Logs
Ideas floating along in my stream of my consciousness…
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?
January 16th, 2024
Being the (imperfect) hero in your own story.
January 11th, 2024
I'm thinking about all of the technology that we start into our various orifices out our site is going to be occupied by goggles art ears are occupied by AirPods and microphones oriental devices are tapping into tactics in touch what are the next senses that technology is going to take over.
January 10th, 2024
The sphere is overrated, and it so well represents Las Vegas (visually distracting from outside, fleeting and devoid of meaning but sensory overload and stimulation on the inside)
A awe-inspiring man-made monstrosity really hammering home the irony of the subject matter of Post Card from planet earth.
January 1st, 2024
Is there a forcing function to see through projects to completion?
I pull myself into too many different directions. I can't create a false sense of urgency.
I think the answer is somewhere in atomization of tasks and projects, accountability, novelty, minimum viable planning,1 and following the 80/20 rule.
December 26th, 2023
Wondering when did restaurants become so loud? Environmental noise creates this upwards spiral deafening cacophony as patrons continue to try to speak over and others in an effort to be heard.
What can this be traced back to? Food can be such a powerfully communal thing. A basic human need that necessitates us coming together.2
I’ve realized in subsequent visits to coffee shops that the music actually seems to be more for the “vibe setting” of the people who work there. Service industry jobs are increasingly thankless, hostile — I wonder if that has something to do with it.
December 19th, 2023
I've been struggling a lot recently with the concept of "the artist vs. the algorithm" — how to occupy two dualities of what it means to create online
How to balance "testing the water" with "growing my audience" or making things for myself (intrinsic) or "making things worthy of other's attention" (cultural emissions) or "content" vs "art" or "building/learning in public" or "shouting into the void"
"Staying relevant" but not "selling out".
How to attract like-minded people with genuine value and content, but not necessarily working (being promoted) on platforms that value frequency (feeding the algorithm).
What it means to be an "artist" vs. "craftsman"?
What am I trying to do with my writing/storytelling/creative expression? What's the end goal? And how would I support it in the future if I wanted to do more of it?
December 11th, 2023
Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology
Contemplating the many dualities of human existence. An animal at war with a conscience — a desire to survive and thrive, battling a desire to help others.
At least when we were hunter gatherers, before this age of abundance.