and why Winnipeg? Another Substack article done. Thinking… this is unsustainable beca...

Workout in and I had a partner! A lady showed up and was stretching within the area that I was doing my circuit workout today. Things got crowded when I was going to do sledgehammers so she asked if she should move. She did, then I offered, “Want to join in?” So we did a bunch of tire flips, double unders, burpees, farmers carries, pull ups, battle ropes, etc. Slippery AF out there! Got the car di...

Is course creation dead? A few YouTubers seem to be packing it up (Amy Porterfield, Latasha James made a video about it, Chris from Why Logic Pro Rules). Moving into coaching instead. Seems like teaching by another name. WOW! People are SO concerned about Denmark! What about Alberta?! Workout in! Back day, tomorrow will aim for a full body. Off to the office! It was busy, but still got some things...

It’s cold! And it stings! But Beijing got snow! Clean up commenced! New vacuum cleaner and all! Lost my Airpods, hope I didn’t throw them out! Substack articles continue. And spent SIX HOURS at the office today. Is this worth it? Donate to the show! PayPal link below! https://www.paypal.me/stevensirski?locale.x=en_CA ***Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com And on Notion: https://stevensirski...