2026-03-06 08:56:00
This isn't a fully-formed thought yet, so bear with me. But I think abandoning the Spotify or Apple Music algorithm-curated playlists for background music and going back to full albums might be a good way to combat AI music.
As I listen to algorithm-curated playlists in the background while working or doing chores, I find myself wondering more and more whether any AI music has snuck its way in, and whether I'd be able to pick it out from a sea of random songs. Listening to a large assortment of random songs is similar to eating ground beef sourced from a large assortment of random cows: your chances of getting something nasty like salmonella are higher.
A couple weeks ago, I had the opposite experience: I heard a song I liked from a band I'd never heard of before. I clicked on the song which took me to the album. I listened to the whole album and loved it. So I checked out the band a little more, looking at their discography, looking them up on Wikipedia, going through their band website and looking at their tour dates. I was just curious about this new band I fell in love with, but later I realized that I also inadvertently vetted them as real, human artists. I never would've done that if I had just "liked" that one song. It took me diving into a full album to do that.
I think because after listening to an album, I'm much more invested and curious about an artist. They produced a whole body of work that I enjoyed, so it's worth learning more about them. I like learning about the human behind the art, listening to them do a podcast or watching them on Hot Ones. If I like someone's work, I tend to look them up. But liking someone's work and "liking" someone's work are different things. In other words, intrinsically enjoying someone's work and clicking the "like" button are different things. One is a more engaged connection to the art, whereas the other is a passive action.
So what does this mean for me? I'm not sure yet. For now, Spotify-curated playlists are still a good way of discovering new artists I likely never would've learned about otherwise. But if I'm not in discovery mode, I feel less and less comfortable putting on an algorithm-curated playlist in the background when I'm not paying attention to it because I'm more vulnerable to be duped into listening to AI music, which I wholeheartedly disagree with and do not want to support through streams. So for background music, I want an album from an artist I've vetted, or a playlist that I or someone I know and trust has curated.
I've always loved and supported the album, ever since I was a kid in the cd era. I think of the album as a book and each song as a chapter. I feel WAY more connected to an artist and the journey or story they're taking me on when I listen to an album, in the order the artist intended, in full. It's only been in the age of streaming where I've grown overly-accustomed to fragmented songs via the playlist. But I feel less connected to art and the human behind it when that's all I listen to, and it's easier for AI garbage to sneak it's way in and rack up streams.
Long live the album!
2026-03-06 04:25:00
Click-baitey title. But at this point in the game it feels like a legitimate question. Money is tight, the stock market is down, “leaders” don’t have to play by any rules, the USA doesn’t stand for anything anymore, and gas prices are back on the rise.
Cool. All our hard work, saving, paying into a social security system that absolutely will not pay you back what you deserve, taxes going to anything and everything so long as it doesn’t actually benefit us.
Does anything matter anymore? YES
My wife and children matter. My friends and family matter. Decent people just trying to get by matter. And we should never stop fighting for what matters.
2026-03-06 00:55:00
March 5, 5:55 AM
55 years lived.
Last 5: 5/5
Next 5: excited.
Life summary in 5 words:
Grateful, happy, and still curious.
2026-03-05 23:54:00
That indigenous people historically "lived in harmony with the land" is a very common claim for indigenous groups the world over. I've previously been sort of suspicious of it in a lofty and high-minded way, treating it like a kind of gentle propaganda circulated by well-meaning liberals with various guilt complexes. Surely the truth is more complicated than that.
I've come around a bit. To see why, here's an analogy: you endeavour to "live in harmony" with your home, yes? You do dishes and laundry (or have another system) to ensure that you have clean bowls and underwear when you need it. When you run low on salt or eat the last of the blueberries, you try to make a note to pick up more from the grocery store. You know where the spare blanket and the ibuprofen is, and you know the guest parking procedures for when your friends visit. You try to live in your home in a way that is well-suited to you and your way of life.
To think of pillaging it for short-term gains or ruining the equilibrium is absurd; you'd only be making more trouble for your future self. You might do so anyways when pressed; leave a tornado of clothing for your future self to clean up when you have to pack last-minute for a trip, for example. But it is you who have to live with the consequences (and if you have roommates they might also get pretty upset at you).
Indigenous groups (and other groups too, occasionally, like Amish farmers) think of the land as their home, and my mistake was taking this in a spiritual sense rather than a literal one. People who live off the land invest a remarkable degree of effort into understanding the specific patch of earth that they find themselves dependent on for survival - where the nicest berry bushes and mushroom colonies are, where to get fresh water and the circumstances that might lead to it being spoiled, the alternate and more annoying source of fresh water one can go to when the primary source is spoiled, the precise conditions and omens that portend good fishing or hunting.
If a group moves, they have to pay a high information cost to figure all this out again for the new place (and also those new areas might already have other people living on them who would not appreciate them barging in), so it makes sense to keep the land that is traditionally yours in the best condition possible; to steward it responsibly. To ruin it is to make trouble for yourself and your children and your clan. So of course you do not do that unless you really need to.
(To clarify, indigenous groups generally do not think of their traditional way of life in the above terms; instead they often have a layer of religious and cultural conventions that inform their ways of living and encode many other values, rich frameworks which are often not reducible to simple cost-benefit analyses.)
If some strange aliens come from far-away lands and give you horses and knives and guns, the equilibrium shifts in both intuitive and unintuitive ways.
If those strange aliens are carrying some disease that you are vulnerable to, such that everywhere they make first contact, within a generation or two, 70%, or 90%, or 99.5% of people in your civilization dies, the equilibrium will collapse, because all of that accumulated knowledge also goes into the dirt.
If your mourning rituals assume some sort of stable equilibrium - for example, if they involve a larger group that is unaffected consoling the smaller group that is, you will not even be able to mourn the collapse. For the sake of your survival and the survival of your children, you may be forced to rapidly familiarize yourself with the strange equilibrium that the aliens have brought with them instead. But even if you do, there’s a very high chance that you die before your time, anyways.
2026-03-05 23:35:31
When I was growing up in the 2000s, I was (and still am) the nerd. I dressed kinda dorky, I leaned in hard to my niche interests (my obsession for Halo 3 was strong), and I was always reminded by adults how smart and mature I was for my age.
Growing up, I was mostly around adults, so I didn't feel like I fit in with other kids, especially being an only child (sorry, Pirate doesn't have a hot brother or sister he can hook you up with).
During this time, I was being shaped by the shows I watched, Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Wizards of Waverly Place, Drake and Josh, etc. These shows sent a clear message, don't be a nerd, its not cool to be smart. So, I internalized that. I didn't even try to get into reading (not that I even remotely had the attention span or patience for it), I became rigid in the clothes I wore (refusing to wear a pair of sketchers my dad bought for me, which even my mom had to clue him in those were dorky as hell), etc.
I tried to dumb myself down to not appear to be a nerd, with a mix of puberty, a haircut that didn't come from Great Clips, and decent clothes, I was able to reform myself coming into my sophomore year. It was a sort of "fake it till you make it" sort of thing.
I didn't really engage with my interests that I still knew I had, but rather tried to adopt the interests of people that I knew people thought were cool (or at least I did). Some of this turned out for the better, got into System of a Down because of one of these guys.
At a certain point, I felt like I DID make it. I was getting hit on left and right from both teams. I wasn't "popular" per se, but I was fluid within the various cliques, getting along with the jocks, the nerds, the alt kids, the drug dealers, all of them. I was "cool" by my own self-imposed metrics. Though, I quickly learned that I was kinda turning shallow.
I was getting a lot of dates, but I never really figured out how the social interaction side of this worked, so I probably ruined the chance of more longer-term relationships because I didn't fully grasp how this all worked. Probably coming off too strong, or moving too fast because I couldn't fluidly navigate romantic relationships.
I leaned hard into dumbing myself down, because that's what I had internalized from observations in real life and on tv. The popular people weren't smart, they were dumb, but super "in" with the pop culture. They were also coming from rich families which played a huge role, which was something that I never figured out until much later in life.
I never felt like I, myself, was dumb. I knew I was smart. I just tried to hide that aspect of me and tried harder to be "funny". I found that is what people also liked. Which I guess that is where I tried to gear my intelligence towards.
I had figured out that if you can make people laugh, be nice to look at, and not intimidate them with trying to be the smart one, you have a recipe for success.
I mean, I was never much of a reader until adulthood and serious ADHD medication, but back then I straight up mocked reading. Thought it was pointless and if you were to read something, have it be "practical" (this was code for a self-help/business book as this was the era of the finance Gurus like Tai Lopez).
It felt off. Like I was wearing a costume. I'd go home and it was like I was a different person. I loved spending hours on my PC playing Gmod online and playing Legend of Zelda on my Wii.
Growing older I realized how vapid this all was. I wasn't actually doing anything for me, my interests weren't really mine. I was doing things because I was trying to seek validation. When you spent your formative years being made fun of and being called "ugly" by girls, all of a sudden becoming the attractive guy like the cool characters on shows that you always wanted to be. I was "cool" but that moment was fleeting because when I got moved to an entirely different state, I was back to square one, being the outsider. Being an atheist in a mostly-Mormon school is bound to do that.
This sort of pining for social acceptance, crept into my adulthood. I was wearing (admittedly well-fitting which isn't a bad thing) and bland clothes. Nothing with real personality to it. Just grey shirt, black pants, white shirt, dark wash jeans. I almost quit video games to try and fit this mold, but thankfully my wife talked some sense into me (though I regrettably didn't listen at first and sold off some of my consoles and games).
So, reflecting on this as a full-cooked adult, I would say I learned a lot. The problem really wasn't that I was smart, it was being the "uhm axchtually" guy. Some people do get intimidated by intelligence, but most of the time people just hate being around a know-it-all. The other thing was, I gave up so much of myself to appease people that I really didn't even like. My best friends were the other outsiders, my best friend is a AuDHD nerd like me.
In my adulthood, I spent a lot of time figuring out who I actually was, what I actually like, what I was actually about. Which some would call this my de-masking period. I stopped trying to be hot shit and just tried to be me. I stopped fixating on wearing clothes that were recommended to me by male influencers and just started wearing clothes that I liked wearing.
I hope I can save my daughter from this mindset I had when I was coming into my formative years. I may not be able to, but I hope I can at least be there to guide her through it. I hope she'll see that the best people you can have in your life are people that you can fully be yourself around, unmasked.
It's okay to be a nerd, having things your passionate about is what makes you interesting, most people's "hobby" is social media and watching TV, so having something that genuinely unleashes something within you is great. The thing that'll make people gravitate toward you is being a kind and genuine person. You can be the joker (no not THAT joker), but don't force yourself to be that if it's not your forte, not everyone needs to be Chandler Bing. Just be you, take care of yourself, and don't be a prick. It's kinda that simple.
Most importantly, stop trying to appease people who don't respect you, because odds are if you change yourself to match their mold, they'll still find a way to oust you.
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I'm early at work. I'm usually the first one here and after a conversation with my friends on discord I got inspired to write this article. I was initially going to title it "tv taught me to be be 'dumb'", but then it quickly spiraled out of that scope. My wife has a busy day today, so I'll be the primary parent today. Looking forward to spending time with my little girl. She's been getting into playing one of my childhood games, Bob the Builder on the PS1. She just calls it "Tractor Game". She loves excavators, but calls them "tractors" because its a lot easier for a toddler to say than "excavator". She used to say "dvv-dvv" for tractor, but now actually says the word properly now which is kinda cool to see that development. Now she's starting to put sentences together and recall lyrics to songs. Kid's not even 2 yet and is blowing me away with how much she's picking up.
