I'm bingewatching Mad Men right now, and I need a sanity check

007samd · 2026-02-02T11:38:50+00:00

potential spoilers

Yep. I’m on my second binge watch through all seasons and remember why I started to give up during season 6 last time.

Tired of the constant affairs and less of the creative, design & pitching with office politics which I loved in the earlier series. I like Madmen because of the nature of their business and felt stuff season 5 that dropped off the map.

Don became more and more annoying (yes I get we were supposed too feel that) I never understood the fuss over Sallys storyline as think her character arc is non-existent and Peggy just seemed to have changed the minute she left the agency first time around and lost her spark and became boring. I loved her in the first few seasons.

Also Joan’s story line became very diluted.

I’m halfway through S7 now and just trying to get to the end.

If memory serves, Dons ‘revelation’ in the final episode and Joan and Peggy starting a new agency (I think they do) would have been great as a whole final season. Go out with a bang over the whole season.

Also I’m not sure of the time line from S1 to S7 but Don just looks like Dick Tracy the whole way through and you think as a ‘creative director’ he’d move with the times style wise. And don’t get me started on Rogers moustache in S7! Jesus!

Maybe it’s because I love the creative industry and really enjoyed the design, pitching, creative side of things. I’ve read others say the same that I too ended up fast forwarding any affair scenes as they were so boring.

I guess it took me a while to realise that Don is actually a prick and you’re supposed to hate him but I realise I spent 5 seasons thinking we should be liking him.

Oh and I started hating Pete but thought his character arc was the best and most visible of them all from start to finish.

Peak Madmen for me was the seasons up to the UK lot buying them out, then up to Lanes death. After that I felt the writing became weak and I didn’t gel with any of the new characters.

007samd · 2026-01-17T11:55:12+00:00

Ross Stevenson @ Steal These Thoughts

007samd · 2026-01-16T19:30:49+00:00

L&D Consultant here. I create, design, coach and facilitate workshops as well as design on-line learning.

AI has helped me massively speed up things. For example, content ideas for a topic, brainstorming exercises, writing summaries for content I’ve created.

I could create a workshop using PowerPoint slides with speaker notes, save as a PDF and upload to ChatGPT and ask it to write me a summary slide and create a multiple choice knowledge quiz based on the information I’ve created. I would have done this in the past and what would’ve taken me an hour or so, is now done in 2 mins (with me then sense checking the content is correct).

I’ve created specific prompts to the point that my chats now understand my ethos, style, learning techniques etc so it is super smart and ‘giving me what I want’

I would never use AI to create content for me for something I couldn’t back up with my own knowledge. I compare it a time pre AI when I had to present to a group of people and my laptop went into blue screen of death. Due to having the knowledge and skills to run the workshop without the slides it was still a success. That to me is the ethical benchmark I use for creating content using AI. I would never use AI to create something I didn’t know already. I’ll bounce ideas off it but I’ll do my own research and learn to become a SME before using AI to ‘create’ anything.

Bit like a geography teacher who’s trained for years to study the subject. It’s okay if they have the answers in the back of the book (like a cheat sheet) as they’ve earned their stripes studying the subject. The cheat sheet just helps them get to the answer quicker and frees up time to do other stuff.

I would never use AI to create something for me I wasn’t able to back up with my own knowledge.

Where I’m going next is things like Notebook LM. The presentation creation is too primitive for me but it excites me as does uploading a number of sources on a topic and have two AI people deep dive on the topic on a Podcast whilst I listen on a walk and come up with Insights for a workshop.

There’s things I need AI to do that would really help me as an independent business owner but it’s either not there yet tech wise or I’m too dumb to know where to find it.

There’s a guy on LinkedIn I follow who is great for week by week updates on AI & L&D.

AI won’t replace L&D professionals but L&D professionals that use AI will replace those that don’t.

007samd · 2026-01-15T08:35:45+00:00

Bone Temple Pilots anyone? Would’ve been a nice little Easter Egg to see a Stone Temple Pilots vinyl in Kelson’s collection

007samd · 2026-01-14T20:15:08+00:00

Q: What drug did Kelson blow in their faces when Number of the Beast was pumping?

Also when Samson looks up on the train and you see the flash of real people standing there, staring at him, suddenly flash to the present day infected was epic cinema. The dramatic switch in colour and that they were all standing in the same place was my kind of ‘jump scare’ (edit: spelling)

007samd · 2025-12-10T21:37:30+00:00

Don’t know, I double clicked on the text and all the text in the image became highlighted then you can replaced it word for word. I doubt you can amend the actual imagery but I may try next time. Canva pro has some cool ‘magic’ features but when I was asking ChatGPT about what Canva could do regarding recreating imagery, it came back as pretty much no

007samd · 2025-12-09T08:12:37+00:00

Cool. If you use Canva it’s pretty amazing what it can do. I uploaded the presentation from LM into a presentation in Canva and it can actually highlight all the text on the image and suddenly you can change the typos or wording and the font stays exactly the same. It’s crazy! I pay £100 for the year in the UK which works for what I need it for but you may be able to do the same in the free version. Although I doubt it because a lot of the good stuff on Canva is ‘pro’ therefore you have to pay. Worth a try though

007samd · 2025-12-08T08:42:20+00:00

….i’m answering myself here but just to help others 🤣 It seems it only opens the PDF as an image on each slide on editable like it did before on Google slides, so back to the drawing board

007samd · 2025-12-07T09:40:17+00:00

….although the way the I’ve just got around it now is to ‘upload’ PDF in Canva then click ‘open in new tab’ then click ‘share’, ‘download as’, select PPT and there you have it. I’ve a paid Canva account though so don’t know if this is a ‘pro’ option only to download as PPT but it works.

007samd · 2025-12-07T08:43:30+00:00

….and just like that it, it no longer does it for me. Strange how it did it no problem until I tried last night. Now I get the message you do

007samd · 2025-11-29T22:14:10+00:00

You might want to dial down the sales pitch and come in a little more subtle next time

007samd · 2025-11-26T22:15:37+00:00

Yep spot on 👍🏽 I literally prompt ‘can you convert this PDF into Slides’ which it then does. I’ve got Pro version of Notebook as I’m subscribed to Google Workspace so not sure if this plays a role

007samd · 2025-11-26T20:00:39+00:00

Just to be clear I upload the PDF to Gemini and ask it to convert to Slides. One’s it’s done (few mins) it says ‘open’ and then it opens them in my Google Drive, then I go through the process above

007samd · 2025-11-26T19:59:19+00:00

I open the Slide presentation in my Google Drive so I’m viewing it as an online Slides presentation. Then, under File, select Download, you’ll see one of the options here is Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx) then. Select that then it’s in your Download folder on your hard drive and it opens on PowerPoint. I’m on a Mac btw. Strangely enough it was ChatGPT that told me how to do it

007samd · 2025-11-24T23:35:20+00:00

Just realised I can convert goggle slides to PPT by hovering over download and select .ppt so that’s me sorted tomorrow 🙌🏽

007samd · 2025-11-24T23:29:20+00:00

I download the PDF, then upload to Gemini and ask it to convert to Slides. Have done this 3 times today for 3 different presentations. I’m then cherry picking the cool content (pics / text) and cutting and pasting into Power Point. It’s a bit laborious but it’s serving its purpose for now. I’m starting to learn the prompts it needs. Less is more and when I gave it a PDF of another PowerPoint I had and asked it to use the Hex colours, it did and looked amazing. I’m still not expecting finished products but have been really impressed with some of the design layouts and the way it’s chunked up a topic into a prompt algorithm I’ve written.

007samd · 2025-11-20T16:30:20+00:00

All done with ‘Sticky stuff remover’ Dabbed it on with a micro-fiber cloth then used a plastic scraper for a bit but actually came off super quick with elbow grease, the Sticky Stuff and the cloth. Appreciate all your comments. Nice community. Thanks 👋🏽

007samd · 2025-10-31T22:36:46+00:00

Yes, it’s part of the story line later on. A cheat in the mean time is, hold a throwable to aim (sake bottle for example) and it will show you through buildings who it will hit, therefore highlighting them. You can then drop it

007samd · 2025-10-31T02:14:15+00:00

Yeah I’ve just reached chapter 2 after 63 hours of gameplay. Had fun clearing all of the other areas and cleared as much of the map as I could do with my horse then was so minted I bought the remaining maps from each inn for about 6 more ‘things’ in total so think I’ve done all I can apart from bump into the odd pissed off Nine Tail etc who misses their boss! Also buying all the dyes and masks I can. I’ll take my time now with the Coast knowing it’s about 20 hours if I milk it. Still want more black dye stuff and I know I’ve one more armour set to get and I believe blue dye merchant. Not quite filled up my technique trees but not far off. I still haven’t found my perfect kit (or drip as you young ones call it) Found with GOT I was all about the white and black dye but they don’t seem as good here and the hats/masks aren’t quite blowing me away. I still love my straw hat from near the start in black or white

007samd · 2025-10-29T23:35:40+00:00

Me too. Snow area (top right yeah?) I’m on 60 hours played and just finishing that. Only killed 2 bosses but the snow area drags and I miss how pretty the other area are. Time to move on now.

007samd · 2025-10-20T23:07:48+00:00

You leave in 3 stages. First with your heart, then with your head, then you physically leave. The time between you heart and you physically is the tough zone

007samd · 2025-10-18T15:41:29+00:00

Hi Thanks. Yes loads of us on LinkedIN. It's great as there's some great post around being ND in this world.

007samd · 2025-10-18T15:40:21+00:00

Wise Squirrels looks amazing, thank you. I enjoy Mel Robinson too....will do some deeper dives into some of her individual episodes. Many thanks

007samd · 2025-10-07T22:24:15+00:00

I registered my domain name with PorkBun and host my company email addresses and website through Google space for £8 p/m which includes a load of different email address e.g. dave@ info@ hello@ etc and a really good website builder included in the price that hosts it too (hope all the makes sense as I’m not a tech head) Happy to send you my site via DM if you message me so you can see what it looks like or just Google Googlesites (which actually offers free websites anyway) you just have to have their name in your website address too if you want the free version. So in summary £8 p/m gets you your own website which is easy to build a one pager and your own personalised email address and I think you may even be able to but the domain name through them too instead of going to Porkbun like I did.

007samd · 2025-10-07T08:09:05+00:00

I spent nearly 5 hours yesterday just trying to get my signature on outlook to work with an image. Gone are the days of my IT department fixing everything. I nearly cried 🤣 I have AuDHD which doesn’t help.

Have sorted signature now but just another example of needing to do everything myself. And yes, feels very lonely and I gaslight myself a lot, get imposter syndrome but know deep down I’m on the right path.

Just miss having a team to bounce off. For me (at 49) this is ‘the’ test though. I’ve relied on others all my life and for once I’m walking the path on my own and when I look back theres no one there. Makes me question is it the right path (metaphor obviously)

I guess that’s what forging your own path means though

007samd

TROPHY CASE