Logs

Ideas floating along in my stream of my consciousness…

July 15th, 2025

8:26 PM — If you think about it, on the flip side of privilege and optionality, it's the opportunity to be able to take risks and have a safety net if nothing goes right. What do you have to lose?

8:10 PM — I'd like to get in the habit of reviewing photos and reflecting on them and seeing what I could do differently to make the framing or the settings different or better.

February 27th, 2025

~~Gear Acquisition Syndrome: the habit of buying gear in anticipation of it being a catalyst for creativity and skills improvement.~~

A trap that I find myself falling in with my outdoor activities (in the guest for marginal gains), but a trap that I also worry will inversely rob me of the enjoyment inherent in doing the thing (which is the opposite of its intended effect).

~~Acquisition giving the allure of motivation, the impression of progress. A close cousin of The Diderot Effect. Constraints breed creativity.~~ *

~~Make something worthy of printing. Only read stuff worthy of printing.~~

This morning I found myself silently ridiculing a delivery driver for having his speakerphone blaring while waiting to pick up food at my local coffee shop, but then I quickly realized that dehumanized people are going to be more likely to act in inconsiderate ways. To treat others the same as they have been treated. And then instead of contempt for the guy, I felt compassion.

February 26th, 2025

~~Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent. - Victor Hugo~~

~~Music bypasses our brains and goes straight to our hearts. Auditory (with basis in conversation) hits us different than written (as it requires processing).~~

February 18th, 2025

Noting the insidious side effects of more efficient technology, both of the bullet journals vs TeuxDeux, written vs typed, car vs bicycle — doing something for the speed sake of convenience/efficiency leads to this compulsion to further optimize, to continue to automatic reflexive behavior, the downward spiral of trying to do/go more places — instead of stepping back and trying to understand why or what we are in a rush to do and if that's something we even need to be in a rush to do.

I feel this pressure on my rides, like I'm an inconvenience to others (in cars) — feeling increasingly like an outlier in this supercharged world. It's so abundantly clear how much technology changes how we interact with the world and each other.

~~How can I encapsulate this tension I'm noticing into a story? Supercharged tech: blindly hurtling forward without consideration of where we're going or how we'll land.~~

I find myself wanting to make products like the Garmin Varia — novel solutions to problems caused by other forms of technologies (see also: noise-canceling headphones at a loud cafe are a similar vein).

February 17th, 2025

~~The digital also hides the complexity and allows for deferral.~~

February 14th, 2025

~~What is~~ ~~good~~ ~~for businesses is often not good for creative process, not good for human flourishing.~~

February 12th, 2025

Would an explorable explanation/visualization be the best medium for showing how many hours you'd have to work to make as much as Elon, Jeff, or Mark does? I'd like to make something that shows the absurdity and highlight the wealth disparity in tax loopholes that the ultra-rich use while they advocate for cost-cutting and use political donations and money to influence national policy.

Kanye West (at the Grammys) is using the same outrage playbook that social and news media use — an attempt to jockey for attention by inducing strong emotion. It does make me wonder how much of his behavior is inherent narcissism and how much of it is media-perpetuated.

February 11th, 2025

~~I need to remind myself that most people default to concern or curiosity not criticism.~~

February 10th, 2025

If glasses are an extension of our human capabilities, just as our phones have become this multi-tool extension of our brains. Is it that far off to think that people wouldn't use smart glasses or smart watches to help augment their thinking?

~~The sleight of hand from the con-man is their key to fooling you. If they misdirect your attention then you become gullible.~~

The balance of economic systems are far beyond Trumps comprehension, and I think it remains to be seen if his policies as they relate to people's money (rich or poor) will backfire on him. Or if people will keep drinking the kool-aid, keep looking where he wants you to look, keeps you thinking that he knows what he's doing, when he really has no ~~plan, no clue.~~

February 8th, 2025

An idea is different than a story. An idea can be sparked by a pattern noticed or an observation seen. But on its own an idea is not a story. A story is a compelling way to communicate ideas to others.

February 7th, 2025

I find myself wanting to come to vibey bars like Zebulon with a watercolor kit and a notebook (pure analog), early to grab the seat thats the best perch in the house and just observe the coming-and-goings of people.

February 6th, 2025

~~Why do we care so much what strangers think but think so little about how our actions affect those closest to us?~~

February 5th, 2025

What does it say about our culture when we stop taking risks on things that aren't guaranteed successes? That the Apple giving up on a project because it would take away from something else giving up on their AR project because it would take away from the iPhone or the collapse of the entertainment industry that Ted Goya talks about and how everything is sequels and purchased intellectual property that already has ardent fan bases.

Researchers are important for creating collective knowledge, but artists are important creating collective culture. Compelling storytelling with its corresponding emotional resonance are what underpin this culture.

I'm becoming increasingly skeptical of technology company products' planned obsolescence. Convincing us we need a new tool that will solve a problem we didn't realize we had or one that was created by our use of the previous iteration. Locking people into some proprietary closed off system.

~~"In becoming less obtrusive, our devices also become more complicated." (Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft)~~

February 4th, 2025

~~Problems I love thinking about:~~

~~How do I live my life in alignment with my values, and avoid getting too caught up in outcomes?~~
~~How can we design our technology to augment our human capabilities, and create systems that incentivize tool-makers to prioritize agency not addiction.~~
~~What will it take to recalibrate our culture around a more sustainable and egalitarian economic model? (And what role, if any, can networked technology play in that?)~~

February 2nd, 2025

~~Speaking and typing are the best mediums for~~ ~~getting a thought out~~ ~~before its lost, but I'm convinced that synthesizing concepts and ideas is best done longhand (as the additional friction/effort to write it out acts as its own compression filter.~~

January 27th, 2025

Superbowl, spectacle, simulacra essay idea (inspired by Search Party’s vid on Stream sports wars). Live events have become prohibitively expense to attend, so now there is a developing marketing around novel digital facillated experiences (watch parties). A continuation of getting us to rewire our brains to mistake the digital experiences with ones in the real world. (Its also the streaming companies turn to monopolize and enshittify at the expense of viewers.)

February 1st, 2024

There's so much data that even spies are struggling to find secrets.

Cultural emissions, underscoring how much garbage there is, how I want to make things worthy of other people's attention (quality pieces that answer timeless questions).

Could tinnitus and the growing occurrence of tinnitus in people be our brain's responses to too much stimulus all the time and literally having other people in our ears and in our head constantly?

And the subsequent increasing loudness of places in the day-to-day world be related to feeling like they need to stand out more against all this other noise?

Justin Mather