Where have you been, it’s been so long since the last post?
Busy, partially from being short-staffed.

Also been learning about how to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency, especially in regards to content creation.  Expect a lot more content soon, we have a backlog of stuff we’re about to publish.

Oh, and have been working on new menu items, some of which as on our new dine-in tasting menu.

Are you hiring?
Not really.  Shifted from trying to build the restaurants to keeping traffic low so it can be handled with minimal staff.  The unofficial minimum wage now is $20/hour (plus tips).  The time it takes to hire and train someone to produce enough value to justify the wage isn’t worth it anymore unless we immediately do the sort of volume that McDonald’s gets.  So we only hire migrant workers to help with cleanup and maybe some prep work.  It’s easier this way.

The other issue is that we can’t hire who we want due to the number of homeless/drug addicts in our neighborhood.  I wanted to hire a couple of Japanese international students, but I can’t imagine them knowing how to handle a drug addict entering the store.

What are you doing with AI?
It’s made content creation faster, better, and thus, more profitable.  For instance, we can now produce a mostly AI generated ad using a platform like flicki.ai to create Instagram ads and YouTube videos.  Check out our Instagram ads and follow us.

We’re also developing AI bots on Poe.com, a platform that allows users to sample a range of AI systems, such as ChapGPT and Claude.  We’re working on Vampire Chef bot that flirts with users interested in cooking delectable meals for vampires (e.g. beef tartare), and The Peasant Chef who’ll help users with meals related to upcoming book, How to Cook Like a Peasant.

We’ve also generated content and AI bots to help users learn French, and in the future, Spanish.  We’re working on having AI read our books to publish on YouTube and Rumble.

AI can do all that for you?
It used to cost $800 to hire someone to read 5000 words (a chapter).  Now it costs $20/month.  So expect audio version of our books soon.  it’s also reduced creating video content that used to take 10 hours to an hour.

Has it helped with writing?
It has, mostly with grunt work like footnote references.  It now takes less than a minute to generate a footnote, whereas it used to take up to 10 minutes to do so.

Ai still — and perhaps because I don’t know how to tame it to my liking — writes like a Woke basic bitch.  I’ll ask it to rewrite a sentence and it’ll change its meaning.  But it’s useful as a junior writer.  There’s still a lot of editing involved when using AI for writing.

Which AI writing tool do you use?
I use Sudowrite for fiction.  I recommend it for those who want to get into fiction writing.  Keep in mind that it still requires a lot of good writing from users to generate decent content, and good editing skills to produce good material.  Still, it can be a useful heuristic tool for those wanting to learn how to write fiction if used properly.  Don’t hesitate to ask about it if you’ve ever wanted to write fiction, which I’m still a novice at.

For essays, I use Claude and ChatGPT, primarily for footnotes and research.  They’re my junior writers and research assistants, saving me a lot of time.  Expect five books a year from me hereinafter.

What’s the new dine-in tasting menu? 
It’s three courses for lunch, $15, tax included, four courses for dinner, $20.  Courses have included: beef tartare (better than any I’ve had in Quebec or France); mussels marinara; fish eggs tacos; fish eggs and peppercorn whipped cream; honey mustard baby back ribs; short-rib ramen; paratha (Indian flatbread) pizza; steak and eggs.  It takes us back to our original plan, which was a sit-down bistro instead of the take-out menu we pivoted to in response to the pandemic.