6/25/2025

8:24am

I think there's also a real opportunity to be a next generation Margritte, in that artificial intelligence now enables a type of surrealism and reality questioning that is frankly unprecedented.

8:23am

You can't really blame people that are sensitive for getting suckered by television, but they need media literacy.

They need to understand the business models and the incentives behind the companies that make the things that they watch on their screens, how the subconscious mind works, how subliminal messaging works. These screens are filters to experiences that are illusory. It's what that New York Times op-ed video talks about: don't believe everything you see, on a screen. It's hard enough to convince ourselves to not believe everything we think (as it's a subjective interpretation of "reality").

And with generative AI getting all the more convincing, it's extremely important that people have media literacy. It also speaks to how there will become this meatspace premium and this gravitation towards the real and the tangible. And inversely, there's going to be people that distrust everything more.

6/24/2025

9:12pm

An interesting takeaway I had from last week tonight's video on AI slop with the artist who makes wood sculptures with a chainsaw was that they used a time-lapse at the end to show proof of work. I have a feeling that this is going to become a much more prevalent way of needing to validate that you've actually made the thing that you're trying to take credit for.

6/23/2025

10:10am

Is AI just more offloading of our critical thinking, reflection time, and control — our opportunities to develop our skills, to take the time to process, consolidate, assimilate knowledge, learn important communication skills? It feels much akin to how social media and dating apps have led the younger generation to find discomfort and rejection intolerable.

6/20/2025

2:21pm

Regarding the fear you have of people judging you for "taking photos", think about when you see other people taking photos, you judge them for a split second, but then you move on back to your own self-obsession. Nobody cares for more than a few seconds.

6/19/2025

9:17pm

Interactive mixed media, Internet-native narrative nonfiction essays. Where there's sentences or paragraphs that mix text with imagery, with audio, with user interaction, where the user, the reader, can hover over a sentence to hear the horns honking or a picture of the guy that I'm talking About flashes visible in the margin. Or video from the Ray Ban metas, microphones to help create this, multi-sensory environment (almost the way that Craig mod brought the high fidelity microphone to these quiet places in Japan). I just feel like there's a lot of opportunity for this mixing of mediums that I haven't really seen done well on the internet for narrative, non-fiction (I've seen it for data visualization). It could work in the realm of travel dispatches that include maps and GPS coordinates. This full sensory reading experience.

9:12pm

The more I think about it, the more I'm realizing that my writing and thinking gravitates around technology, and power, and human enablement, and mediums for expression. And alternative modes and models for using these tools for thought and tools for connection to enable human flourishing and but noticing the patterns in our culture and in our world where they don't.

8:30am

Without regulation or oversight, the barbell effect will arise in any marketized situation, including generative AI.

6/18/2025

11:52am

I'm realizing another one of the more pervasive issues with technological dependence is when it becomes centralized and mediated by gatekeepers. A platform forces you to exist within their bounds and they control the connection to the network and your visibility within it. That is user-hostile.

Ideally, the platform operates as a utility for middlemen and their value comes in providing that service, but the pervasive and unsustainable economic model and incentives encourages them to just prioritize user lock-in and dependence because of the misaligned north star of monetary valuation -- much value can I make from this, how much value can I provide through this.

6/17/2025

9:07pm

It's important to remind myself that if I establish enough of a presence and consistent relationship with a group of fans they will follow me wherever I go, platform agnostic.

As long as I have their email to keep me tethered to them that's all I need and with my creative pursuits once I've gotten past my personal roadblocks the focus should be on establishing that core group of true fans.

2:05pm

Using AI to help with coding and creativity, is similar to using machinery to create bodywork for cars (versus hand-molding it). Total adoption as AI without any human touch leads to homogenization and commoditization of output. But it's not the best strategy to everything by hand, you can focus on the most important parts that you want to build by hand, in the way that Singer does. But where do you draw a line between what's useful for the assistance and what's taking away from the experience of making it. And maybe it's not black and white, maybe it's gray and it's the spectrum, maybe it comes down to not needing every capture or automate or offload all of these experiences to our experiences to other tools and kind of let our subconscious and our non-strategic parts of ourselves have space as well.

1:54pm

Related to Logbot (and personal AI agents, that aggregate personal data and inputs, I would love to have a (privacy-focused) AI agent that runs locally on my computer that's fed a directory of plaintext files (with minimal metadata and keywords). I could use a markdown directory from something like Logseq or Obsidian, and it returns information or advice based on a prompt. e.g. That brand lotion irritated your skin.

6/16/2025

6:51pm

In the same way that I would never look at my bike ride as something I have to do, but rather something I get to do, I want to reframe my end-of-day review as a "daily discovery" session. Instead of viewing it as a chore, I treat it as an opportunity to explore and connect the dots in my thoughts and experiences from the day. By giving it a more positive, fun name and approaching it with curiosity, I can make the review process feel less like a task and more like a personal exploration. I think of it as a chance to reflect on my day's insights and learnings in a way that feels engaging and enlightening.

As a matter of fact, that's why I'm considering moving my writing back over to my personal site because I want to figure out how to make all the systems that I use rejuvenating and fun to interact with.

It's also fun and empowering to use AI and automation to help me through the hurdles that trip me up from starting and sustaining these creative habits and pursuits.

6:29pm

Ray Bradbury is very much on the train that says it's a worthwhile skill to relearn how to trust your intuition for leading you in your creative pursuits I believe this is the reason why so many people are drawn to Rick Rubin writing and thinking about creativity, in that he shares the same underlying belief as Ray Bradbury that the subconscious is a wellspring of creative energy and that stripping away self-doubt and removing whatever barriers possible to get to the core of something is what he focuses on enabling in his producing. Furthermore the reason I think this is prominent in our current day and age is because of how supercharged competition, commoditization, commercialization, and instant feedback loops are. We're already highly social creatures that are incredibly sensitive to how we're perceived by others. And never before has it been made so aware to us and measurable to us how we are perceived by other. And developing the mindfulness to let this go in such a delicate field such as creativity is an extremely important skill to develop. That's some of the allure of artificial intelligence and vibe coding. in that they can help remove the skill and self-doubt barriers necessary to create art or build software in the virtual, digital world

9:08am

The only way I'm going to affect change in my own life, and eventually maybe in the lives of others is to commit to getting things done by certain times and stick to that. First to rebuild trust in myself, then to rediscover my intuition, then to build on skills through consistency, and by getting—and testing—these thoughts in the world outside of my head. Malleable goals and vision are valuable, but they are on the rings of the concentric circle of change.

5:54am

As I question how to build an audience in an increasingly crowded online space, and think through who my archetypes are (Bo Burnham, Craig Mod); a commonality that arises: early adoption of (and consistent execution on) a medium (Youtube, blogging) seems to be a key component of their sustainable careers. These places are increasingly saturated and siloed, but they were both fortunate enough to build a core group of fans that have helped them maintain their creative pursuits. That and (seemingly) living well below their needs/means. Timing seems to be as important as execution. What's the next wave that's building on the horizon? I think it's the earnest and artisan work that will float to the top in the age of AI.

6/15/2025

9:51pm

After reading these graphic novels adaptations of Sapiens and Slaughterhouse Five, I'm increasingly impressed how much a well-executed comic can consolidate information, how much context can be relayed through imagery (if it's storyboarded well). It's an extremely compelling medium for storytelling. What could it look like executed on dynamic interactive medium like the internet?

11:54am

This certain time of year is reminding me that the most beautiful flowers don't bloom all year long. That they spent a majority of their time soaking up sun and nutrients, slowly preparing for when it's their time to blossom. Reminding me to just keep doing what I'm doing, and trust that eventually I'll know when it's my time to bloom.

9:39am

I'm really enjoying how much the camera is getting me out into the world, amongst people — looking for experiences to document, and noticing how much more attuned my eye and intuition are becoming at leading me to the emotion in given moments. Compelling frames and moments that resonate energy. Taking inspiration from Craig Mod, and not getting lost in aesthetic pursuit ("I'm not a fine-art photographer. I treat photography as a process of record-keeping. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, the records are beautiful.") but using the minimum viable tool to create artifacts of my experiences. And with something like a 35mm camera, it really puts you in the moment, in the crowds with the people.

6/4/2025

9:58am

I'm also coming more around to the idea of distributing and sharing and submitting my work to various places and outlets a lot more unashamedly and distributing them on these various platforms without depending on any one of them to sustain myself to always POSSE, publish on my own site and syndicate elsewhere.