Hmm, where were we? Ah, yes, he was talking about how movies can be built or deconstructed because of Killers, which has the elliptical, episodic structure of many of his other films. Less narrative, more atmosphere, more information by way of anecdote, by way of scene, by way of character. “What I had hoped to do, and I didn’t do this intentionall... See more

Fiction Lag (aka Experience-Taking)

When people are captivated by a work of fiction, they unconsciously adopt the traits of their favorite characters. We develop our identities by copying others, and perhaps one reason we enjoy fiction is that it gives us ideas on who to be.

“counterfeit fitness”: the constant, momentary “wins” that come with playing digital games give us a false sense of progression and accomplishment, a neurochemical high that feels like victory but is not, and which, if it becomes a habit, risks placating our ambitions to pursue true fulfilment.

Defining time well spent for yourself is one of the most important tasks of going day to day in this life.

The app also has a serendipity slider from “Only show my selected interests” to “Show me everything.”

When you talk about people you like, or rather when you talk about that thing that happens between you —you have to transform a very complex impression into a string of words. Some relationships can easily be compressed into a compelling string of words. This is usually because they conform to some sort of trope of how romance should look. In my ex... See more

If AI chatbots and AI-powered search results are summarizing everything for you, why would you go to a website? And if we all stop going to websites, what’s the incentive to put new content on the web? What’s going to stop shady characters from flooding the web with AI-generated spam to try and game these systems? And if we succeed in choking the w... See more

But for me, for now, the friction is what I’m looking for. I am grateful — genuinely — for what Google and Apple and others did to make digital life easy over the past two decades. But too much ease carries a cost. I was lulled into the belief that I didn’t have to make decisions. Now my digital life is a series of monuments to the cost of combinin... See more

There are many kinds of value. Time, space, personal freedom. Monetary worth is only one. You choose what holds the most weight.