Author: harold

Thinking a lot about the digital world because like:

• Algos, bots, AI.
• Online search basically dead.
• Pictures and videos, also dead.

So who is real, for real? I know I am and a few blogs I’ve been following for 10+ years are too. But for the rest today? I don’t know at all.

This is a first in internet history.

I’m reading a book about a music label and there are multiple reports of women talking about going back home alone at night in NYC and never once feeling scared of anything. It was truly like that. 1950s.

In the 2000s, you never felt like the online profile or username was not real. It always was. If it wasn’t it was quickly obvious. The point was to find people like you so you needed to be you/define yourself.

2010s social media massively changed that (clout-chasing) and now it’s all pointless trash.

Writing online helps in so many ways, but I’ve been doing this for so long. The gains have already paid off. I remember starting though. After a few posts, wondering if that was useful at all.

The youth is emptying their energy online in manipulation-ridden silos controlled by private companies. That’s probably more problematic than starting a website and sharing thoughts.

I happened to have completely missed it in the 90s and 00s.

7 OVAs. The five hours of it all on YouTube.

The music barely stops and couldn’t be more phenomenal and epic. Cool story. Tons of characters. I see the massive influence on all giant robot-based anime that came after, especially Evangelion.

I watched it last month and still think about it.

Can happiness be achieved without sacrifice? Knowing that happiness is a never-ending process, this means some change of state, which probably indicates a worse and better side for things. Now does this mean sacrifices? What is a sacrifice? In this essay, I will…

I noticed how 65″ and bigger TVs swallow people’s minds. Whatever it is on screen, it doesn’t matter. At that size your eyes and brain are overwhelmed enough for you to not do anything but stare.

Phones do the same with a small size, but constantly.

I am on 15″ and 24″ most of the time and I am in control. Big enough to do anything properly, not convenient or giant enough for me to become their bitch.

Considering how good companies are at getting us hooked on anything, the less I am locked in on what is happening on a screen (usually to make me buy stuff), the better.

It’s the little things, y’all!

(via this site)

Places have souls. They have seen things. They are guardians of those things. Or something.

20 years ago when I learned that they had destroyed Stax Records’ studio, an old movie theater with an amazing sound (only to build a copy across the street, jfc), I felt devastated.

My foster mom’s house potentially sold next year can’t be true.

My friend’s apartment she told me yesterday that she left recently, makes me sadder than it should. It had one of those 50s/60s very well thought-out layout and I have great memories from it. Gone.

It’s probably a mix of being from Europe where places don’t change for 75 straight years if not longer, and the adoption thing which makes one acutely aware of spaces due to not belonging to any by default. Those together trigger in me a greater sense of loss when places change, transform, disappear.

America and Japan are ruthless on that end.

Got hit with this the other day:

Note that:

• This was to watch a skateboard video (some littering seen and “let’s fucking go” heard) on YouTube.
• My gmail itself is 21 years old.

The good news is, it looks like Google doesn’t know much about me (I’m not using my gmail address like that).

I didn’t watch the video. What a nightmare.

Reddit is the most manipulative shit I have ever seen. The algorithm is such a desperate bitch these days! It tries and tries.

The thing is now with how people use AI, anything that looks real can be 100% synthetic. A thoughtful comment. An inspiring video. A picture of something incredible. I spent the past few weeks wondering more about if something was real than actually learning things. Wild!

Therefore, there’s no value anymore. It was already the most astroturfed website ever, but now it’s literally pointless.

This is freeing. This is good.

It’s been all over the place. So many!

I can’t believe the entire tech world bowed to that president. I can’t believe Google said “yup, gulf of America coming right up sir!”. And Apple was like “look at my little gold gift!!!”. It cannot be more sycophant than that.

Apple literally did what we all feared a surveillance state would do and no one said a fucking thing! How dare you still use their devices, come on y’all.

I can’t believe Los Angeles blocked adobe construction after its biggest fires ever because officials are “not sure those structures would stand”. Humans have been building those for five thousand years, your stupid ass stick construction burns the fuck down in 24 minutes and you doubt contemporary adobe? Beyond dumb as hell. It’s completely anti-science.

Yeah, the fires were started by some emo mf who felt sad. Beat his ass senseless.

Wondering what happened to $2B used to fix homelessness? Corruption. That’s what happened.

Disappointment. Kawhi’s arc (this man literally made me watch the NBA ‘gain back in 2013). The legendary skateboard pros showing their whole ass on social media, spewing hate and nonsense. Good people like D’Angelo dying. Brother, you were not supposed to leave before at least another couple albums, goddamn. Meanwhile Diddy probably playing some flute with somebody’s booty in prison, smiling. Fuck all of that.

At work, politically, on vacation, with family or with friends, it’s been a whole lot of  deception.

Nothing inspiring.

Yet. I’ve just had probably one of my best year ever. In control.

I have the best sound systems I’ve ever had. I live in a cute, gorgeous place while designing one bigger and even better. I enjoy my job. I’m well respected and liked by my peers. I have monster orgasms, daily. I have enough projects, small and big, moving at decent paces to make me smile all the time. I land heelflips now! I enjoy my life fully. I have room to grow. I feel strong and hungry.

I’ve never been in a dissonance like this. I’m mad but I ain’t stressin’ I guess.

2025 being the year we cannot trust videos anymore is a wild milestone.

A huge one. Video had always been the safeguard for everything!

The consequences for young people growing up trying to understand the world, are dramatic. Like, insanely dramatic.

My mind is racing.

My foster mom was lied to and deceptively ended up in the retirement home thinking that this was just a hospital routine check for no more than a week.

She fell  in there a couple days ago. 14 stitches on her head. At this rate her funerals are going to come fast.

The brutality to me is also in the dissonance. This family gave me their best. But now her own kids, people I love and who I didn’t know could do that, the people she worked so hard for so long for, are kind of literally putting her in a casket now that she needs constant help. It is inconvenient to have a dying mom but come on, man.

It be your own people. It doesn’t have to be.