Shorts on rkempe’s blog

The lack of broader perspective in tech

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 22:43:22 -0400

You know, if arts education at the elementary and high school level was better maybe we’d have to deal with less bullshit from tech bros.

I very much feel like most people in tech with any sort of inclination towards caring about anything else get pushed out, and that lack of perspective is a problem.

AI "artists" should just become writers instead

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 13:05:35 -0400

AI “artists” should just become writers instead, they’ll still get to use words to make art and it won’t be theft!!

Except that writing is actually difficult and takes real time and effort and skill, lol.

Also, the amount of people who compare typing in text and choosing from auto generated work to photography is staggering. Bro, do you even understand how photography works?

You don't need to experience heartbreak to be an artist

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 01:23:54 -0400

The problem I have with telling people that they need to go out and experience heartbreak and stuff before they can be a good artist is that I don’t know if we should be encouraging people to actively seek out negative life experiences for the sake of having a broader outlook on the human experience (or whatever bullshit terminology is being used these days).

That’s actually a really concerning mentality. Just try to live outside your head a little and do stuff, that’s all.

Reading through mathematical proofs

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 17:12:48 -0400

Reading through mathematical proofs sometimes feels like trying to understand gibberish while simultaneously trying to unravel where the spontaneous leaps of intuition came from.

Why do children's book characters always have terrible passwords?

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 23:18:00 -0400

Why do children’s book characters always have terrible passwords that can easily be guessed? Why is this a common plot device? Can we please start modeling proper digital literacy? Do we really want to be teaching kids that it’s okay to use the name of a family member or crush as your password?

Have you read any books on writing that you found helpful?

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 00:07:56 -0400

Never Say You Can’t Survive by Charlie Jane Anders is a good one I read pretty recently. It’s about using fiction both as an escape from and as a commentary on reality, and it has a ton of really interesting ideas about worldbuilding and what kind of characters are interesting and also about emotional and less technical aspects of writing. I’d say it’s definitely worth a read. Also, it has really good writing exercises.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Sun, 14 Aug 2022 22:50:54 -0400

I don’t. I ask my friends if I can steal their ideas instead. If we’ve been friends long enough, I’ve probably done it to you.

(This is only partially a joke.)

There are 3 main categories of books about creativity

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 16:19:19 -0400

There are 3 main categories of books about creativity, in my opinion:

Self-help books (which are, in my opinion, terribly useless, though they sometimes include a few interesting ideas).
Books written by researchers (which tend to make more objective claims and which I personally find more interesting).
Books written by journalists, which tend to be either/or.

I want to talk about this poster briefly

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 01:44:35 -0400

So I want to talk about this poster briefly (it’s from Michèle Provost’s installation at the SAW gallery)¹.

Mainly, I want to talk about why I dislike it.

The text on the poster was “Words will always be this clumsy approximation of something that can be best explained through drawing.” I’m not including the actual photo, because it looks terrible.

The first time I saw the poster it wasn’t even at the show – it was on a picture my friend took of the installation on her phone so she could tell me about it, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

I understood about 5% of what you just said

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 20:40:35 -0400

My favourite sentence to pull out when a bunch of people start having technical discussions and act like I’m not there is “I understood about 5% of what you just said.”

Never be afraid to tell someone you have no clue what they’re talking about (and definitely ask them to explain).

Mathematicians throw the word "creativity" around a lot

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 02:58:12 -0400

Mathematicians definitely spend just as much time throwing around the word “creativity” as people in more conventionally artistic fields.

I was reading a bunch of articles written by math people and noticed this, and then I remembered that the math contests I wrote in high school all had some spiel about expressing creativity on them.

I also found contest math to actually be interesting, despite being pretty disastrous at it (which… most people are too but still). Like I remember once banging my head against some practice problem until someone pointed out a super elegant solution to me and I was like, how does your brain even do that???? I hate the way math is taught in school.

If you ever buy a printer, here's a short PSA

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 23:01:44 -0400

If you ever buy a printer, here’s a short PSA:

If you’re using a laser printer, no matter what paper you use, everything will come out looking the same, because the toner sits on top on the paper (so the surface you’ll end up looking at will be bonded toner, not paper). This can be good or bad, depending on how suitable the toner look is for what you’re doing.

My favourite thing about language

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 16:59:04 -0400

My favourite thing about language is how it can be used to express ambiguity with such delightful precision. I mean, I can’t do it, but I’m jealous of people who can.

Maybe I should be patient with my brain

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 11:32:57 -0400

Sometimes I have to remind myself that if someone is able to do something super cool and I can’t even begin to understand how they came up with it, it might be because they’ve built up more layers of knowledge that have become automatic, which frees up their brain to handle more complexity than mine can with its limited context.

Of course a toddler isn’t going to try to write a novel, sentences might not even be automatic yet.

Confusing vs. confused music

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 21:24:47 -0400

I think there’s a difference between music that is confusing and music that is confused. It can be a fine line sometimes, but if it sounds confused, that’s not a good thing.

I think documentaries are very underrated as an art form

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 23:47:40 -0400

I think documentaries are very underrated as an art form. Maybe this is just my biased opinion as someone who mainly writes non-fiction, but I think the ability to frame and elevate real life just doesn’t get enough credit.

I feel like from an artistic standpoint there’s so much more public respect for making something believable out of thin air. I’m not saying that’s not impressive – I know how hard that is – but I feel like making people care about real life is also hard because we kinda feel like everything about the real world is mundane.

I was thinking about what actions society inherently considers to be artistic

Fri, 18 Feb 2022 03:07:20 -0400

I’ve been thinking about the concept of art style pretty heavily lately, which has come with a lot of brain tangents.

For example, I was thinking about what actions society inherently considers to be artistic. Obviously, this kind of implies a whole “what even is art” discussion that I don’t really want to have right now. But for example, we seem to view any drawing as an exhibit of artistic skill, whereas getting up on a stage and talking at people is only seen as an art form in certain circumstances.

I just got off a zoom call with a "utility" NFT developer

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 18:08:50 -0400

So I just got off a zoom call with a “utility” NFT developer and it was truly one of the most frustrating, low-key terrifying, and shockingly informative conversations I’ve had in my life.

I wish I had recorded the conversation, because some of the things he said were so egregious.

At one point I asked him about privacy concerns related to the blockchain and he said they were “just trusting on the underlying technology to provide that security.”

I think NFTs are inspired by the contemporary art market

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 23:16:12 -0400

I can’t help but think that NFTs are hugely inspired by the high-end contemporary art market. Like, both markets have some questionable values and artworks.

Buying an NFT is like owning the certificate of authenticity for a work you don’t have access to and also probably don’t care about.

A certificate of authenticity is kind of like a receipt for an artwork. It proves that the artwork you own is the artwork you say it is, and they’re very important in the high end art market. But when it comes to some of the more… esoteric installations, we kind of behave, legally anyway, as if the COA is the artwork.

A quick guide to 90% of NFT scam type news

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 19:05:38 -0400

A quick guide to 90% of NFT scam type news (it mostly falls into one of these categories):

Rich person got hacked and they lost their NFTs and therefore, money. Hacker gets rich.
Organization mints NFTs of stolen artwork and tries to sell them.
Rich person/corporation is ruining the lives of regular people by mining crypto.
Organization starts an NFT scam in order to get rich, then disappears.
People have discovered that this organization is buying its own NFTs in order to create hype and make them seem more valuable than they actually are to outside people.
Organization mints NFTs in “honour’ of people who do not or never would have wanted to be associated with NFTs.
Person minting NFTs forgets that photographs exist.
Crypto bros fail to understand how the real world works.
Public figure/corporation backs out of NFT project after receiving heavy backlash.
Hacker airdrops NFT malware into unsuspecting wallets.

And the worst thing is, I’ve seen small artists who are legitimately just trying to live off of their art get death threats on Twitter for making an NFT sale. Which… death threats are never a great reaction, but you’re definitely threatening the wrong person here.

I think opinions on social media follow the 80-20 rule

Fri, 04 Feb 2022 04:54:27 -0400

I think opinions on social media follow the 80/20 rule, where people get 80% of their idea across, then stop, because the remaining 80% of the work is nuance.

Please don’t take this as me judging anyone. I just did it too. I do it all the time.

But do realize that this is what is going on.

So today I watched a YouTube video about iMessage lock in

Sat, 29 Jan 2022 19:49:58 -0400

So today I watched a YouTube video about iMessage lock in, and it was an unfair reminder of the Apple bullshit I experience as an Android user.

Just like… the experience of being added to an iMessage group chat as an Android user is enough to make someone want to switch to an iPhone, and I don’t know how that nonsense isn’t breaking monopoly laws.

This is a the iMessage experience on Android, in a nutshell (100% speaking from personal experience).

Feeling attacked by Daniel Thrasher

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 19:52:50 -0400

Daniel Thrasher made a video called “gifted kid syndrome” a while ago, and watching it still makes me feel incredibly attacked.

Eloquence is about using the right word, not the fanciest word

Sat, 08 Jan 2022 21:29:18 -0400

Eloquence is about using the right word, not the fanciest word, and people who are obviously trying to sound smart tend to fail at this because they forget that using jargon incorrectly doesn’t actually hide the fact that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Trying to cover up not knowing your shit is really just intentionally alienating and intimidating anyone who has no idea what you’re talking about and throwing away any credibility you might have had in front of someone who does.

Can brands stop saying that their software has a "more creative workflow"?

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 04:36:24 -0400

Can brands stop saying that their software has a “more creative workflow”? What the heck is that even supposed to mean?

In my experience software doesn’t have a “workflow”, it has features, a UI, and technical requirements.

Good UI and good features means I will probably be able to figure out a workflow that works, and that means I will make more stuff.

A janky or mediocre UI combined with good features means that I guess I’ll figure it out and deal with the bugs, but I’ll also complain a lot.

The word "creativity" feels like a buzzword now

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 20:19:01 -0400

I feel like the word “creativity” has become so twisted, like it’s been simultaneously corporatized and filled with arbitrary connotations concerning “quality” and “external appeal” (however the hell those are defined now) and it’s become like one of those resume buzzwords that you use not because they actually mean anything, but because they look and sound fancier and because everyone else is using them.

I wasn’t “trying to be creative” when I was a kid, I was just messing around. And I feel like that meaning has been lost, like somehow, over the past several years, we’ve collectively decided that yeah, people should be putting themselves out there and trying stuff but like, only the glossy version of trying stuff.

Books aren't screenplays (and most cannot function as such)

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 20:18:16 -0400

People who expect screen adaptations to unfold exactly like the book are just setting themselves up for disappointment.

Books aren’t screenplays and most cannot function as such. It’s called an adaptation for a reason.

I don't want to be self-employed, actually

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 17:53:40 -0400

This might just be a gen Z thing (though it started before our generation), but I’m starting to feel more and more like the societal expectation is for us to want to be self-employed in some way.

As in, that should be the dream.

As in, you know you’ve made it when you can quit the day job and pursue that thing you’re super passionate about full-time. Even better if you never have to have the day job.