7/2/2025

4:19pm

I'm realizing that maybe the value in logging is related to crystallizing my thoughts and distilling ideas down in the moment as a way of formulating an opinion on something and internalizing those realizations.

4:18pm

I want to write a piece about the future of AI and what it means for people, and if it's doom and gloom or if it's just the latest iteration of that microcosm of the signage, how it's going to create a barbell effect, how there will be a demand for "handcrafted", quality goods. But also the potential power of this, because of the scale and the limitlessness of networked digital media and the marginal cost of replication.

Questions that arise: how much, and how does one decide to use it? Bringing awareness that that if you don't use it at all you might likely get left behind, and you have to adopt it as another tool on your tool belt.

11:26am

Potential title for AI-related essay: The slop thickens

7/1/2025

6:32pm

Before 1970, all signs were made by hand [...] The advent of the Gerber vinyl plotter really completely upended the industry.

The move away from handmade signage into that into digital, mass-produced signs, and the later resurgent demand for hand-made work is a microcosm for when a tool or technology makes something easier, democratizes it, it also commoditizes it, but then there becomes this newfound demand for quality hand-made craftsmanship.

6:19pm

I'm evermore seeing the polarity in AI — between it ability to help people like me with this rubber ducky, non-judgmental, kind of supportive writing partner, and conversely its potential to obliviate whole industries through automation and ability to create massive, organized disinformation campaigns.

6:13pm

That Brian Eno quote about electronic music and how it applies to AI is ringing ever more true for me. In terms of unabashedly using it as another tool in the tool belt to get to an end result (not to replace the work or the result), but the invigorating creative energy that I've been feeling from it today after it helped me deal with unblock me I was stuck on is a huge unlock. To remove some of the impediment and tendency to diverge at this stage in my developing my writing skill, to remove an element of decision and analysis paralysis as well as help organize and reduce inputs is invaluable.

Its helping me realize that my blocker to finishing things might have actually just been one step/impediment along the way. And to go with the flow, make note of where I need help, and then come back to it with as much information and context as I can. Based the output I'm getting from it, it's nowhere near close to my voice and what I would want to publish, but its ability to help me structure and distill these concepts is absolutely crucial for me at these stages of the creative process where I get stuck.

9:47am

Logbot (and cursor) can utilize these plain text directories, the idea being that you can feed your AI in the context of what you've thought and written about in the past; a question you've been pondering, helping you rephrase something in our voice, or asking it what the highest leverage thing to work on or focus on based on your inclinations and values.

9:44am

I can't put a finger on what exactly inspired it—maybe an amalgam of EB White's "Here Is New York" infused with Hitchcock's Rear Window—but I was struck today, again, with appreciation for the city I live in

I, the videlist (a portmanteau evoking both the latin videre—to see—and vitality—one who appreciates the movement and energy of the world) "am curiously affected by emanations from the immediate surroundings.", feeling equal parts gratitude and excitement of a place where houses tend to be separated by mere feet or seated on directly on top of each other. I was struck with this newfound appreciation of being in a city where you're right on top of each other and experiencing the interactions like someone greeting someone at the door, their windows open, the dog barking and the people laughing as they interact. This deep appreciation for people from all walks of life living on top of each other but in a rich, immersive sense.

My city "provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing. I wander around, re-examining this spectacle, hoping that I can put it on paper. [...] From the open windows of the drum and saxophone parlors come the listless sounds of musical instruction, monstrous insect noises in the brooding field of summer."