universal cursed artifact
I keep wanting to write a post titled ‘universal cursed artifact’, that’s obviously about smartphones. when
blogmap
i was in the middle of a substack draft about continuity when i suddenly felt the impulse to go over to visakanv.com/blog/ and
consolidation meta
(written in substack) I canāt help myself, I love to go meta. Earlier this evening, my wife took my son out for a walk, givi
sort my notes with me
How do you know if you have a problem? Iām thinking particularly about my notes, but you could also talk about say, a drinki
notes on structure
Itās 11:05pm. Iām freshly showered and I just got in bed. My 11mo son is fast asleep in his cot nearby. I have a decision
richest man in babylon
iām finally reading The Richest Man In Babylon ā Iād seen in recommended several times in multiple contexts over the yea
on messes
I had a moment last night when I did this at my desk (evaluate my situation), and the first thought I had was āobviously I s
anguished voyager
guilt > hunger > desk > messes > I have 48 āliveā drafts on my substack account, and I have the equivalent of
fasting
I experimented with fasting once. I had a chirpy colleague who was a big evangelist for it, and I was feeling laggardly, and s
diablo
iāve known for a long time that i want to write something about diablo i could do the memoir thing but really i think i want
literacy
what is my conclusion? I thinkā¦ ultimately itās not possible for any one person to do everything, so itās prudent for in
heroes3
I remember the first time I encountered Heroes of Might and Magic III (1999). I was 9 years old, at a birthday party of a frie
frame studies
Iām changing the title of my substack from āvoltaic verses ā”ļøā to āframe studies š¼ļøā. Should I explain? My
witcher3
Iāve been thinking a lot lately about how to properly scope a project. Take The Witcher franchise. The Witcher today is famo
youtube
this is a collection post to collect links to other posts with transcripts of my youtube vids
50 opening lines
I have a lot of drafts. tbc
simcity
2024sep4: I started playing a new game of Simcity 2000 in my browser, mainly out of nostalgia and curiosity. I never really un
undertaker
In Sylvester Stalloneās Netflix documentary, Sly, he talks about how, early in his acting career, he would get typecast
alice
i finally watched disneyās alice in wonderland (1951) for the first time a few weeks ago. i havenāt yet read lewis carroll
hard
Iāve been rediscovering lately that Iām too hard on myself. And I donāt mean this in the tedious interview question sens
hades
2024sep11 One of my favorite games in recent years, and honestly one of my favorite games of all time, is Hades (2020), by Sup
CDs
backstory: I bought my first couple of CDs when I was about 12 years old, and over 20 years later I still consider them to be
fake games
what is the portal in this essay? i think the wild thing is that we play fake games with ourselves. we cargo cult ourselves. w
tiles
one of my recurring curiosities is aboutā¦ tiles āThe word is derived from the French word tuile, which is, in turn, from t
himym
i try to notice things the opportune time to publish this post would be on the 20th anniversary of the bookās release, septe
afterimages
asdf a this might be surprising to some peopleā i feel like it shouldnāt be, but people get surprised by all sorts of thin
grieving lost media
The Temple of Juno in Agrigento, oil on canvas, Caspar David Friedrich (1828-1830) this feels like an important essay to publi
cigarettes
really an essay about addiction, coping mechanisms, behavior change PSA: iām going to be talking about cigarettes a bunch in
working episodically
magazines, chiarella, mens health, bloggers, herb caen, julie & juliaā¦ talk about tv? ā± When I was a teenager I used t
OK Computer
babysleep I just put the baby to sleep. We were listening to Radioheadās OK Computer, and he fell asleep at track 7: Fitter
containers
iāve had a puzzle thatās been bothering me for about as long as iāve been writing, though maybe i didnāt begin to prop
kenny werner
I’m gonna throw it open. If you have a question on anything involving anything in the world, I can answer it. You know,
essay teasers
i just feel in my bones that there are about 5-12 essays knocking around inside me that if i just get out of my system i will
lentil
itās been almost 2 months since my last post and I just wanna spend maybe 30 minutes writing something and hitting send with
vannevar
just for fun, collecting mentions of vannevar bush’s as we may think (1945) tbc
beautiful noisy messes
iām tired and i donāt have much time. i need to publish something or iām going to go mad. i have a lot of tabs open. one
contemplate
Iāve spent a lot of the past two years thinking about how to do these substack essays. Recently, I was getting so frustrated
win_loop
have a draft of an essay i’ve sort of lazily idling on titled “win loops” and i might as well just tweet it
all the channels 2
all the channels 1 i wrote a whole book about introspection, in part because i believe iām pretty good at it, and i believe
packaging problem
I was doing the dishes last night and listening to some year-old youtube vlogs of myself doing my monthly status updates. One
behavior change
One of the central questions of my life is, how much control or influence do I have over my own behavior, really? A lot of my
writing on commutes
writing on commutes From 2013 to 2018, I used to write diligently on my phone on my commutes. Iād write both on the way to w
aladdin
I woke up from a dream that was set in something like my brainās remix of the old video game, The Prince of Persia. It remin
kwml
I heard about this book a long time ago, but I canāt remember where exactly. I do remember it being mentioned by Elliott Hul
writing involuntarily
I have fond memories of times I used to write. Right now itās 755am on a Sunday morning ā itās the day of my wedding ann
blog overview 2023
I feel compelled to go to the start of my blog and start commenting on it. Visa Reacts to his own blog. (this is a janky mess)
relationship with technology
This was for an interview with Sublime 1) Your work is remarkable for the way in which it uses digital tools and platforms in
nanny diaries
15aug2024: My wife and I brought our 9mo out for his first train ride. Heās still a little too young to really appreciate wh
wildest dreams
I have to laugh sometimes at how my life has turned out. In some ways I am living a life that is beyond my wildest dreams, at
2023 worklog
dec23 very productive day deleting and merging blogposts on /blog/, then reading about ulysses dec9: earlier, thread about ppl
2023jun5 status update
I used to write on my phone on my commutes to work. I think I initially did most of it on an Android phone, in Evernote. Neith
improv
I like writing, so here I am. I donāt have a particular thing in mind that I want to write about, so Iām going to improvis
suffering from misunderstandings
i tend to start in the middle was watching some stuff about toyota on youtube been thinking about processes lately. Particular
can’t or won’t?
what’s the difference between unwilling and unable? lots of people do have poor reading comprehension and are lousy list
give it a minute
Itās been 4 months since I published my last substack post. Is that a long amount of time? It depends on how you see it. I t
covid
i took this pic in feb 2020 and i knew it was going to be interesting/relevant somehow
one-foot introspect
I wrote a 300-page ebook titled Introspect that Iām really proud of. Over 2,500 people have bought it so far. Iād estimate
one-foot FAN
Throughout history there have been āexceptionalā people who seemed to have the near-mystical ability to āwalk through th
histories
draft/notes thing? For starters, I recommend everybody watch bill wurtzā history of the entire world, i guess for a nice ove
mcluhan
Malcolm McLuhan has been on my radar for a long time, but Iād always been kinda avoiding him, the way I had previously avoid
repetition
simplistic but feels right: good repetition is mindful, bad repetition is mindless meta: mindless repetition isnāt all that
blogosphere
collecting some tweets and notes… Neilsen blogosphere study 2012: Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Bl
ayy players
someone asked what I mean by A+ talent I personally define it as the ability to step into a situation, figure out what’s
taskmaster
“Talent.Ā The talent of some men appears slighter than it is because they have always set themselves tasks that are too
how to market
“How do I market my <community> substack? There are thousands of <community>-curious people out there and only a t
unstuck
(original thread) meant to write an essay today but got distracted by twitter lol and now its bedtime so maybe i’ll blur
unsolicited advice
“I’ve noticed a few recent tweets that seem to deviate from your ‘brand’. If you want to continue to g
reality
This post was a stub that evolved into “reality is unrealistic” substack essay a few months later. āBut please r
self-bullying
(og tweet) idk if i’ve framed it like this before when talking about trust and freedom etc: a person who bullies themsel
FAN thesis take 1
All right, hey friends! So what I’m going to be doing is I have a speech that I’m giving in a couple of weeks. Tod
everything is sexual
(og thread) maybe this is jarring for me to say in context here because i inhabit a different vocabulary entirely but i think
irritation with others
(og thread) i hold on to my irritation with other people in large part because i want to think of everyone as peers i want to
mysteriously winning
(og thread) When you’re starting out, it feels like you don’t have a lot of value to contribute. but as you get be
aesthetic conformity vs being distinctive
(og thread) a lot of recommendations on how to look/sound better goes something like “here’s how to conform better
map of human conversation
“art is never finished, merely abandoned” ā da vinci “every book is a failure” ā orwell From time
free agent reflections
its been about 4.5 years now since i’ve worked a “proper job”, in another year or so i will have been a free
eggshells
(og thread) in my 30s i’ve been coming around to learning that most people are quite forgiving. i got burned really hars
aesthetics of earnestness
Aesthetics of earnestness Earnestness doesnāt have to mean you pick up the language and aesthetics often associated wi
new guy navigating group norms
(og thread) every group of people develops some set of norms, and there is typically friction when a new entrant joins the gro
abdication
(oct2022 thread) a thing I havenāt quite been able to connect the dots on properly, but have an increasing felt sense of: th
external meaning structures
(og thread) people who are bad at generating their own meaning get much more troubled by disruptions and turbulence in externa
behavior change requires addressing copes
(og thread) vague intuition that a critical factor of why behavior change/redesign is so unsuccessful so often is: insufficien
power
(original thread) experimenting with a frame, not sure if I’m entirely behind it but let’s see how it feels: iR
paula scher
š„ Paula scher City of signs Typography everywhere Painting with words āMore ways to make type talkā Distinctive b
solitary mann
notes when i look through my references when i take photographs itās just to take a note of the moment that i see, kno
trivia
Erasmus Mersenne Jadav Dashrath Wang yinji abdallah Chola Jane jacobs, mixed uses, wealth creation, sidewalks, strangers
100 greatest products of all time
Work in progress.
you can just not do the thing
(og thread) “The entire internet gaslighting itself into watching Morbius is one of the most hysterical things I’v
language
A big part of why I write is so I can think clearly without all of the inelegant clutter of most peopleās words, and mo
filters and boundaries
(og thread) i dont feel like anybody ever talked to me about filters and boundaries in the way that i’d have liked to he
broscience stress theory
(original thread) my big broscience medical conspiracy theory is that tonnes of things are downstream of stress (which have to
frodo
(source thread) when i was a teenager I had an older friend who was a dick to me all the time I would write these long, rambly
socially inherited bloatware
(2019nov thread) had several conversations w/ friends who’ve been incapacitated by the burdensome bullshit obligation to
naming ceremony
this was me just freestyling and jamming about my substack Naming ceremony This is an associative exercise, just listing out t
wooten
Transcript of Wooten’s TEDx talk: Well, thank you very much. And it’s true. I was born into a band. Very literally
taskmaster: do you deserve joy?
(og thread) looking back, one of the major anxieties of my teens and most of my 20s was caused by this unhelpful, unhealthy be
2050 predictions
I was asked by @mold_time to make some predictions for 2050. Now, thatās a wack thing to do, because 2050 basically 30 years
hyperinflation
everybody owes each other stuff, we call this society then people invented coin to represent this debt and trade it around, we
better explanations
(dec2021 thread) throughout my life I recurringly find myself thinking the thought ānobody explained this to me the way it o