I’ve followed the r/humandesign subreddit for about a year, and I’ve distinctly noticed that one Type (essentially a meta-archetype used in Jovian Human Design to make HD profile discussions easier) posts a lot more questions and discussions than the other ones: Projectors. I sifted through a small sample of the most recent 50 posts, a...

One of the most useful practices I took up early in 2025 was the use of PMN, or Plus-Minus-Next for daily and weekly reviews. Journal entries and reflection was always a challenge for me, because I never really knew where to start. I would start writing about something in my day, and think, “Where is this actually going?”, and then dro...

“"The balance of nature is not a status quo; it is fluid, ever shifting, in a constant state of adjustment. Man, too, is part of this balance." Rachel Carson, Silent Spring” The only truth in systems thinking is that a successful system is successful for the time it was built. Sooner or later, it will be eclipsed by a new perspective t...

It seems that I live a very easy life. Have I ever had to stand up for my convictions? What does it even mean to someone who hasn't experienced it before? Yes, we have our beliefs, our opinions, but they are all decoration, part of the costume of living. But the clothes I wear don't determine my life or death. Convictions do, because t...

Every couple of years, I had to submit a background check form to the U.S. federal government so I could begin a series of new jobs in trail construction and wildland firefighting. The information requested was pretty simple: Your address history for the past seven years and some people to reference. But for me, it was an overwhelming ...

The style has always changed, but the substance hasn’t. At least I don’t think so. I have my seasons for writing, and each season is built on more and more and more experience and knowledge. But I don’t change the substance, the essence. And the essence is probing, questioning, and understanding myself as a product, a phenomenon of lif...

I’m quite impressed by the two large updates to Apple Fitness, which I hadn’t noticed until the past few days. The first is Stacks, where you can add several workouts to a Stack as you’re browsing the workout library, and then start playing the stack as if you are making a larger workout composed of smaller parts. For example, I could ...

Thought #1 Dance music tends toward characteristics like fast, bouncy, energetic, epic, aggressive, big. Most people associate dance music with festivals, namely raves. What’s fascinating about UK House (this is my general name for it, but RateYourMusic calls it a mix of Outsider House and Deep House) is that it’s slower, hypnotic, sad...

RR: Okay, so an anti-AI project where you get the AI to generate large amounts of objectionable content: Feed an image generator this line of text: children in suicide vests. Generate 1000 images, and publish as a set. Run the content through an AI image merge to make it into a video. Catch some writhing Cthulhu horror. DA: Using AI to...

I somehow feel as if I don't have much to share with my friends. Rob, who I have worked, climbed, and written with since 2018, has been able to power through my distant silences—my consistent and regretful inability to start up conversation from a distance—by bringing up many topics and phenomena he's seen on the internet. He has a dif...

Wendell Berry’s essay “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer” outlines a checklist for his standard of technological innovation: 1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. 2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces. 3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it repla...

Without any chance to tour the Angeles National Forest, the hand crew has put it on themselves to at least take a look around the foothills that surround the Dalton Fire Station. A trail up from the fire station led to a winding road, with a pull-out full of bicyclists, trailrunners and hikers ready to go up the “Poop Out” trail, one w...

Apparently Gavin Newsom and CalFire announced the end of the 2022 fire season in California. As a firefighter in Northern California, it feels as if it had ended back in August. Surprisingly though, as the 2022 fire season closes, we are still being sent down to Southern California for a cover assignment due to the potentially threaten...

For more than a decade, when I like the design of a website, I right-click and select "View Page Source" or "Inspect" to see what's under the box. I want to know what .css or Javascript they are using, or if they're working right from a WordPress or Micro.blog, etc. Just recently, I passed by scripting.com, and saw that each paragraph ...

The trouble starts when your self is too reliant on your occupation, your location, or your lifestyle. You wonder: Without these identifiers, who are you? So you don't quit your job, you don't change location, and you keep at a lifestyle, even if it doesn't fit your self so much anymore. You begin to push against a stream, then a river...

From mid-September. September 17, 2022 From bad scheduling to a four day flu, I had little opportunity to run, and I’m happy for it. I wanted to think about the past week’s events, because they appear to me tied to variables much greater than me, which is kind of cool to see. The energy-eroding nature of wildland firefighting My job is...

This was back in mid-August. Since September, the garden did astoundingly well in growth, but it was too late in the Fall for full success. I'll make an update on the garden soon. August 12, 2022 When I first took a look at the garden in our newly rented house, I expected the plants to be affected by too much shade and a ground aspect ...

Thank the Spotify algorithmic gods, I have rekindled my love for Jungle and DnB, especially the 90s style where it seems like anything is still possible for the form. Since the 2000s, Jungle and DnB ossified into genre constraints rather than platforms for experimentation, with the strong exception of artists like Detboi or Burial, whe...

After watching the movie, I searched for any videos comparing Austin Butler’s performances with Presley’s real ones. I should have realized that there was a lot riding on the idiosyncrasies of Presley’s movements during each of his milestone events—Elvis was known for his movement, after all. It was fun enough to see Baz Luhrmann and A...

“Starting in 1942, Rodale Press magazines and books repeatedly asserted, suggested, inferred and implied both subtly and overtly, both straight out and between the lines, that organically grown food is far more nutrition than chemically grown food— a half-truth. J.I. Rodale was an ideologue at heart. Absolutely certain about the rightn...

A lot of “dance” music I listen to is on the edge of dance. It doesn’t drive hard enough, doesn’t micromanage one’s experience; it sometimes doesn’t ask for attention. The best way to describe a lot of dance music I listen to: Imagine watching a spy movie where the protagonist enters the club to find his target. The club is modern, wit...

“In the introduction to the book, the critic Elaine Showalter writes that Oates used Monroe as “an emblem of twentieth-century America.” A woman, Showalter later adds without much conviction, “who was much more than a victim.” The writer-director of “Blonde,” Andrew Dominik, doesn’t seem to have read that part about Monroe. His Norma J...

When I find a philosopher that I truly connect with, it is an immediate, visceral reaction. Even when I cannot remember the details of a philosophy, I can vividly recall its feeling and intention. The feeling of immediate and fundamental connection are so self-apparent that when I read those who do not ignite a fire within me, despite ...

Now, after reading two hundred pages mostly regarding suffering, I realize how little I think about it. But I realize that suffering is central to those utopian thinkers, with whom I don’t relate. Suffering is a part of life, but in such a way that I don’t have much to say about it. I am too busy trying to succeed in the small aspects ...

I find it fascinating that a working class hero is so different from a white collar hero. The working class hero, like the firefighter or the emergency medical technician, is recognized as the general idea of all firefighters or EMTs. When they Dan the Firefighter, they don’t see Dan, they see the Firefighter. If Dan were to ever leave...

I read Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” (2018) to better get a perspective on the thinker and why he might be so relevant to pop culture nowadays. I attempted to read “Maps of Meaning” a couple years ago, but I couldn’t absorb what he was saying, as it was written like any other academic book that hides its l...

After I dropped out of computer science in Seattle, I moved to Florida to study International Relations, an amorphous degree program that allowed me to take classes ranging from Chinese fiction to African economic statistics. I came to the humanities from the highly organized and digitized field of computer science, and I didn’t let go...

“Sustainable, ethical farming builds soil nitrate and soil organic matter levels by first plowing under a lush legume green manure. However, keep in mind that most kinds of garden vegetables require more nitrate than legume green manuring can usually create. Yet garden writers not equipped with the experience to evaluate farming techni...

“To quote Robert Parnes, 'the vegetable garden is an endless sinkhole for plant nutrients.' It has to be. Many kinds of vegetables require extraordinarily rich soil to grow well. Vegetables were like that during Roman times, and they still are. It’s in their genes. But sustainable, biologically oriented farming aimed at producing nutri...

Description of the Nothing Phone: “Designed with intention. Full of warmth. And joy.” ““… the phone has illuminating light strips on the rear of the phone, which appears to be made from transparent material.” The Verge, “Nothing reveals Phone 1 design a month early”” ““… Nothing’s phone looks kind of different. So no matter what happen...