Tag: Aesthetics

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Internet Culture Startups

Day 1421 and Culture Clashes

I sit in between half a dozen different community nodes thanks to my interests in open source software, decentralization, crypto, and autonomous systems technology.

This set of interest covers a lot of ground from ecosystem level collaboration in financial organizations like DAOs and to player versus AI agents coordination to peripheral control of drones and machinery.

Many different demographics are attracted to these frontiers for different reasons. Hackers have a very different mentality than mercenary technologists looking for maximum margin.

Open source has traditionally struggled more from a lack of financialization than from an obsession with it. Which seems less true in the crypto era than in previous more academic and defense oriented eras.

There are classic open source business models and anyone with age and experience in startups has some opinions which I leave as an exercise to the reader. They occasionally fail and an open core loses more than they’d like to professional services. I am writing on WordPress.

One strange aspect of what drives these frontier spaces to interact is that depending on how much leverage you find in building a network you may have different incentives than other builders and users. Expanding out to scaled use may drive a lot more value than the resources required. How the surplus gets divided is always contentious.

For some, the most crucial cultural goals is expanding access to automation and ripping away as many of the services and middle men as is feasible.

Decentralized systems make it harder for middle men to maintain monopolies. Thats its own goal for true believers. For others the goal massive financialization that drives network connectivity is the benefit. Self interest driving common goals is perfectly acceptable.

As I watch the current season of hyper self interested memecoin cryptomania engage with the academic utopian open source artificial intelligence community, I am reminded of so many of the classic issues we have in financing and sharing in the spoils of common infrastructure. Who benefits is a question we should all be asking more regularly

Categories
Aesthetics Media

Day 1420 and Stimuli

I am always shocked when people say they read anything I write. This isn’t because I don’t think I’m worth listening to but because I know attention is such a scarce commodity.

It’s so valuable we have entire industries dedicated to grabbing your attention. We don’t need to keep it necessarily we just need you to get distracted.

We downplay how well we know what works by indulging people who think they are immune to such things. Of course marketing on works on fools we sagely nod.

Of course we don’t want you to know how effectively we can move your attention let alone your opinion! You thinks anyone wants you to know propaganda works? Dunk on Jaguars new futura font. Scoff at those bot accounts.

Just know that most of marketing is Cocomelon, slot machines and dopamine hits. You can’t fight that without developing discipline which isn’t an infinite commodity. Most people don’t have much of it and aren’t even encouraged to develop. Good luck out there.

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Aesthetics Culture

Day 1418 and Winter Wonderland

I’m in a terrific mood. Maybe it is just the hormones cycling up. Maybe the red lights we installed in the bedroom are actually improving my sleep quality. Maybe it’s getting a foot of powdery snow over the weekend.

So much of life seems to boil down to manage my own circadian rhythms even as I plug myself into the hiveminds of my favorite corners of the internet dutifully everyday. And my body likes short days, long nights and the bitter cold.

Certainly success is contributing to my buoyant mode. All of my founders are soaring (which seems statistically rather unlikely given the choppy markets) and the vibes are good. My chaotic.capital clique is thriving.

It’s getting to the point where I think we should host a portfolio dinner or something. Though that would be challenging as we are a distributed group. Alex realized recently that we only met one of our portfolio founders in person before we invested. Can you even imagine that in a pre-pandemic world? Our deal flow comes from the virtual worlds I live in daily.

Being snugly ensconced inside several areas of with macroeconomic tailwinds doesn’t hurt but most of those choices were made two or three years ago so I’m simply directionally correct, well connected, and unafraid to commit once I’ve satisfied my own process. Everyone has a long way to go but it feels wonderful to enjoy their success.

Walking in a winter wonderland.

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Aesthetics

Day 1417 and Simple & Finite

An offensive “joke” I learned from my favorite trainer when I was a powerlifter contains a simple truth.

You should only ask a former fatty for exercise and nutrition advice.

The reasoning is simple. The naturally slim and athletic never had to work for it and as such don’t understand the struggles of the average person.

As someone who has metabolic challenges I feel reasonably strongly this is correct. Struggle that leads to success has useful lessons that ease and natural talents doesn’t always pass along

It’s with this in mind that I sometimes hesitate to give cosmetic advice despite my professional experience. I had some teenage acne and an enormous struggle with eczema on my body. But everything from the neck up has been a breeze.

My face has been clean, clear and even at 40 largely wrinkle free. My hair grows down my back like a hippie. I can get past an optimal place with relatively little work.

I say this not to gas myself up, just that I don’t fully understand the struggle of problem skin or hair. So if you really struggle I’m not your girl.

And yet I get asked a lot about cosmetics as people presume I got my results from hard work. Thats only partly true. Some of it is just good genetics. I’ve got plenty of other genetic dings so I’ll take the good luck.

I do however maintain a very consistent routine and understand the inputs that lead to my desired outputs.

Getting yourself to a Pareto optimal place doesn’t require anything terribly elaborate or even expensive. Women’s magazines and Sephora may make it look impossible but heed the words of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.

The rules of haircare are simple and finite. Any Cosmo girl would have known

There are basic rules for skin and haircare that you can follow diligently and at relatively low cost. If you give some basic inputs about your skin (is it dry or oily) and give me a budget I can get you 80% of the way there if you simply follow some basic steps everyday.

Marcia Kilgore of Bliss and Beautypie fame has a terrific memetic device I repeat to everyone.

ABC + SPF.

Vitamin A (retinol) plus Niacinamide (Vitamin B) and Vitamin C is all you need along with a sunscreen. The optimal order is a retinol moisturizer at night with a day moisturizer that contains B & C vitamins along with a SPF.

Now you can gussy that up a lot with dosing, adding in more acids if you have oily skin or ceramides and peptides (which I do as I have dry skin). I myself take a collagen and biotin supplement for some additional help. My expensive piss post offers some additional supplement options that are worth it if your nutrition isn’t perfect. Obviously you need to sleep and drink water.

Beyond a night cream with retinol and a day cream with SPF you can get more elaborate. There are manual processes for microdermabrasion, red light devices, Botox (I just started at 40 with about 15 units while the average is more like 70) as well massaging techniques and needling techniques. I think it’s overkill mostly especially if you don’t have good habits in the first place. Check your foundation before doing renovations.

If you just do the basics morning and night consistently (which can be fit in one or two products) you don’t shouldn’t to go hard until nailing the basics.

Unless looking good is a professional obligation it’s wasted time and money. Just do the basics. If you need product recommendations I can do that at any price point from drugstore to the luxury houses. It’s obviously a lot of fun if you are into it and I am so just hit me up.

Categories
Politics Startups

Day 1413 and Much to Consider

It’s a nice number for today’s post. A strange countdown inside one day. A little spooky. Maybe also some good luck. Fourteen. Thirteen.

I am tabulating much more than my days of writing in a row or any particular numerical significance that this position of numerals might show. I’m adding up our position and deciding how to play our hand.

There is simply so much to consider. I feel it in my joints. Maybe that is evidence of acceleration. All I see and hear is speeding up. Are you accelerating anon? Maybe that’s the pressure in my joints and it’s arthritis at all.

I have felt a bit sick to my stomach and I’d prefer to blame it on delicate lady things. It could also be nausea from the spin cycle of all that “much to consider” of the moment.

I’m glad I’m ensconced in my winter farmhouse. The numbers go up. The game’s whirlwind spins. There is much to consider.

It really ruins your appetite this whirling. The ride up the rollercoaster. No wonder Alice in Wonderland commercialized into whirling teacups at Disneyland. Can’t have it be the symbolism of opinion and fuzzy opinions.

So there is much to consider as we whirl like dervishes into the next moment.

Categories
Media Reading

Day 1410 and Luxury Content

Institutional trust in the media has reached a new low point for Americans. The news exists in a strange place for many of us as we must stay informed but it is no longer has quite the same halo of necessity when it comes to life and culture beyond the headlines.

Many of us read significant amounts of “need to know” publications for our professional lives. I myself read Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal every day along with more specialized media like Axios Pro-Rata and various venture and startup specific media.

Culture is different. Wanting to be in touch with the ideas that shape a nation is a luxury you don’t need to be wealthy to enjoy. To engage in ideas is to have the means to enjoy a life of the mind. You must choose to spend your precious time on it. Time is the only luxury which can’t be bought.

Media is changing as news and cultural content diverge. We used to be awash in a sea of periodicals. As a child I’d bike to the Boulder library and read it all. Thats how I became a fan of the Economist. I loved culture magazines just as much. Some still retain their pride of place through institutional nostalgia like Vanity Fair and Vogue. But can the New York Times hold a grasp on culture like it used to do?

As we face down an election with clear cultural and political bifurcations, what does it mean to be a consumer of not simply news but the culture of the moment?

Dirt editor Daisy Alioto bitingly called it luxury content and sent the LinkedIn striving aspirants scattering.

Someone told me they don’t always open Dirt because it’s not framed as “need to know.” Yeah, that’s why it’s luxury content, because you don’t NEED it. Take your ass back to Axios

To want a cultural publication like Dirt, and enjoy its view of the world, is to appreciate the premium we place on taste.

To be au courant means deciding where our time goes when it’s not an obligation. And I’m sorry to say to Condé Nast that their grip on culture looks more tenuous than ever.

Oliver Hsu tweeted this spread of new print periodicals dedicated to the culture of technology and economy.

Telescope, Arena, and Palladium are all pointing to new appetites. We want the luxury of futurism. To be caught only in the moment is to reveal a perhaps embarrassingly high time preference for algorithmically forced immediacy. “I want it now!”

Doom scrolling the news may be fun. Many billionaires spend time on Twitter because of its close proximity to sentiment. We all need to know the narratives catching attention.

But want do we want? Well who rather enjoy an essay from a writer who shows you the culture beyond your feed? Giving your attention to those who respect it will always be a luxury.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 1408 and Downmarket Sephora

The Sephora Savings event has begun for their loyalty program shoppers. And I’m so disappointed by their holiday merchandising. It’s their downmarket I’ve ever seen the brand while somehow also being incredibly expensive.

If you are not aware Sephora is a cosmetics retailer owned by luxury conglomerate LVMH with roughly 2700 stores globally across 34 countries.

I was first introduced to the retailer when I lived in France as a teenager. The father of my exchange family worked at a perfumer that supplied very high end houses.

Sephora had just began to expand to the United States. By the time I was in college they had locations in most major cities. It was the shopping destination of choice cosmetics purchasers who didn’t like the old school department store counters that didn’t allow browsing.

They became a force in cosmetics and the higher end makeup, fragrance, skincare and haircare all competed for shelf space. And because you could browse unimpeded it became a kind of destination to trial new trends and brands.

But sometime in the last four years or so their merchandising seems to have fallen off. Stores are disorganized. Prices have risen while the line up increasingly feels like it’s catering to a more downmarket demographic.

Perhaps it was the pandemic as work from home and masking made items like lipstick less appealing. Maybe it was their expansion into partnership with lower end department stores like JC Penny’s and Kohls.

Personally I think the Biden stimulus plan plays a hand in their downfall. Cosmetics spends tend to come from disposable income though some women surely do have grooming budgets.

As more people had extra cash the appeal of the Sephora splurge became a social media phenomenon. And who spends the most time on social media? Gen Alpha and Zoomers.

Sephora went from a customer base of professional women who want to look polished to girls with TikTok accounts showing off their hauls.

The most upsetting trend by far is the Sephora Kids trend. Gen Alpha loves Sephora for the same reason adults do. You can browse and try stuff. They flock to colorful brands like Glow Recipe and Drunk Elephant. Even the New Yorker is on the case.

Some parents encourage it. It’s a status symbol in some communities to have your kids shop there.

Existing Sephora customers hate it and Reddit is littered with complaints and sad stories of tweens developing skin issues from using ingredients only meant for adults like retinol. It’s not going to get better according to trend forecasting service Aytm.

Gen Alpha has officially entered the beauty scene, spending more on skincare and makeup than any other age group – an impressive $4.7 billion in 2023

As I browsed the new collections, I saw all their specialty sets were packaged in fluffy teddy fabric bags in muppet bright colors.

$50+ dollars for dead muppets at Sephora

Not exactly an appealing look for anyone who might wish to carry the makeup bag to the office. And they are all twice as expensive as pre-pandemic sets.

I’m not going to spend $60 for a range of trashy splashy products packaged in the skin of dead puppets. I’m an adult and alas that’s just not what appeals to me.

But if you’ve got a 14 year old daughter that you like to spoil this is probably where she is spending it. Just please don’t let her use retinol. It’s not safe. Or better yet leave the makeup stores to adults.

Categories
Culture

Day 1400 and Cooler Than Me

I’ve spent enough time in the cool manufacturing professions to have opinions on the topic.

It seems hard for people who are not in control of cultural norms to accept that their capacity to be cool relies entirely on them outcompeting the existing cultural norm.

If you want to be cool you have to be as cool or cooler than the existing options. To be cool you must be cool. Fun tautology right?

Upsetting as it may be, if you are not perceived as cool it’s a skills issue. You gotta (as the kids say) get gud.

Develop your taste. There are many paths on that road. You can do that by building up your appreciation of other people’s taste. It’s wonderful to study what other people have created. You can learn a lot from the history of oratory, art, literature, music and fashion. Dive as deep as you like in the areas that appeal to you.

Cultivating your capacity to create can often look like mimicry. Don’t be afraid of that. Mastery is built upon the masters. Practice creation. As you build up those skills you will learn to create new things that reflect your own taste.

This gets us back to my original point. If you want to have people think you are cool you must be cool. Creating things that you enjoy and sharing cool things with others who share your taste is the whole game. So if you want your cultural norms to be a winner it’s up to you. Have fun!

Categories
Culture

Day 1399 and Mimetic Competition

Opting into someone else’s personal metrics is a misery. When you dump a group of powerful or influential groups with adjacent but not aligned values you find status competition with in-group and inter-group.

I find this to be a little bit of a breach of decorum. People who pursue different goals don’t want other people’s rules applied to them.

So you find fearful politeness if you are unsure of inter-group norms. Everyone is interesting but not everyone has the same incentive sets or motivation.

The harder it is to feel safe within your in-group the less openness you will have with outsiders. Finding a way to ease the competitions for status only improves relationships between the allied groups. Find what you value and value the people who share those values.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1397 and the Jungle

I’m in Miami for the week to attend a gathering. October is as fine a time as any to visit what is otherwise a very humid and hot climate. I’d prefer midwinter but I’ll manage with late fall.

I went to eat lunch at a friend’s home. Even with fans and very breezy weather I could still feel the humidity doing battle with my body. Ancient trees covered in moss kept off the sun as best as they could.

Welcome to the jungle

And still even a little bit of movement is enough to trigger sweating in such a climate. Which just leads to itching and inflammation so I’m being careful to not get myself into much trouble. I’ve got my hats and sunglasses and sunscreen and I move slowly.

I understand why the whole town has a hospitality aesthetic that the done up in whites. Anything to keep the sun from overheating you and let the breezes flow.

Whites on white in our room

If you are in Miami let Alex or myself know. We have a conference that you may be attending as well so we’d love to overlap. I’ve proud some amusing outfits and all kinds of cosmetics I hope I have time to apply and enjoy.

Velvets, pinks, and prints for the adventurousness