Less paralysis by analysis, more action.
Choose your defaults wisely.
Author: ERIC KIM
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Just disable it all.
I don’t want any recommendations or “suggestions†from my services or devices.
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Ultralightweight
Using the new WPASTRA theme, and even though there are many things I don’t like about it, the biggest benefit is how ultralightweight it is in terms of frontend file size, which means the site just loads insanely fast.
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BLOOD FLOW.
Not ‘working out’, but physical activity as a means to flow your blood?
For example, not ‘stretching’, but physical movement to motivate blood flow?
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Just get a beater
Beater car, phone to live more adventurously and recklessly.
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Clutch.
99/1– 99% minor annoyances but 1% clutch — this is worth it.
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Anti Screens
Best car has no screen.
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Why aren’t we allowed to touch?
Touching is wisdom and learning.
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HOW TO EXTRACT MORE MEANING FROM YOUR PHOTOS
Lately I’ve been shooting a lot– and uploading a lot of photos. In this torrent and stream of images, I have been trying to extract deeper meaning, significance, and memory from the photos.
But how does one do this? Some thoughts:
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YOUR PASSION VS WHAT YOU DO.
When you go to a party and someone asks you, ‘So what do you do?’ What is the best way to answer? Just tell them what your passion is, not your boring day job.
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SMALL THUMBNAIL, THEN LARGER
When reviewing your photos, see them as small thumbnails (contact sheet), and *then* when a certain photo intrigues you from a small thumbnail, *THEN* make it larger and full-screen it.
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iPad as a Photo Device, Not a Productivity or Laptop Replacement
Or in other words, don’t get the keyboard or pencil for iPad.
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Labor Saving Things?
The best car is a self driving one to reduce labor?
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CAPTURING THE MOMENT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CAPTURING THE FOCUS
Better capture an out of focus/blurry photo of the ‘decisive moment’ than to try to capture the perfect focus and technical settings, and miss it.
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STOIC INDEPENDENCE
The good thing about stoicism —
You don’t expect anything from anyone else; true independence.
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OWN IT ALL.
If you don’t own it, it owns you.
Also, as much as I love TESLA, less control and ownership. You are still tied to the TESLA supercharger network (centralized). Also the over the air updates — you cannot hack or modify it. If you cannot modify, edit, fix, or service your own car or things — you don’t have full ownership.
Also, in terms of owning the service and power of the tool — laptop is superior to phone. Phone, iPad (iOS) you are still tied to the Apple platform. At least with MacBook laptops you have 1000x more freedom.
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EMAIL OVER SOCIAL MEDIA
HUUUUGE epiphany:
Don’t use GMAIL, create your own self-hosted email instead.
Register your own website domain, and get your free (self hosted) email service. 1000x more control and freedom, and less ‘nudging’ and addiction than having Gmail or a second-party hosted email.
Also — don’t use social media, or even social media messaging apps. Figure out how to do it all on phone numbers (SMS, direct phone calls), and email and website/blogs instead. Own it all.
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ADDICTION?
Good vs ‘bad’ addictions?
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SNAP FOCUS
Just pre-focus your camera (or RICOH GR III/II) to 1 meter, and just shoot all photos from that pre-focused position. In Ricoh camera, it is called ‘snap’ mode.
Perhaps the future of photography is more ‘snap-shotty‘? Consider “SNAP-CHAT” — just called ‘SNAP’.
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SLIDES: PHOTO VISION ONLINE WORKSHOP (2022, PDF)
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SLIDES: PHOTO VISION ONLINE WORKSHOP (2022) RECORDING: PHOTO VISION FINAL ONLINE WORKSHOP 2022 ERIC KIM 
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Myopia
Blur and out of focus good for Creativity.
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Nobody Can Force You to Do Something Against Your Own Will
Thus when you acquiesce to someone else’s will, it is a signal of your personal lack of willpower. Thus never get angry or upset at others, only yourself.
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Anti boring design
Either make people insanely love it, or hate it — no in-between. In praise of new BMW design, and anti Tesla standard (boring) design. In praise of Cybertruck, anti Porsche 911 (boring).
Classic and timeless design is boring. Raw and radically new is better.
Drama is good. In praise of Tesla Model X Falcon doors and Lamborghini scissor doors, and rolls Royce suicide doors.
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HOW STUBBORN?
The degree of how stubborn you are about certain things is the true measure about what you believe in (and what you don’t believe in, or what you don’t care for much).
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Creative Vision Notes
- Touch
- Rough surfaces
- disfluency
- geometry
- Intimacy
- disclarity
- ‘Horror vacuui’
- Creative reformatting
- Liminal
- Randomness is good
- Nourish yourself creatively
- Turn off your LCD screen
- No creative fascism
- Kaizen — 3% principle (Virgil abloh)
- Is it dynamic or not?
- Your creative vision is always in flux
- Continuum
- Minimum viable blog post
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Experimental Ethics
All ethics are subjective— make ethics your luxury and experiment with new ethics.
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Better Bad than Nothing
Better to make â€bad†photos or â€bad†art than no art.
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Epigenetics
Gene expression through training.
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MINIMUM VIABLE CLOTHING (MVC)
No shirt, minimalist shoes, just shorts.
The best armor is your natural skin.
Take your shirt and top off if the weather is good, and sunny. Get a good tan— the new luxury and sign of elite.
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Lessons I’ve Learned From My Son
- Don’t stay indoors
- Touch things to understand and explore them.
- Don’t worry too much about hygiene
- Take lots of naps
- Be brave and bold
- Don’t wear shoes
- Be stubborn
- Lead
- Dance, smile, move
- Prefer to stand and walk and move
- Pursue your curiosities
- Touch things, buttons, haptic things and feedback
- Tanner is better.
- Love nature, trees
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FOCUS IS OVERRATED.
Better to capture the moment and have it blurred or out of focus than to miss it.
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JUST DISABLE IT.
If there’s an option to enable or disable something, a good heuristic is to disable it. If it can be “disabledâ€, it probably isn’t necessary / essential (just nice to have).
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EXTRA.
Always a little bit of extra is good — extra buffer before getting to the airport, giving extra services, even consider the Japanese art of sake-pouring — they intentionally overfill it to show extra grace and extra sake— makes us feel good.
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Why I Don’t Like Suggestions or Recommendations From AI or Machine Learning Algorithms.
It makes me more generic like the masses and subtly “nudges†me in ways I don’t like.
Thus just disable it.
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Apple Keynote is Insanely Great
Also for mobile iphone. Steve Jobs would be proud.
Start with a black canvas.
Great minimalist black theme— Keynote as superior to making â€books†in terms of making information.
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Techno Zen
What i seek is zen and focus from my technology, not more â€productivity†or â€efficiencyâ€.
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THE WILL TO PRODUCTIVITY
Why be productive, and towards what ends?
The desire to extract more out of existence and life?
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Use and abuse your phone
No screen protectors. No case.
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How to simplify your iPhone
Limit your Home Screen, delete at least 1 app a day. Minimum viable iphone with apps and features.
Turn off all notifications besides phone call and FaceTime.
Protect your mindspace.
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The best life is outdoors
One’s personal joy and happiness is proportional to the time they spend outdoors (outside of the house). Can be walking around your local neighborhood, at the local grocery store or Costco/Walmart, at the mall, hiking and nature etc.
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THE BEST STRAP IS NO STRAP.
If you don’t need a strap just choose not to use it.
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Happiness and Climate
Is our happiness and climate inter-connected? Some thoughts:
NorCal vs SoCal
My thought:
- NorCal people typically less ‘happy’ than people from SoCal. I would say the average Bay Area person (even successful), would be only a 5.5/10 happiness, and the average SoCal person is more bored-blase (maybe an average 6.5/10 happiness).
- NorCal folks are focused on production (producing, making, innovating), while people from SoCal are focused on consumption (eating, media, etc).
- NorCal people have more ‘existential dread‘ and more ‘meaning of life’ stuff, whereas people from SoCal are just more interested in the next trendy fashion thing, new car, or new food trend.
Does weather matter?
How does weather matter?
East Coast winter — you just spend less time outdoors. I think it is less about the sun, perhaps more about being indoors more vs being outdoors. The ideal East Coast or cold weather thing:
Even though it may be cold as shit outside, try to spend as much time outdoors with a great down jacket/GoreTex shoes, or time doing out-of-the-house activities.
Even in hot climates and southern california, people who spend time all day indoors are miserable (they are afraid of the heat).
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THE FEWER KEYSTROKES, THE BETTER.
A general computing and general idea–
The fewer keystrokes you gotta do to achieve your desired result, the better.
Or in other words, make your Mac as simple as possible.
