Tag: Woo

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Aesthetics Culture

Day 1448 and Overhead Lighting

A quibble I have with modern industrial living is the prevalence of overhead lighting. I know we have to tolerate the bright lights in public and institutional spaces for reasons of cost, efficiency and clarity but why on earth have we found it to be acceptable in the home?

I’m grateful our divas bring their significant cultural gravitas to this debate. Bless Mariah Carey for leading the charge on this assault on the senses. I’ll let her not terribly articulate quote from a podcast speak the truth.

”I can’t with the overhead lighting. Why do they do it to us?,” Carey, 55, said. “But overhead lighting I don’t think so honey. Please stop it!…Everywhere I go, shut the lights! I don’t want to see them no more. Overhead lighting, it makes me sick.”

I was delighted to read this synopsis of the overhead lighting hate debate in the Walk Street Journal. They quote a few psychologists and photographers who sum up the debate as diffuse lighting is more relaxing while cool focused lighting is better for concentration.

However it is relatively challenging to do cool focused lighting well. Yes it possible to do overhead track lighting in ways that bring focus and don’t overwhelm your senses. But it’s harder to do right.

You’d probably have to literally light Mariah Carey for a living to do it in a way that’s comfortable for someone with sensory issues. I developed migraines in my thirties and combined with my spectrum level sensitivity to noise, sound, taste and light I don’t need to push my luck. .

Given that us mere mortals without expert lighting design have to live comfortably, I fully stand by my preference for lamps and multiple light sources in my private spaces. It’s just going to be less of a headache. Literally.

If you light from overhead with bright cool tones bulbs so you can see the details I get it. I can’t fathom why I’d want that for anything but cooking, cleaning or sewing.

When the it’s time to relax and interact you are damn right I want a nice warm lamp. Now I’ve got double the lighting. No wonder the topic gives so many of us headaches.

Categories
Community Internet Culture Medical

Day 1440 and The Pain We Won’t Name

Americans are in pain. Literally and emotionally. How that happened isn’t my focus. We are in the middle of a national conversation about the failures of institutional medicine and its relationship to our government. We are treading in deep water and it’s best not to get swept away.

There are many communities that have emerged on Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, GoodReads and elsewhere dedicated to the many paths available to go about fixing the problems in your life. There millions of strong communities of interests, hobbies, courses, and network knowledge that can enable you.

One of those communities is called TPOT. What is TPOT, who is in TPOT, what are its values and what does it believe are all involved and sometimes contentious questions. Being illegible is a big thing.

We mostly agree it stands for “this particular corner of Twitter” which is a loose network of nodes of people interested in applying knowledge they learn across our networked multimedia to their real life.

The experimental “you can just do things” attitude is a big tent. You see DIY projects, tutorials, reading lists, artificial intelligence and coding discussions, fitness and biohacking experiments, nutrition and cooking, meditation and nervous system research, pain management, psychology and emotional wellness and much more. You also see more far out woo woo topics like psychedelics, evolutionary psychology, and many flavors of rationalism and epistemology.

One of the most qualified voices to speak on TPOT might be Brook Bowman of Vibe Camp. In my understanding of her interpretation, TPOT is a memetic virus and once you touch it you are in the topology of TPOT for good.

tpot is this crazy memetic virus where the term itself means so little and is so contagious that you kind of become part of it just by hearing about it

Brooke

This is protective and makes it resilient. The network is bigger than any node and this is a good thing

So TPOT is best understood as a network composed of many interoperable nodes of interests and many layers of engagement. A memetic complex that you become part of on contact. If you read my blog it’s likely have many clear lines to TPOT.

If you like fitness, coding, rationalism, nutrition, or even home improvement well congratulations you are one or two nodes away from “just do things” as a life philosophy yourself and might be a member of TPOT yourself if you talk about it on Twitter.

And this is now some very dangerous semiotic territory as we cope with the gaping wound that is American health and murder. And I am concerned the narratives are going to be heavily fought over territory.

Because it’s easy to dislike a techbro right now. It’s pretty easy to dismiss the group. I can see it now. “Are your friends into this weird sounding acronym TPOT? Have you heard someone say “you can just do things?” If so you need to alert the authorities!”

Of course this sounds funny and histrionic. It’s totally normal to take responsibility for what you can in your life and try out ways of improving your life somewhat.

Everyone is dealing with pain (chronic or otherwise). Being an adult is a set of emotional challenges to manage and most of us do so by making the shocking decision to take action and do something. That doesn’t mean this world is is dangerous. It certainly doesn’t mean murder. It means doing something in your day life like lifting some weights, shipping some code, checking your biometric data, and trying to be a friend to lessen the pain most of us are in.

Categories
Aesthetics Media

Day 1436 and The Voyage Home

Like many fans of Star Trek, I am not at all ashamed of my affection for one of science fictions greatest franchises. I’m proud to love it.

When I visit San Francisco I like to rewatch the classic original series movie from 1986 “Star Trek: The Voyage Home” which is affectionately known as the whale movie.

Future San Francisco is a beautiful paradise where exceptional young people go to Star Fleet Academy. It’s fully automated luxury communism thanks to the not really military (but definitely feels like it) the United Federation of Planets.

The movie involves getting Spock back from previous escapades that had left him for dead. As they retrieve Spock a crisis is unfolding on earth.

A spacecraft is signaling to Earth alas no one can answer it. It disables everything near it. The Enterprise figure out that it’s whalesong and decide the only way to answer is going back in time to find Humpback whales.

The Reagan era was a strange one for environmentalist. The crew goes back in time to rescue Humpback whales and ends up in San Francisco in the 70s at least vibe wise. It was definitely a pop culture “save the whales” moment.

San Francisco was a mess in the past and everyone finds this to be relatable as a plot point though we all know it can be made a paradise.

We see nuclear vessels in Alameda as the brave future. We have to save our whales to save our future though. This was not a universe where environmentalists make the best villains. Environmentalists are the good guys which is almost sweet.

The Voyage Home is a ridiculous movie with a premise stuck in a bubble of social attitudes that is almost comforting.

Leaving San Francisco myself to voyage home myself makes me laugh at one of comedic bits of the movie. “I don’t know how these people made it out of the 20th century!”

To the skeptics I say a double dumb ass on you! Humans and their colorful metaphors might just might get us to the future after all. And San Francisco will be part of making it.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1414 and Signs

I’ve been a bit Delphic in tone over the last week. I’m relieved but also distracting myself with shopping, reading and health projects.

My natural optimism is looking for the positive. If you go in for numerology 14 is a good number for the moment as 1 represents independence, leadership and change while 4 is stability and balance.

The world is shifting but my path is clear in front of me. We may be on a chaotic course but the adaption brings us new opportunities. I’ll just do my best to get enough sleep when things get exciting

Categories
Biohacking

Day 1409 and Setting Up Red Light Home Automation for Better Sleep

I struggle with some chronic illnesses so biohacking is a hobby. Recently multiple friends have been discussing the benefits of using red lights at night to improve sleep quality.

There is some evidence blue light from screens decreases melatonin production which is why so many sleep hygiene guides suggest using a program like Flux on your screened devices.

Running red light for 2-3 hours before bedtime may help lower cortisol levels and increase melatonin production. Plus it gives your bedroom a fun boudoir vibe so we thought why not try it?

Philips Hue 60W Bulbs

We bought a set of Philip Hue bulbs for the three lamps in our bedroom. They sell their own automation systems to manage your thoughts but we already use Home Assistant from the Open Home Foundation for automation because it allows us to run basically everything entirely locally with no cloud dependence or internet access.

For our existing lighting we use a combo of Lutron Caseta (for built in lighting) and Philips Hue bulbs (for plug in lamps). For the purposes of the red light experiment in the bedroom, we are using all plug in lamps.

For the Hue bulbs, instead of using the Hue Bridge and the Hue App, we use the built in Zigbee radios to pair directly to Home Assistant.

Phillips should be commended for using open protocols and enabling users to use these non-proprietary standards. Interoperability is good.

To achieve the light color changes we wanted, there is a plugin called “adaptive lighting” that automatically color and brightness shifts the bulbs through the day (subject to plenty of configuration options).

In our case, Alex set them to go very red (1000K) while also limiting the sunrise to no later than 6am and the sunset locked to 630p in order to fit into our routine and preferred bed timings.

iPhones have an automatic white balance on their cameras but it is actually quite red at night

The lights mostly work automatically but for when manually control is wanted, there are Zigbee remotes on each side of the bed as well as Home Assistant bridged to Apple HomeKit so everything can be controlled via the Apple Home app or through Siri.

It may sound complicated but there are plenty of tutorials in the open source community to help guide you. As we get more data from our own biometric tracking I’ll be sure to discuss it here and on Twitter.

Categories
Biohacking

Day 1401 and Detox

I’m sure many a doctoral thesis has been written on the obsession with bodily purity and eternal search to rid oneself of toxins.

I’m not an academic but I was on the original Goop team in the far distant past when I worked for legendary adman Peter Arnell. So I’ve had a lot of exposure to particular purity culture that is modern consumer culture detoxing.

While I had hippie experiences with detoxification and also real ones like mercury chelation (which is a fun story), nothing is as intense as rich white women detoxing. From herbals to enemas to fasts you have a lot of choice.

I am all for the woo woo. The aspiration that if one just exercised enough control over oneself that all ailments could be cured is alluring. It’s also fucked up. Bodies are notoriously difficult to control and medicine is littered with mysterious ailments afflicting saints and sinners.

Alas I’m still tempted by this philosophy. I spent four days in Miami and I feel like a bunch of expensive detoxification treatments would be just the ticket. I’ll probably just sleep it off though.

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
Emotional Work

Day 1374 and Acting Anyway

The frustrating part of living with human limitations is that it doesn’t really matter to anyone but you and your family. Life goes on no matter what is going on in your body or personal context.

The constant barrage of anarcho-tyranny across the globe will build up reactive low trust feelings in anyone.

Harden your hearts and open your mind. Find the facts of your situation. The accommodations of your particular circumstances won’t matter if you can find a way to contribute by acting on the world. You need to bring something to the table even if it’s simple as a good attitude.

The current cultural battles of responsibility seem to hinge largely on who has responsibility and at what stage of abstraction and remove (our city, our regional government, our national state apparatus). We are caught in the same system as anyone else to some extent.

What are the ethical ways of being with each other? How do we show up with trust when so little is trustworthy. What do we owe each other knowing not all are good faith?

I think some of this is simple and no amount of effort or obfuscation gets over the fact that you must contribute some good to the whole. You must be high trust to get back high trust.

Humans are on the whole less transactional than we imagine in our fears. I’ve always found reason to be hopeful. You can act in the face of uncertainty. You can act in an awful world.

Categories
Emotional Work Politics Reading

Day 1371 and Against The Tides

I don’t swim very much as an adult but I grew up in an era with mandatory swimming tests (even at university).

I was lucky enough to not only learn to swim in the Pacific Ocean but in Colorado I spent a lot of time in our many creek, rivers and lakes. Freshwater has its own appeal and I’ve seen the tides work on the Great Lakes. But little is as magical as the buoyancy of seawater.

I’ve struggled with not having swimming and the joys of warm weather and cool water with some of my autoimmune challenges. A bathing suit I’d never worn came to represent some of that loss.

But today I was able to take a swim. I put on a bathing suit and was able to casually swim with just enough force applied to steady myself in a comfortable place against the increasingly forceful tide coming in. I felt like I’d won even if it was just for thirty minutes. I enjoyed a nice healthful thing in between the chaos of a very busy moment.

I’m not much of a Fitzgerald fan and but the joy of finding the limitations in one’s life as you mature is the relatability of feeling the weight of a one’s years as you push against the tides.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past

So many decisions cannot be undone and yet we steady ourselves against forces much bigger than we are. Pushing against some of the vastness of a sea while relaxing into its much bigger whole is quietly humbling

I feel good about pushing against the vastness but also not being so sure about my own place in much larger forces. It’s no wonder man yearns for the horizon.

I took a shower and immediately went back to work. But it was nice to be a human doing a human thing while all of this is going on around me. I held my own against the tides. And I intend to keep doing.

Categories
Travel

Day 1340 and Elbow Room

Americans have one of life’s finest luxuries in our protected and ample open spaces. Our cities are bustling economic hubs of opportunity, but unlike in many other countries American has an incredible heritage of publicly owned wilderness.

We may take this access to ample elbow room for granted. Having spent the weekend with a diverse groups of people with interests in how we manage and care for our American ecosystems, it was an incredible reminder of our vast shared inherited wealth.

One friend pointed out that other nations may have become accustomed to the density of a megapolis but Americans come by their space loving “don’t crowd me” individualism honestly. Another friend pointed out that many of us would find ourselves over-socialized in other culture.

Peacefully watching the water go by in the sunlight of late summer

I felt this especially as I’d been socializing with people I enjoy and respect. And even though I had an amazing time I am exhausted from even the love and joy of fellowship.

We’d picked a spacious spot where we had plenty of privacy. It was an intimate group working through topics close to all of our hearts. And yet after a long weekend, I’d like to be quiet and quite alone for just a little. Fortunately I can do just that.