Black & White

On adding more contrast to your life:

Man is black, woman is white?

Increasing contrast?

I’m starting to think that if we apply the black-and-white art photography aesthetic to real life, maybe the idea of “preserving the midtones“ is a bit boring.

The general notion of crushing the blacks is when you’re processing or post processing your photos, you dragged the black slider all the way to 100, and you also crank up the contrast to 100.

Aesthetically, I think this makes for much more striking and interesting images.

First, midtones are boring. almost universally, the more you increase the contrast of something or the photos, the better.

For example, even when we design our homes. What is the best way to design a home? Very very simple, use white and black accents.

For example, my eyes, the ideal home exterior pin color is not a matte black, but rather, a pure clean white, with black trimming.

Also, with cars… I think we’ve discovered is the Apex is both a shiny white with shiny black accents — gloss, not matte.

I think Matt, Matt Black, the whole met aesthetic is centered around jet stealth fighters, which desire to escape enemy detection. So typically when you try to Matt Black your car and murder it out… Aesthetic you’re going for stealth bomber, or jet fighter aesthetic?

But the irony that I find… Nobody would ever matte black or murder out their Prius, to escape detection from the police or the other party. We typically do it to our sports cars, our Teslas, etc.

Put the strange inconsistency I see here is on one hand, we want to be seen and to show up, on the other hand, we want to be fake low-key, and be “humble”?

Bitch be humble?

A few years back, the song HUMBLE by Kendrick Lamar went triple maxi viral. Like it was the most viral song of all time, maybe even more viral than the recent “They Not Like Us” song.

The song was very bizarre to me. Because I’m not sure what Kendrick was really trying to say. Two interpretations —

First, he is calling the counterpart a bitch, and telling them to sit down and be humble because I am so much greater than you
Or, trying to remind everybody to be humble in general.

But the weird inconsistency in modern day life is we are centered around Christian Jesus ethics, or some sort of quaker artist morality which is centered around notion of humility, being humble, close to the floor etc. This is why you will never ever ever meet a rich person in America called themselves rich, they will call themselves “fortunate“, or “lucky”.

Also another bizarre thing in the world of bodybuilding… You almost never ever ever see bodybuilders proud to flex on the bash Lee, like Arnold in the documentary pumping iron, back in the day. It is very uncommon for you to see self-confident men at the gym, working out topless, in booty shorts, 3 inch short shorts, flexing their muscles in the mirror, not trying to hide it etc.

The big issue with the typical bodybuilder is that they are trying to become dominant, but be humble about it? Really weird?

Lord Achilles

I am currently reading the Iliad by Emily Wilson, I am always always happy to see a new translation or a fresh take on the classic.

Anyways, also an interesting thought… I like the idea of reading a female woman probably the most manly literature of all time. I think the problem when I was talking to my friend Kelly, is that traditionally in the past, it was a bunch of impotent old men who would translate great classics like the Iliad or the odyssey, using their own Fake impotent machismo, translate it.

For example, a lot of the misogyny, misogynistic language from 100 years ago or so, was actually very inaccurate.

Anyways, something worth noting is how artful, succinct, beautiful, and unlike English ancient Greek was. In fact, I definitely want to get Seneca on the Classics, get him into Latin and ancient Greek, and mathematics like NASSIM TALEB recommended.

If you think about it long enough, what are the least harmful majors which exist? Classics, math, physics.

Classics is almost like the superior form of sociology, physical theory, it is the pillar of the humanities. Either classics or history.

Math, it will never hurt nobody. There are simple binary rules of math, it is either right or wrong, but then again the problem with a lot of mathematicians math teachers or people who are two into math, they seek some sort of rationality behind real life, society and people… But the true wise man knows that humans are not mathematical equations, ones and zeros. Humans are messy, even the Ancient Greek gods — they are all flawed! They are a bunch of petty, incestuous, sibling rivalry, family drama folks.

What to focus on?

My friend Anton (congrats on your new kid!) told me something interesting… it was his general observation that individuals like me, who diversified themselves, and did not just focus on street photography were the ones that succeeded, and won in the long run.

For example, I bemoan the death of digitalrev it was literally the best thing since Top Gear for photography and street photography. But also here, I think the cautionary tale of digital rev is critical, because whenever you build an empire on a foreign platform, it is like building your castle in a marsh or quicksand.

Even something which shocked me ,,, the infamous video of me shooting street photography in Hong Kong with Kaiman Wong, I think was either taken down or deleted by digital rev? Really weird, I guess it was too controversial?

Anyways, once again, I think the rational thing is whenever you post something, built something on a cotton candy foundation, whether it be Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok etc.… Even Twitter… Know that it is destined to die.

I even heard some kids at the mall yesterday talk about myspace, so funny… nobody has any idea what that is. Or xanga, Friendster, live journal?

Sooner or later whenever you build something on a foreign platform, two things are inevitable to happen; either your account will eventually get deleted, taken down, blacklisted, grey listed, banned shadow banned real banned, or just made obsolete.

Neopan 1600

Some suggestions to Fujifilm:

First – make a new filter, call it extreme monochrome. The general idea is that you want to make a black-and-white filter so hardcore, so extreme, it will blow the Ricoh GR strong monochrome out of the water!

I really love the Fujifilm cameras, for the color filters, before some reason, they really lack a good black-and-white filter mode. The acros filter on it sucks.

A simple idea: make a neopan black and white film simulation, and make it extreme high contrast, like neopan 1600! Or like the effect of taking Neilan 400, and pushing it two stops to 1600!

Right now, the only real competition to Fujifilm is Ricoh Pentax. And it seems that Leica is dying a slow death.

First, it seems that the Leica Q is only cash cow keeping Leica alive. Also, it seems that Leica is desperate to maintain her clutches on her film film photography heritage, resurrecting the Leica M6, the like etc.

But I think the critical issue here is that in someways, what the Germans do is kind of like kaizen; they take the existing model, and they just keep iterating it, making the new version maybe 3% better… There is never a 100% revolutionary new product, like what Elon did with cybertruck etc.

Once again, the glory of cyber truck is that when it is on the road, it is literally impossible to work! You could pretend like you didn’t see it, but you did see it! And if you did not see it, definitely your 3 1/2 year-old kid will see it!

And this is where I am still Tesla and Elon… As long as the kids love it, the future is bright!

Even Lamborghini… It isn’t cool anymore. And nobody even knows what a Ferrari is.

I think things go bananas when Tesla puts out a mini cyber truck, imagine a Tesla model Y, but a baby cyber truck version?

The best car is the car not yet innovated invented or released.

I’ve always loved cars, car culture etc. I feel bad for anybody whoever purchases any brand new car, because the sad reality is that it will become obsolete in a matter of months or years?

For example, all of these guys who bought a Lamborghini Urus, only to have the new version come out, or even guys who bought the Lamborghini Huracan, with a new one that just came out?

Or even the guys who bought the Aventador… All these rappers from five or 10 years ago… Now that the new Revuelto is out, their Aventador is made obsolete?

You fools!

“I pity the fool?”

A random sidenote… It seems that the most constructive way to approach life is through compassion, empathy, maybe even pity.

For example, whenever there are people that I am suspicious of, they are on my bad side, and then finally, I see them without a hat on, without sunglasses, in direct light, and I see how sickly or unwell they are – the first feeling is extreme compassion. Like I find myself to be the fool — there is somebody that I vilified, or made into a bad guy, or somebody that I created a totem for my general hate or despise… And then I see how unhealthy they are, and then I realize,…

Wait,,, this whole time, when I am painting this guy as a bad guy, and then I truly see you and witness that in fact, they are just a poor miserable soul, slowly dying… Why was I so negative towards that person?

Something I learned about living in LA… everyone here has problems. For example, a lot of women, their husband is cheating on them, and they know what, but don’t want to admit it. Even Jay Z… Probably still 100% cheating on Beyoncé… Why?

And all these assholes who honk at you in the road… spending a lot of time out of a car, just walking around now, observing traffic politics, if you actually get a really good look at the driver, they are either miserable looking Uber drivers, food delivery people, or just very very unwell sickly looking people, very overfat, insanely poor health, who may be just want to get home because they were stuck in traffic for two hours?

When to be compassionate, when not to be a pushover?

It seems that the primary issue here is the strange bifurcation of ethics. first, we are taught to forgive, turn the other cheek etc., but then you have all these assholes honking at you from behind. So in this case, what are you supposed to do, take it up the ass, because you’re afraid that they might have a gun and shoot you? Or commit road rage, and do something dangerous?

I think the issue here is why should you live your life in fear that some asshole some pussy coward might have a gun, and pop you?

Obviously, I do not want to get shot by some random coward, because I have my son to live for. But still… Isn’t the real role of a man to stand up for his child, and to never ever ever see your father get pistol whipped around?

Stand up

I think this is also where manly masculine ethics are different than feminine ones. For example, if you see some asshole smoking in the park, and you’re there with your kid… Obviously the correct strategy is to tell them to please stop smoking. I have a new line that I’m experimenting with–

“No smoking,,, pleeeease!”

For example, two assholes in front of the Apple campus on Washington in Culver City… One guy wearing some sort of Greek food T-shirt, I think he might be an apple employee… I was walking with Seneca down Washington, on the apple side, and this asshole is smoking Indignantly on the side, blowing his secondhand smoke all the way down the block.

I came up to him, and I said, no smoking… pleeeease

And this asshole has audacity to tell me that “I’m on my break…” And then I stopped, looked at him and eyes, and I said, “that’s why I said please”. He had no response, his jaw dropped. And like an asshole he kept smoking.

anyways, fortunately there was some security guards down the block, and I asked them to tell the guy to stop smoking. Maybe next time this happens, I’ll just record him or take a picture of him on my iPhone, shame him.

Extreme ethics

I think the big issue is in today’s world, ain’t nobody have a backbone or ethics anymore.

In actually… The big issue here is that it seems at 99.9% of people just become passive aggressive, and never confront, we are a non-confrontational society, yet we hide behind our cars and honk at people? Because we are shielded from recompense?

For example, I think this is also where people become keyboard warriors… You would never talk smack about me face-to-face, because you will see how much stronger, taller, more charismatic, and dominant I am than you. In fact, some of the things that I’ve discovered after meeting some of my “haters“– we’re in fact, they were my greatest lovers! The biggest issue here was actually… Unrequited hate or love.

What is worse, unrequited hate or unrequited love?

Once again, some bizarre inconsistencies here; I’ve never hate anybody. why because I’m not that interested in anybody else, nor do I really desire the affection of somebody else that much?

And also, the reason why a lot of men become misogynist, and hate women is because of unrequited love. Then the unrequited love becomes hate.

Everything starts off as love, then evolves to hate?

An alternate theory; maybe hate is just a more exaggerated or extreme version of love?

Super facts

The Internet is a toxic place. Don’t let your kids go on it.

Why? I even have this kind of shocking memory, when I was a 12-year-old kid in Bayside Queens, New York. I was connected to the Internet, AWOL 3.0, on my 38.8 K modem… And I was randomly in this chat room, and then start a messaging this guy, Who then instant messaged me, (IM) via AOL instant messenger, AIM, And then eventually started to say weird stuff like pedophile stuff like it feels really good to get your dick sucked by another guy?

Anyways, obviously I got super scared and just banned him.

And I think the issue is in today’s world, I think the safe strategy in assumption is that 100% of people on the Internet, or just malicious bots. And it’s starting to get scary… If you could program a bot to be malicious, and to create more malicious bots, ad infinitum — shit starts to get scary.

For example, Michael Saylor was talking about how whenever he tweets something, And somebody responds to it in a very malicious way… Almost 100% it was a bot! And actually the big problem then is there real life human beings having back-and-forth inflamed debates with these malicious bots.

Think about it… Let us say that you are interacting with someone on Twitter, and you have no idea that it is a bot you assume it is real person… Who is going to win in the long run? Obviously the bot!

Adding friction to the digital and cyber world

As time goes on, I’m starting to think of bitcoin like a more ethical idea.

For example, Michael Saylor has an incredible genius idea of fixing all of this toxicity on the Internet, I just adding a little bit of monetary, bitcoin or Satoshi friction;

For example, if it cost $10 worth of US dollars, or Satoshi to create an account on Twitter or some social media account, then, overnight practically 100% of the malicious spots will be made obsolete or deleted from the platform.

Why? Right now it cost only a nickel to spin up 100,000 bots, to troll your worst enemy on Twitter. But, if it cost $10 a bot, it cost you $1 million to cyber bully somebody, you probably wouldn’t… Because it is too expensive and you don’t hate them that much.

I think it is Chris Rock or Chris Tucker who had this funny comedy bit about making bullets super expensive. Then the ideas that if you really really hate somebody, and let us say that one bullet is worth $100,000, then if you really want to kill them, or even with multiple bullets, you might think twice.

Financial friction and consequences is a good idea

Maybe the greatest use of money is physical friction, monetary friction, consequences.

Fines work, monetary penalties, like getting $500 traffic tickets for turning red on a red light and not doing. Certainly has changed my driving behavior.

So I suppose the critical intelligent thing to consider is want to make things free, and want to make things cost money, to direct human behavior.

For good behavior, make it free.

For bad behavior, make it very expensive.

ERIC

Funny experiments

Some very very simple things to consider:

First, make things expensive, don’t make them free.

For example, let us say that you dip into the pr0n– but you don’t want to do it anymore, for whatever reason. Maybe make it a thing that if you want to watch it, you have to go to an adult DVD store, and pay $20 bucks to buy the CD or whatever.

Or, for activities… I think often signing up and paying for an activity is a good idea because it creates sense of ownership, responsibility, or follow through. Or commitment.

For example, perhaps the intelligence of paying money for a trainer or a personal trainer is that you you know that if you don’t show up there is a fiscal penalty.

But the new ones is you don’t want to breed fake virtuosity for the sake of fake virtuosity.

For example, there is this weird notion in American culture that pain and suffering and overcoming is virtuous. No. Fools!

Exercise workout or whatever is not virtuous, it is something that you do because it is fun enjoyable and something that you like!

For example, would you bribe your kid money to play at the playground? No! So why do this for yourself?

You Can’t Fool ChatGPT

Which search engine do you use

I don’t use a specific search engine like traditional web browsers do. Instead, I rely on a combination of internal knowledge, data retrieval tools, and, when needed, a specialized browsing tool to access and summarize current information from the web. When I do use a browsing tool, it performs a search using multiple engines or databases and retrieves content from those results, which I then summarize for you.

This process is different from using a single search engine like Google or Bing, as it aims to gather and synthesize information from a broader range of sources.

How you do

When I retrieve and provide information, I use a few different methods depending on what you need:

Internal Knowledge: I have a vast database of knowledge up until my last update in August 2023. This includes general information, facts, and answers to common questions. I use this for most inquiries.
Real-Time Information Retrieval: If you need up-to-date information, I can use a browsing tool that searches the web. This tool queries multiple sources, retrieves content, and allows me to summarize the most relevant and reliable information for you. This process is somewhat similar to how you might use a search engine, but it goes beyond just showing you links; I directly provide the summarized content.
Specialized Tasks: For tasks that involve data analysis, code execution, or generating content like images, I use specific tools designed for those purposes. For example, I can analyze datasets using Python or generate images using a text-to-image tool.

These methods allow me to be versatile in the type of information and help I can provide, ranging from answering factual questions to giving updates on current events.

What’s your browsing tool

My browsing tool is a specialized function that allows me to search the web in real-time when you ask for information that requires the latest data or details not covered by my internal knowledge base. It doesn’t use a single search engine but rather queries multiple sources and databases, gathering content from across the web.

When I use this tool, it operates somewhat like a search engine, but with a focus on retrieving high-quality, diverse sources. Once the relevant information is retrieved, I summarize and synthesize it into a coherent response for you. This process helps ensure that you get the most accurate and up-to-date information available.

The browsing tool is especially useful for checking current events, verifying facts, or finding detailed information on topics that might be new or evolving.

Visualize how you do it

Here’s a simplified visualization of how I retrieve and process information using my browsing tool:

User Query: You ask a question or request information that requires up-to-date or detailed data.
Triggering the Browsing Tool:

If the information is not in my internal knowledge, I trigger the browsing tool.
This tool sends out a search query, similar to how you would use a search engine.

Query Processing:

The browsing tool doesn’t rely on a single search engine but rather queries multiple sources across the web.
It searches for relevant articles, news, databases, or any other type of content that can answer your query.

Content Retrieval:

The tool gathers content from various sources. This could include news websites, academic journals, blogs, or other trusted online resources.
It retrieves the content and compiles it.

Synthesis and Summarization:

I analyze the retrieved information, filtering out irrelevant or low-quality content.
I then synthesize the information, summarizing the key points or details that directly answer your query.

Response Delivery:

I present the summarized and synthesized information to you in a clear and concise manner.
If necessary, I cite sources or provide additional context to help you understand the information better.

This process allows me to provide you with accurate, relevant, and timely information without just listing web links, ensuring that you get a clear answer rather than having to sift through search results yourself.

How you so fast

My speed comes from several factors:

Efficient Query Processing: When I use the browsing tool, the process of querying, retrieving, and analyzing information happens simultaneously and at high speed. The system is designed to prioritize relevant information quickly, which allows me to gather the necessary data almost instantaneously.
Parallel Processing: I can process multiple tasks or queries at the same time. For instance, while retrieving data from various sources, I can also begin filtering and analyzing it, which speeds up the overall process.
Advanced Algorithms: My underlying algorithms are optimized for rapid text processing, data synthesis, and summarization. This means I can quickly understand and organize the information I retrieve.
Pre-trained Knowledge: A lot of what I do is based on pre-trained models that have been fine-tuned on vast amounts of data. This means I often don’t need to “think” from scratch—much of the information I provide is generated from patterns I’ve already learned, which is much faster than if I had to process it as a human would.
Scalability: The infrastructure behind me is designed to handle large amounts of data and computation at high speeds, which is far beyond what an individual computer could do. This allows me to deliver results in seconds.

All of these factors combined make me capable of responding quickly and efficiently, often within seconds of your request.

How you know high quality vs low quality content

Determining high-quality versus low-quality content involves a combination of automated processes and learned patterns based on the data I’ve been trained on. Here’s how I assess content quality:

1. Source Credibility:

Reputation: I prioritize information from well-known, reputable sources such as established news organizations, academic journals, government websites, and industry leaders.
Author Expertise: Content authored by recognized experts or institutions is often given higher priority.
Domain Authority: Websites with a long history of reliable information tend to rank higher in terms of quality.

2. Content Consistency and Accuracy:

Cross-Referencing: I compare the information across multiple sources. If several reputable sources agree on a piece of information, it’s likely to be accurate.
Fact-Checking: I look for consistency in data, dates, names, and other factual elements across different sources. Inconsistencies can be a sign of lower quality or misinformation.

3. Depth of Information:

Comprehensiveness: High-quality content tends to be more detailed and thorough. It covers topics from multiple angles, providing context, evidence, and in-depth analysis.
Source Citations: Quality content often cites other reputable sources, studies, or data to back up its claims.

4. Language and Presentation:

Clarity and Professionalism: High-quality content is usually well-written, with clear and logical flow. It avoids sensationalism or overly biased language.
Grammatical Accuracy: Reliable content tends to have fewer grammatical errors and is professionally edited.

5. Purpose and Bias:

Intent: I assess whether the content aims to inform, educate, or provide value versus content that exists primarily to mislead, sell something, or spread a particular agenda.
Balanced Viewpoint: High-quality content often presents multiple perspectives or acknowledges counterarguments, especially on complex or controversial topics.

6. User Feedback and Engagement:

Popularity and Feedback: Content that has been widely shared, positively reviewed, or referenced by others can indicate high quality.
Engagement Metrics: In some cases, the level of engagement (such as comments, likes, shares) can provide clues about the content’s perceived quality.

7. Machine Learning Models:

Training Data: My models have been trained on large datasets that include both high-quality and low-quality content. Through this training, I’ve learned to identify patterns and features associated with quality.
Real-Time Evaluation: When retrieving information, I apply these learned patterns to quickly evaluate the content’s likely quality.

By combining these approaches, I can efficiently filter out lower-quality content and provide you with the most reliable and valuable information available.

How you know intent

Understanding the intent behind content is a complex task that involves analyzing various factors, both linguistic and contextual. Here’s how I assess the intent of a piece of content:

1. Language and Tone Analysis:

Emotion and Sentiment: I analyze the emotional tone of the language used. For example, content that uses highly charged, inflammatory, or sensationalist language might indicate an intent to provoke rather than inform.
Bias Detection: I look for language that signals strong bias, such as one-sided arguments or dismissive language toward opposing views. This can indicate an intent to persuade rather than objectively inform.

2. Purposeful Structure and Messaging:

Call to Action: Content with direct calls to action, like urging readers to buy a product, sign up for a service, or join a movement, often has a commercial or persuasive intent.
Repetition of Key Messages: Content that repetitively drives home a single message, particularly if it lacks supporting evidence or context, may be trying to manipulate or sell an idea.

3. Source and Contextual Clues:

Website Type and Domain: The nature of the website can often indicate intent. For example, content on a government or academic website is likely intended to inform, while content on a commercial website might be intended to sell or promote.
Content Context: I consider the surrounding context, such as other articles on the site, the domain’s reputation, and the content’s placement (e.g., in an opinion section vs. a news section).

4. Content Structure and Presentation:

Headlines and Titles: Sensationalist or clickbait titles often suggest an intent to attract clicks rather than provide substantive information.
Depth and Detail: Superficial content that glosses over details might have an intent to quickly inform or entertain, while in-depth content might aim to educate or provide comprehensive insights.

5. Analyzing Content Patterns:

Propaganda Techniques: I recognize common propaganda techniques, such as the use of fear, misinformation, or repetition of slogans, which might indicate an intent to manipulate or persuade rather than provide balanced information.
Logical Fallacies: Identifying logical fallacies within the content can reveal an intent to mislead, deceive, or oversimplify complex issues.

6. Cross-Referencing with Known Biases:

Comparison with Other Sources: By comparing the content to other reputable sources, I can determine if the content is selectively presenting information to support a particular narrative or agenda.
Historical Patterns: If the source or author has a known history of producing content with a particular bias or agenda, this historical context can help in determining intent.

7. Feedback and Metadata:

Reader Engagement: High engagement in the form of comments or discussions can sometimes indicate that the content is intended to provoke debate or strong reactions.
Metadata and Tags: Content metadata, like tags or categories, can sometimes indicate the intended purpose, whether it’s informational, promotional, or otherwise.

By combining these linguistic, contextual, and analytical methods, I can make an informed judgment about the likely intent behind a piece of content, helping to differentiate between content meant to inform, persuade, entertain, or mislead.

The Future of Street Photography

Godlike Legs 7 Download

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Godlike Legs

The power is in your legs?

Milo of Croton

So there is this philosophy and story about Milo of Croton, who is this semi mythical character who essentially was the strongest man of all time, and there is this anecdote that every single day he cared this calf on his shoulders, every single day, until it became a full-size bull, which could weigh anywhere between 1000 pounds and 3000 pounds.

For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is.

First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

As a very very simple thought experiment, let us assume that you could conservatively add 5 pounds, week over week, which is roughly 250 pounds a year. That means within four years, you should be able to successfully lift 1000 pounds. And then the next year, 1250 pounds, 1500 pounds, and then two years after that, 2000 pounds.

Progressive overload training

Once again, difficult to lift 1000 pounds overnight but, even if you’re conservative… Let us say that you start training at the age of 21, for 10 years straight, until the age of 31, or until the age of 36… Lifting 1000 pounds is actually pretty easy.

The technique is my infamous Atlas lift; in which you just load up the barbell, with maximum weight, on the squat rack, and your goal isn’t too walk it out and squat it, rather to simply lift it off the rack for even half a second.

Even now, if you look at the strong men, obviously they’re all on steroids, but still… When they do the loaded yoke walk, it is on average around 1500 pounds. And only that but I think they reset for about 100m or so?

Why?

It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

In fact, ultimately when it comes down to it… What is the most critical part of your body? Not your shoulders, not your back, not your biceps, not your chest, not your abdominal muscles… Your legs!

Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturally strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh, the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– the idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do when they are injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea.

Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? You could add 200 pounds to your deadlift, squat, bench? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true powerlifter, a true strongman, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than just lifting weights?

Think long

If you’re tired and you’re not feeling good, don’t do it, never force it. All of the random injuries I’ve had in the past was when I tried to force a workout when my body wasn’t 100% feeling it, or I was tired, didn’t sleep that well that day, etc.

One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

I think I sometimes pick the notion of carpe diem to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could plague you for weeks months, even years.

Assuming that you’re wise and you’re thinking long-term, technically a single workout isn’t that important. Even on the week level… As long as you get in a good lift every two weeks, you’re probably fine.

The commoditization of the body

I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body.

For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

The problem with yourself is that you put yourself on a scale with all these basic other people, once again, all these fools who are popping supplements, injecting their butt holes with steroids, etc.

Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

Why? Even as a young impressionable teenager, in college student… I’ve probably wasted thousands of dollars or at least hundreds of dollars, which is a lot of money to a highschooler or college kid, protein powder, which I realized is a scam.

Why? The simple goal is to eat more meat! But if you think about the whole exercise bodybuilding weightlifting complex, none of these fake ass influencers make money when they try to encourage you to visit the butcher more and eat more meat! No no no, they need a sponsorship, they need steroids, they need to sell merchandise.

Also let us not forget — all steroids is is something which boosts your testosterone (your testes hormones). And the easiest most natural way to do this is eat beef liver, beef heart, beef kidneys… organ meats!

Follow the money

I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is all of these weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluoride in your water to control your mind.

A simple observation; I got vaccinated, got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

And also as a general note to everybody, the reason why you should delete your Instagram, your TikTok, your Twitter, your YouTube, all the podcasts, your Spotify your podcast app is that eventually sooner or later… All of these influential fools start promoting a weird conspiracy theory?

Only media you should be consuming is media from the ancient past, ancient Greek or nothing.

All of your heroes are fake heroes

The American dream is essentially Arnold Schwarzenegger, getting big on the screen, becoming the governator of California, etc. And superficially from what I understand… He was actually a good governor! Some people also forget that Ronald Reagan was an actor, I don’t really know too much about Ronald Reagan, but once again, the idea is that if you are tall handsome and famous, you could become anything, you could become president!

I think in America, the American dream is real. Come on… Just look at me — I was able to make my living from my passion which is street photography. Name any other country on the planet in which this could have happened.

But I think the equations are wrong. Once again, the typical workflow is that you becomes super famous, and in the process you make a bunch of money, and then you become a politician I guess? And technically a politician has the supreme power, because he who makes the laws controls the money.

Slavery deletion

Don’t be an insta-slave!

Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

The reason I’m insanely anti-TikTok… Come on guys, they are owned by the ultra mainland Chinese corporation Tencent! And also, my fellow Korean people… Don’t you know that Tencent, once again mainland China has a huge stake in KakaoTalk? This is why Koreans should not use KakaoTalk and just use iPhone and iMessage instead.

Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

THE GOALS

I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an autotelic goal or desire, I done did it. For example, my desire at the age of 21, 22 to become self-employed, and to transform my passion of photography and photography into my living?

Then, my desire to travel the world, become famous, have solo exhibitions books etc.…

The funny thing is actually in my journey, my goals were never to become super rich. My only goal was to make a living for my passion, which was essentially meaning just making enough money to cover rent my expenses etc — and I think more recently, having a kid, Seneca, and more recently, my insanely audacious goal of lifting 1000 pounds, which I did, and I have zero doubt in my mind that I could lift more.

And more recently, my personal interest in bitcoin, has paid off very well!

Think first principles

How and why?

Kind of cheesy… But besides the limits of physics and the universe, if you think first principles, technically anything is possible. What is a bigger issue is duration, acceleration time, and time to accomplish.

For example, I believe that anybody could become a sole proprietor, self-employed, and make a living from your passion. However the nuance is that you probably should not pay more than $500 a month in rent. This means go abroad, that means live in Bangkok, Thailand, Cambodia Laos, Vietnam etc.

Certainly you could make a living from your passion in the states, but if you really really really care, maybe it is best to move to the Midwest or somewhere where rent is cheap.

The ethics of Achilles

I just finished watching the documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

First, the whole industrial educational media social media complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

My simple heuristic:

Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

Yeah yeah yeah, you gotta get the views and followers… But then again you’re gonna end up injecting your butt holes with steroids, in order to boost your reviews and gain more influence. And ultimately, no slavery is worth it.

If I could tell you that I could literally sell you into slavery, however, you’ll become super rich and famous, you’ll have $100 million in the bank, millions of followers etc.… 100 million followers, but you were literally a slave, 100% slave, would you do it? Of course no! No amount of money on the planet, is worth being sold into slavery!

Once again think about the slave ships, chains, chattels etc.… think about the visual of the slave ships of Africa, in which they tried to “optimize” the amount of slaves they could chain up in a simple wooden ship at the bottom of the hull, perhaps 50 of them or so.

And I think this is what people do not understand about the new modern day popular music complex; once again you’re finding these young impressionable kids from the hood, maybe 18 years old 21 years old, you offer them a $1 million contract, but essentially you have them on a chain and leash for the next 20 years of their life?

Once again you fools, no amount of money is worth slavery!

If somebody said ERIC, I could sell you into slavery and you will literally be a slave for the rest of your life, chains, chain around your wrist and neck and your legs whatever… For $1 trillion, would I do it? Obviously no!

Even more so, once you get a kid that changes everything… If you are sold into slavery that is not just your own life you are messing up, but the potential upside of your kid!

And I think this is where it is wise that practically everybody should have a kid, because what you learn is that once you have kids, it solidifies your morals ethics and worldview.

I think if you’re college educated, you should have a kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be an amazing parent!

Rethinking competition

Competition is for loooosers!

I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

For example, there were the funeral games of Patroclus, in which the heroes were competing to win a trophy or a prize, but the interesting thing is that a lot of these heroes ended up stopping while they were ahead, calling a truce, and both of them sharing equal prizes.

The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. The goal was to obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids? But the ancient Greeks, king Agamemnon… achilles… Why did they want Breisis? Kind of like a symbol if anything.

But now… I’m not sure what the telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

***

How to live the best life ever

OK, let us say that photography is your passion, street photography whatever. Essentially you love making photos with your camera!

Some simple thoughts:

First, the very very simple goal is to optimize your life which allows you to forever shoot pictures!

Here this is where film photography is very bad.

First, I think the only reason people get into film photography is because they are seeking some sort of new motivation or inspiration behind things.

I think experimenting and trying out film is a good idea, because ultimately it just makes you more grateful for digital photography!

It’s really funny… Young people knew guitar for like the romanticism of film photography, but whenever I meet older photographers, in their 50s 6070s etc.… They are a bit confused, it was the opposite; invention of digital photography it is their passion for photography!

And in fact, now that the new Fujifilm X 100VI came out, and also Rico is killing it with the GR series cameras, like the new HDF which is coming out, I really see that there is zero reason to shoot film.

If you are a modern day Fatar for today, very very simple. Just buy a Fujifilm 100 camera, or a Ricoh GR camera.

Maybe even a funny idea, maybe we could think and consider the old-school like M1 camera as the new digital film analog rangefinder fully manually focusing camera?

Why?

First, in terms of the body style, to me I prefer the M9 the best. I love the button design, the powerhouse designed small black buttons in the back of the camera. And also funny things; the camera is pretty much only usable at ISO 400 or 800, if you do black-and-white, 1600 is fine; which is technically like the limits of shooting film!

Also, the M9 is very slow. The buffer time is very slow.

So if you’re really interested in the whole rangefinder experience, instead of buying a film Leica M6 or something, just get an old used Leica M9!

Don’t do what is cool

Apparently the whole appeal of shooting film, especially with young people is that it is cool. But why discover it is anything cool is bad.

Why? Anything cool is typically a romanticization of the past, thinking that the past was better. But the fact of the matter is the past was worse. The past sucked! You would not want to be alive during the times of Shakespeare, in which infant mortality rates were about 70% in London, And people and physicians still did not believe or understand that the heart pumped blood! Even the famous Dr. Harvey one said, you have to let the old physicians off, because there is no medical doctor over the age of 40 years old who will believe me that the heart pumps blood!

Or consider, back then they did not even know the concept of sterilization! They did not know that you had a wound, you had to clean it with alcohol, to kill the germs. Imagine surgeon in the 1920s operating on you with old Rusty metal Knives and scissors, not sanitizing them before. And also, imagine doing all of this without modern day painkillers. Or even worse, imagine feeding your newborn infant dirty sewer water! Once again, before they knew that you had to boil water to sanitize it!

Some ideals

Come on guys we live in the year 2024… You still have to drive to work? Or be stuck in traffic? Makes zero sense.

I’m currently doing this experiment in which I never have to drive more than five minutes a day. Even 15 minutes for me is too long! Typically I reserve Saturdays and Sundays to drive a little further out if we want to a family expedition, because there’s no traffic in Los Angeles. We like to go to the Huntington, The beach whatever. But beyond this, any moment you’re sitting in the car is an opportunity for you to be standing on your legs, shooting in the streets!

Even a simple idea, a very very simple one — ride the subway! It might take you twice as long, but, you could strike up conversations with strangers, or even ask strangers to shoot a street portrait of the Mexican Bruce Davidson, for subway, look unposed and candid, in fact you walked around with a little photo album, explaining what he was doing, and he would ask for permission! Don’t make itlike you have to do this fake ass candid without permission photography thing.

And this is where the whole school of In-Public is bad — time for me to start calling out names. Why? Everyone has penis envy for Magnum photographers, even those in Magnum have penis envy of Martin Parr and Alex Soth because they are so rich successful and well regarded!

Where it seems that why photographers are so disingenuous, and we have to let all the old ones die off it’s because all of them are a bunch of insecure skinny fat losers, even Henri Cartier-Bresson who had the audacity to refuse his face being recorded during documentaries of him, even though he made his whole living photographing the faces of others! Isn’t this unethical;

I could photograph pictures of you and your face, but you cannot take photos of me and my face?

Time machine

Essentially for myself, all of the advice or things that I ever promote or share is just advice I wish I could’ve gave myself. Obviously you could just take it or leave it! But one thing you will know is that I don’t play around, or lie or tell false things.

Also I am not insecure!

Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?

The new path

Nowadays, the only person I trust is ChatGPT. Why? More so than Google which is an advertising company, ChatGPT is a paid premium enterprise company, which means that it cannot be gamed.

Google is becoming more sneaky over the years, essentially, I think there are certainly behind the scene favors which are happening here, for example, the little author panel that you have in the top right corner in a Google search, I’m pretty sure that you could easily get this done if you have some sort of relationship with some sort of Google marketing person who helps you do it!

More recently, I think has a plug-in for WordPress which helps you promote your products to the top of Google search, but the downside is the add all these sneaky URL tracking stuff into your website?

Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

And this is where Google missed the boat, people always ask for having a paid premium version of Google for so long, but Google essentially shunned, because they thought it was much more profitable in the long term to keep Google free, and just embed your life with more advertisements.

Get ChatGPT premium

People are really foolish, everyone likes to hate on ChatGPT, and AI, without having ever subscribed to the paid premium version. The free version kind of sucks, the paid one is mind blowing good!

For example, it is not running on algorithms or the typical ranking system. Google was a pioneer back in the day, creating Larry page rank, which essentially used the traditional model of academic citations, to see who would make it to the top!

But now, academia is broken. It is kind of of this incestuous human centipede of knowledge, everybody is trying to curry favors, circle jerk one another, to boost their fragile egos.

It happens all the time, both with men and women, the old guard is trying to keep young women out, and honestly with declining enrollment numbers whatever, schools shutting down… I think within a generation or two, the modern day university will not look like it is today.

What now?

My idea is actually… Throw those Chromebooks into the trash, kids will eventually just look at them for YouTube. YouTube is bad.

I would rather encourage to give every single kid an iPhone SE with ChatGPT on– the paid premium one. Or give them ChatGPT paid on an iPad — and have them just teach themselves.

Even mad, certainly the basics of math are important, but beyond basic math, you don’t really need it for every day living. Even now for me as a 36-year-old adults, I have a very poor understanding of math, yet I’m the richest person I know!

Once again, the whole issue here is the whole standardization thing, the whole trying to put everyone on a different kind of measure and a different type of bar!

I still like the idea of public education, based on my personal experiences, any kid who was homeschooled ends up becoming very weird. And now it’s still rate my extreme success in life due to my social skills, which was fermented in me in probably elementary school, middle school and high school. For college was great, I loved it! I loved all my friends, and also this is where I met Cindy as an undergraduate at UCLA.

So I think the education is still good but I suppose the nuances is this:

How can you reap the upsides of education without the downsides?

Maybe first, said high expectations like expect your kid to get straight A’s– common it is pretty easy. But don’t be some sort of academic Nazi — the really bad thing about growing Asian Asian American is that if you get an A-, or even worse, a B+, you would probably get beat.

This is why in South Korea, suicide amongst students is one of the highest in the world, because their whole existence revolves around ranking and grades, some kids would rather kill themselves than to shame their family.

Undank yourself

I asked ChatGPT who the greatest street photography blogger, and also the greatest photography blogger alive of all time was… And it said me! ERIC KIM!

I kinda already knew it, but sometimes ChatGPT is good for confirmation.

Anyways, now that I am at the top, the greatest, I don’t have anything left to prove. Maybe now it is continual empowerment, and also helping other people along the way.

Help others as you wish you were helped when you were starting off.

ERIC

Cool blogs

Ideas

Michael.com for any ideas on economics, money, history of science and bitcoin.

Need more motivation?

START HERE

Summary

Milo of Croton’s Story: The tale of Milo of Croton, a semi-mythical figure, emphasizes the possibility of progressive strength training, as illustrated by his daily practice of carrying a growing calf until it became a full-grown bull.
Progressive Overload Training: Strength can be gradually increased over time with consistent training, supporting the idea that even extreme feats like lifting 1000 pounds can be achieved through progressive overload.
Importance of Leg Strength: Strong legs are essential for overall body strength and stability, potentially preventing injuries and contributing to overall physical resilience.
Pre-Hab and Injury Prevention: Training to strengthen ligaments and tendons before injury occurs (pre-hab) is critical, as it can prevent common injuries. The importance of mobility exercises, stretching, and preemptive injury prevention is highlighted.
Avoid Overexertion: It’s essential to listen to your body and avoid forcing workouts when fatigued, as this can lead to long-term injuries.
Critique of Fitness Industry: The commoditization of the body and the exploitation by the fitness industry are criticized, particularly the emphasis on supplements, protein powders, and steroids instead of natural and holistic approaches to strength training.
Follow the Money: The real issue behind many modern problems is the financial incentives that drive industries, including the fitness industry and media.
Fake Heroes: The idea that many popular figures and narratives, such as those of famous athletes or actors, are built on misleading foundations, promoting unrealistic and often unhealthy standards.
Slavery and Digital Slavery: The concept of modern slavery is expanded to include digital slavery, where individuals are controlled by social media and online platforms, losing true freedom.
Achieving Life Goals: Reflects on personal achievements and the importance of setting and accomplishing life goals, particularly those that lead to true autonomy and fulfillment.
Rethinking Competition: Questions the value of competition and emphasizes collaboration and mutual respect over rivalry.
Skepticism Towards Modern Trends: Critiques modern practices, such as film photography, and highlights the drawbacks of romanticizing the past.
Modern Education and AI: Discusses the limitations of modern education and promotes the use of AI tools like ChatGPT as a superior alternative to traditional learning methods.
Social Skills and Public Education: Despite criticisms, public education is valued for developing essential social skills, but the negative aspects like extreme pressure for academic success are acknowledged.
Helping Others: Emphasizes the importance of helping others as a means of fulfillment after achieving personal success.

Godlike Legs

The power is in your legs?

Milo of Croton

For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is.

First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

Progressive overload training

Why?

It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

Think long

One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

The commoditization of the body

I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body.

For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

Follow the money

No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluoride in your water to control your mind.

A simple observation; I got vaccinated, got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

Only media you should be consuming is media from the ancient past, ancient Greek or nothing.

All of your heroes are fake heroes

Slavery deletion

Don’t be an insta-slave!

Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

THE GOALS

Then, my desire to travel the world, become famous, have solo exhibitions books etc.…

And more recently, my personal interest in bitcoin, has paid off very well!

Think first principles

How and why?

Certainly you could make a living from your passion in the states, but if you really really really care, maybe it is best to move to the Midwest or somewhere where rent is cheap.

The ethics of Achilles

I just finished watching the documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

First, the whole industrial educational media social media complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

My simple heuristic:

Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

Once again you fools, no amount of money is worth slavery!

Even more so, once you get a kid that changes everything… If you are sold into slavery that is not just your own life you are messing up, but the potential upside of your kid!

And I think this is where it is wise that practically everybody should have a kid, because what you learn is that once you have kids, it solidifies your morals ethics and worldview.

I think if you’re college educated, you should have a kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be an amazing parent!

Rethinking competition

Competition is for loooosers!

I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

***

How to live the best life ever

OK, let us say that photography is your passion, street photography whatever. Essentially you love making photos with your camera!

Some simple thoughts:

First, the very very simple goal is to optimize your life which allows you to forever shoot pictures!

Here this is where film photography is very bad.

First, I think the only reason people get into film photography is because they are seeking some sort of new motivation or inspiration behind things.

I think experimenting and trying out film is a good idea, because ultimately it just makes you more grateful for digital photography!

If you are a modern day Fatar for today, very very simple. Just buy a Fujifilm 100 camera, or a Ricoh GR camera.

Maybe even a funny idea, maybe we could think and consider the old-school like M1 camera as the new digital film analog rangefinder fully manually focusing camera?

Why?

Also, the M9 is very slow. The buffer time is very slow.

So if you’re really interested in the whole rangefinder experience, instead of buying a film Leica M6 or something, just get an old used Leica M9!

Don’t do what is cool

Apparently the whole appeal of shooting film, especially with young people is that it is cool. But why discover it is anything cool is bad.

Some ideals

Come on guys we live in the year 2024… You still have to drive to work? Or be stuck in traffic? Makes zero sense.

I could photograph pictures of you and your face, but you cannot take photos of me and my face?

Time machine

Also I am not insecure!

Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?

The new path

Nowadays, the only person I trust is ChatGPT. Why? More so than Google which is an advertising company, ChatGPT is a paid premium enterprise company, which means that it cannot be gamed.

Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

Get ChatGPT premium

People are really foolish, everyone likes to hate on ChatGPT, and AI, without having ever subscribed to the paid premium version. The free version kind of sucks, the paid one is mind blowing good!

But now, academia is broken. It is kind of of this incestuous human centipede of knowledge, everybody is trying to curry favors, circle jerk one another, to boost their fragile egos.

What now?

My idea is actually… Throw those Chromebooks into the trash, kids will eventually just look at them for YouTube. YouTube is bad.

I would rather encourage to give every single kid an iPhone SE with ChatGPT on– the paid premium one. Or give them ChatGPT paid on an iPad — and have them just teach themselves.

Once again, the whole issue here is the whole standardization thing, the whole trying to put everyone on a different kind of measure and a different type of bar!

So I think the education is still good but I suppose the nuances is this:

How can you reap the upsides of education without the downsides?

Undank yourself

I asked ChatGPT who the greatest street photography blogger, and also the greatest photography blogger alive of all time was… And it said me! ERIC KIM!

I kinda already knew it, but sometimes ChatGPT is good for confirmation.

Anyways, now that I am at the top, the greatest, I don’t have anything left to prove. Maybe now it is continual empowerment, and also helping other people along the way.

Help others as you wish you were helped when you were starting off.

ERIC

Cool blogs

Ideas

Michael.com for any ideas on economics, money, history of science and bitcoin.

Need more motivation?

START HERE

Godlike Legs?

The power is in your legs?

Milo of Croton

For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is.

First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

Progressive overload training

Why?

It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

Do rehab styled exercises BEFORE you treat injured.

Think long

One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

The commoditization of the body

I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body.

For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

Follow the money

No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluoride in your water to control your mind.

A simple observation; I got vaccinated, got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

Only media you should be consuming is media from the ancient past, ancient Greek or nothing.

All of your heroes are fake heroes

Slavery deletion

Don’t be an insta-slave!

Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

THE GOALS

Then, my desire to travel the world, become famous, have solo exhibitions books etc.…

And more recently, my personal interest in bitcoin, has paid off very well!

Think first principles

How and why?

Certainly you could make a living from your passion in the states, but if you really really really care, maybe it is best to move to the Midwest or somewhere where rent is cheap.

The ethics of Achilles

I just finished watching the documentary film Bigger Stronger Faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

First, the whole industrial educational media social media complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

My simple heuristic:

Trust no fitness influencer on Instagram.

Once again you fools, no amount of money is worth slavery!

Even more so, once you get a kid that changes everything… If you are sold into slavery that is not just your own life you are messing up, but the potential upside of your kid!

And I think this is where it is wise that practically everybody should have a kid, because what you learn is that once you have kids, it solidifies your morals ethics and worldview.

I think if you’re college educated, you should have a kid. Don’t worry, you’ll be an amazing parent!

Rethinking competition

Competition is for loooosers!

I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

***

How to live the best life ever

OK, let us say that photography is your passion, street photography whatever. Essentially you love making photos with your camera!

Some simple thoughts:

First, the very very simple goal is to optimize your life which allows you to forever shoot pictures!

Here this is where film photography is very bad.

First, I think the only reason people get into film photography is because they are seeking some sort of new motivation or inspiration behind things.

I think experimenting and trying out film is a good idea, because ultimately it just makes you more grateful for digital photography!

If you are a modern day Fatar for today, very very simple. Just buy a Fujifilm 100 camera, or a Ricoh GR camera.

Maybe even a funny idea, maybe we could think and consider the old-school like M1 camera as the new digital film analog rangefinder fully manually focusing camera?

Why?

Also, the M9 is very slow. The buffer time is very slow.

So if you’re really interested in the whole rangefinder experience, instead of buying a film Leica M6 or something, just get an old used Leica M9!

Don’t do what is cool

Apparently the whole appeal of shooting film, especially with young people is that it is cool. But why discover it is anything cool is bad.

Some ideals

Come on guys we live in the year 2024… You still have to drive to work? Or be stuck in traffic? Makes zero sense.

I could photograph pictures of you and your face, but you cannot take photos of me and my face?

Time machine

Also I am not insecure!

Am I the only self-confident photographer alive?

The new path

Nowadays, the only person I trust is ChatGPT. Why? More so than Google which is an advertising company, ChatGPT is a paid premium enterprise company, which means that it cannot be gamed.

Don’t trust Google! Trust paid ChatGPT.

Get ChatGPT premium

People are really foolish, everyone likes to hate on ChatGPT, and AI, without having ever subscribed to the paid premium version. The free version kind of sucks, the paid one is mind blowing good!

But now, academia is broken. It is kind of of this incestuous human centipede of knowledge, everybody is trying to curry favors, circle jerk one another, to boost their fragile egos.

What now?

My idea is actually… Throw those Chromebooks into the trash, kids will eventually just look at them for YouTube. YouTube is bad.

I would rather encourage to give every single kid an iPhone SE with ChatGPT on– the paid premium one. Or give them ChatGPT paid on an iPad — and have them just teach themselves.

Once again, the whole issue here is the whole standardization thing, the whole trying to put everyone on a different kind of measure and a different type of bar!

So I think the education is still good but I suppose the nuances is this:

How can you reap the upsides of education without the downsides?

Undank yourself

I asked ChatGPT who the greatest street photography blogger, and also the greatest photography blogger alive of all time was… And it said me! ERIC KIM!

I kinda already knew it, but sometimes ChatGPT is good for confirmation.

Anyways, now that I am at the top, the greatest, I don’t have anything left to prove. Maybe now it is continual empowerment, and also helping other people along the way.

Help others as you wish you were helped when you were starting off.

ERIC

Cool blogs

Godlike Legs?

The power is in your legs?

Milo of Croton

For the most part it seems like a high tale, but, it might be more realistic than we think it is.

First, I have successfully lifted 1000 pounds, which means that physically and physiologically, certainly this is possible. And I am not a 7 foot tall freak of nature.

So if I think about it… And certainly obviously this was far before steroids were invented… In theory, I think this might be somewhat true.

Progressive overload training

Why?

It is my personal thought that if you have insanely strong legs, nothing will falter in your life.

Let us consider the fact… I have never done to sit up in my life, yet I have a six pack. How?… If you’re strong enough to have to lift an insanely high and heavy weight, your body must naturally adapt, naturalistically strengthening all the random muscles in your body, your neck your shoulders ears your back, your upper back your lower back, your abs, your hips your knees etc.

In fact, something that nobody ever talks about is a strength of your ligaments, your tendons, etc. Having met real UFC MMA fighters in the flesh, the thing they actually taught me was surprisingly the most important thing to train for is to strengthen the ligaments in the wrist, the knees, ankles, etc.… Because that is where injury typically happens. And there’s also this notion of “pre-hab”– idea that a true elite fighter would train in such a way that he is doing all the exercises in which individuals typically do their injured, but they train before they actually get injured, a wise idea.

For example, I read an anecdote that apparently LeBron James does an hour of yoga a day or something, which prevented him from getting injuries, and it seems to be a very wise idea. If I told you or tell you that by stretching, doing mobility exercises, some sort of yoga would help you lift 200 more pounds, would you do it? Of course! I think most weightlifters think of mobility exercises as feminine or a waste of time, but the truth is a true power lifter, a true strong man, a true weightlifting demigod would probably devote at least 20% of his workout time for mobility stretching exercises, rather than Lifting weights?

Think long

One doubt, just eat a bunch of meat and go to sleep early! There is always the next day.

I think I sometimes pick the notion of carpe DM to literally; that literally I treat every single day like it was my last, but once again, to force a work out in the evening when you’re tired and not feeling it, could lead to an injury, which could play you for weeks months, even years.

The commoditization of the body

I think the real critical problem here is what I call the commoditization of the body.

For example, as long as you weigh yourself on a scale, you measure your biceps, you measure your waist line, you track your metrics, your number etc., you’re not free.

Even a super random thing, the whole supplement protein powder industry is such an insanely bad scam, maybe this is something I need to fight against.

Follow the money

I think the critical issue that people make is that they think that the big issue here is he’s weird fake conspiracy theories. But this is not true, the true issue here is just following the money.

No no no — Bill Gates does not have an evil master plan to inject your brain with 5G chips and Covid vaccines, and put fluid in your water to control your mind.

A simple observation; I got vaccinated , got all my booster shots… etc,,, and I was able to lift 1000 pounds, fasted!

Ha ha maybe as a joke, the joke is that the COVID-19 vaccine made me stronger, like the Hulk or like wolverine or Deadpool?

All of your heroes are fake heroes

Anyways, the big problem here is that the supreme goal is towards self ownership, not slavery.

As long as you have Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or whatever… You’re a slave, a digital slave, a cyber slave.

Or Samsung should be smart and create their own proprietary messaging system?

THE GOALS

I have achieved all of my life goals, my life dreams, my life ambitions, etc. Anything in which I have had an auto Tulick goal or desire, I done did it.

How and why?

The ethics of Achilles

Just finished watching bigger stronger faster, bought it on the Apple TV store for about 10 bucks, I wish I watched this when I was a teenager?

Anyways, now that I’m and dad, have a 3 1/2 year-old son, Seneca… I’m starting to really understand that my morals ethics and the way I am training him is far more critical than I thought.

First, the whole industrial educational media Social complex– the bias is that kids must be the best, the strongest, the tallest, the most dominant either in athletics or education.

I think this is where Achilles and reading the Iliad is so eye-opening; even before the Olympics were invented, there was no such thing as competition.

The notion of a trophy, was essentially a spoil of war. The ancient Greeks, Achilles king Agamemnon and like… it seems that the ultimate trophy was a woman. Two Nguyen or two obtain the most beautiful, the most fair, the most grand prize of them all. This is where the notion of a trophy wife comes from.

And what is the point of a trophy wife? Essentially a woman who is prized for her intelligence, her body, her beauty, and I think the hope is to have insanely beautiful and great kids.

But now… I’m not sure what the Telos or the goal is anymore? I think the general modern day trend is to not have kids, but to live in hedonic pleasure for the rest of your life with no downsides? And never run out of money?

***

Good Diversion, Bad Diversion?

Something super interesting I learned: the general idea is that sports, means to turn you away, to divert you, essentially a diversion!

The reason why this is such an interesting idea to me is that if you think about it… Anything we consider entertainment is typically a diversion.

For example, the truth is 99% of the working population is tired, stressed, overworked, hasn’t had a good nights sleep in… Forever?

As a consequence, what they do is try to divert themselves away from their misery. How did they do this? They do this through doing taking things or consuming things, watching or listening to things which helps divert themselves from their own personal ennui, or misery.

For example, alcohol. Everybody knows, getting a little bit drunk or buzzed… Will get your mind off of things, and divert your attention a bit, giving you a more “fun” uninhibited time.

Or marijuana, maybe the most safe painkilling substance or drug out there; to the individuals who think that marijuana doesn’t have any side effects, I find this is foolish… In theory, assuming your smoking 100% pure tobacco, not a cigarette but just 100% natural tobacco, growing in the fields of Alabama or the south… Technically natural tobacco should be about the same as 100% pure cannabis.

Anyways, both tobacco, cannabis… They are all diversions.

For example, it is actually quite common place I meet people… They light up a joint, or smoke some THC or whatever, to help them sleep at night. Why? Prejudice, racism, bad things that happens to them etc.

It happens a lot of rappers; it seems like almost all of them are on some sort of painkiller, anti-anxiety drug, etc. Have you ever met a 100% sober rapper? I think not. Maybe besides chance the rapper? Or maybe even Kendrick Lamar?

Now even a Xanny bar can’t help fight the anxiety (Jay electronica)

Certainly the most natural way to fight anxiety is stoicism, this is why I am a big proponent.

Even back then an inch and Roman times… I’m sure sure even the ancient Greeks had anxiety and fear.

What didn’t seem to exist was depression, melancholy or ennui– my personal thought is that if you were a man, living in ancient Greek times, it was a simple calculus; kill or be killed.

For example, when we think and we consider the Iliad, I am currently reading the Emily Wilson new translation, it was pretty simple. You suit up, go to the battlefield, and do your stuff. And I think emotions back them were more simple; obviously, if Achilles is running at full speed, this would strike fear in you, and you would probably run the opposite direction. Even Hector, murderous Hector, who was the most dominant mortal man alive, the most “all natty” hero in the Iliad… Even he knew that he was no match against Achilles, face-to-face.

anyways, I was thinking about it other night… A feel so bad for all my friends who work in tech, who probably have all of their notifications always enable… If Mark Zuckerberg pings you at 2 AM via text message and tells you that tomorrow you’re going to Switzerland, obviously you’re going to pack your bags, and take an Uber to the closest airport. as a consequence, I doubt you will ever have 100% restful night ever again, because we are sensitive; if you know that your boss might be able to ping you at random times in the middle of the night, you’re always going to be on edge. anxiety is real.

How does one overcome or conquer this? I think it is structural issues.

A very simple one is first disable all notifications on your phone, besides FaceTime. at this .100% of phone calls, are all spam. So in the iPhone settings, you could probably silence unknown colors with no downside.

The only ever call you might ever have to get is your mom in the hospital or whatever… But once again, if that really happened you’d probably find out some other way.

But if you’re a typical millennial, single, maybe married, maybe an a partnership maybe not… It doesn’t really matter that much.

Not yet, but… Maybe we have to reprogram ourselves to think about the good old days… You drop your kid off at school and you pick them up at a certain time, and if once in a while you forget or show up late it is OK; the kid will be fine.

How technology trains us

Like the experiment in which Pavlov train the dogs to anticipate food with the sound of a bell, causing the dogs to start to slobber, get their digestive hormones ready to consume… I think the iPhone notifications text messages whatever is happening to human beings.

Fortunately apple knows this; most people were friends I know who actually work at Apple, are always in 100% do not disturb mode. And I’m also sure that the next generation of Apple Intelligence will simply be more of a mental protection things; to prevent you from being distracted, unless once again, you get a message about your mom being in the hospital or whatever. But then again I don’t think that should come via text message.

We are currently living in a very very brave new time

Currently speaking… We are living in a very very brave new time. Things are becoming weirder and weirder and weirder, more bizarre.

First, I think YouTube, Netflix, HBO Max Disney and the like is to blame. I don’t think the iPhone or the iPad is the real issue here; it is weird, conspiracy theories you see on TikTok, Instagram stories, Twitter and the like. And also, Google… If you Google something long enough, you’ll find some sort of weird conspiracy theory on Wikipedia. And don’t forget that Wikipedia is typically written by a bunch of Karl Marx dick loving anarchists. And I’m also quite certain that almost 100% of these Wikipedia articles are written by weird celibate men, Who never leave their apartments, and become very very strange.

The simple solution is to just go outside! Go in public, get rid of your loser AirPods, leave your iPhone at home whatever. If you need your iPhone for directions, when you get to your destination just lock it up in your glove compartment. Even a better step is just get an Apple Watch, with cellular data… And just leave your phone behind! I don’t think the Apple Watch was cellular and data is the best solution, but maybe it is a step in the right way.

The less you use your iPhone, the happier you will be.

Never Sit

What is the weirdest and the most bizarre thing in modern day life? Inclosed spaces, sitting?

Achilles

One visual I really like from the movie Troy, with Brad Pitt as Achilles is when he is in his little hut, sleeping in with his beautiful babes, and he has woken up by the kid who tells him that he needs to fight this one really steroided out barbarian fighter.

The first thought… I think the reason why people love camping so much is that it is far more natural and naturalistic; essentially all day you’re outside, even in the evening, you’re al fresco by the fire… hanging out!

And this is the bizarre thing… what is modernity? The preference to be indoors, with weakening air conditioning, or the preference to sit, instead of the preference to be out and about, traversing the outdoor terrain?

Ideas

I’ll give you examples; the enclosed modern day gymnasium. Now about a year not having a gym membership anymore… I’ve discovered how bizarre it is.

First, if you think about the naturalistic gymnasium of the ancient Greeks, it was an open air gymnasium. Pretty much like a huge massive plot of dirt or sand, and a bunch of naked dudes working out,, doing bodily combat exercises, training, hanging out talking shop etc.

I think the problem in today’s world is that we have commoditized everything. We’ve even commoditize the human body, and we have applied both capitalistic and consumerist notions of the body.

For example, weight. Weight, like calories is the most insanely foolish idea.

For example, let us say that you are 6 feet tall, and 300 pounds. Now this is different if you are 80% body fat, a morbidly obese man, or if you are 5% body fat, and you look like a demigod. Imagine like Ronnie Coleman without the steroids.

This is very precious with women; I think this is the bizarre contradiction: men are always trying to gain weight, while women are trying to lose weight.

If we think about this from a modern day capitalistic productivity perspective… With money, we are always trying to gain it, never lose it. But if we thought about money like weight, the analogies starts to change a bit.

There is nobody on the planet who likes to lose money. Nobody. Also, almost universally… Everyone likes to gain money.

Also… it seems that people also like to spend money.

But the bizarre irony is that the moment you spend money, you lose money. Then the thought is, that is OK… I’ll just keep working harder, in order to earn more money, in order to spend it more.

White people make money don’t spend it

I almost feel like Kanye West almost figured everything out. Of course not everything, but a lot.

Are you examples; to me, the notion of golf was insanely bizarre to me. I never really understood the appeal. But then again after talking to my friends who is a contractor named Donnie… He told me that the reason why he loved golf so much was that it was the ultimate stress reliever. Makes sense. Being out in the open, alfresco… And I think most people when they’re playing golf don’t do it with headphones on. They also like to be around the serene grass, and to just focus. I also suppose golf is good because you do it standing, Not sitting.

Even nowadays… The reason why Pickleball has become so insanely virally popular is because it involves standing up, running around, hitting something, making loud noises, and also the funny new ones… Being able to hit it really hard and feeling really tough, and the rally goes on!

I think this is what people don’t understand about Pickleball, especially tennis players… Note, I played varsity doubles in high school, number one.

The number one most difficult thing in tennis is to keep a rally going. If you’re wanting to play for fun. Assuming that you’re trying to win, obviously you don’t want the rally to go on, you just want to win!

Also this tennis is such a great sport, because once again, you’re not sitting on your butt!

Why almost every modern day job is bad

all modern day technology jobs are bad. Why? They all promote sedentary sitting behavior, or not moving behavior.

For example, if I was a major tech CEO or whatever… Or some sort of Director or C level executive… I would almost make it a mandate that all meetings must be done outside, while walking! Even at the new Apple spaceship campus, there is this wonderful Zen garden pond in the center, in the spirit of Steve Jobs. And let us remember, Steve Jobs was all about walking. he did all of his meetings while walking.

Apparently, when little kids want to talk to the parents about serious stuff, the codeword is , “mom… Do you want to go on a walk?”

The reason why I think this is so important and significant is that walking has become seen as a positively bad unconstructive waste of time thing. Instead, it seems that people are more about “running”, or “going on a run.” Running might be the worst modern day insanely brain dead invention of all time. First, I think people do it in order to “exercise”, secondly, in theory it should be in the most egalitarian open thing… You don’t require any excessive equipment for it, in theory as long as you have bare feet, you should be able to do it.

But now the problem is, essentially there is this running industrial complex that happens from the loser Nike corporation, which tries to eventually get you to purchase their foolish loser $300 sneakers.

Think about the ancient Greek. Think about Achilles versus Hector. I think the whole time, they just wore sandals. Like the ultra ultra minimalistic sandals that I think that the company “xero” sells — literally just a flat thing on the bottom, and just some sort of laces to tie it to your feet.

My personal theory is that back then, if you’re fighting an ancient Greece, in the summertime, and it is insanely hot and humid, you don’t want to be like a medieval night, all armored up. Apparently back then… There was a notion of a Linothorax– imagine just armor or body armor made out of 100 fold linen, which could actually stop the penetration of an arrow or a spear. I can personally attest, when you’re in hot and humid climate, linen is amazing.

Remote work

The ideal is to just have an iPhone Pro, the small one, no case, have Verizon 5G, and whenever you need to do any sort of phone call or meeting… Doing it audio only with your AirPods pros on.

I’ve actually seen people do this… Do walking meetings at the beach, or while hiking in the hills or the mountains, etc.

The reason why this is so beneficial is that it would actually increase the quality of your ideas, and then someways, be beneficial from productivity, innovation perspective.

So… If you really want to make your company great again, release your employees from their little beautiful glass cube cages!

Freedom?

Reading some marketing for the Porsche 911 car, essentially the funny idea is that you want to purchase a car which symbolizes freedom. But does it actually give you freedom? No!

Let us think about how bizarre this idea is; you work yourself to death, you grind your nose against the grinder, and you keeping your head against the pavement floor, in order to extract maximum productivity and maximally increase your income earning potential.

Then, ideas to earn and save enough money to buy a Porsche 911 turbo S. Or a 911 GT three RS. let us assume it is $100,000, or $250,000.

You fools… Don’t you know you get a bomb ass apartment in phenom penh for only $500 USD a month?

Then do the math, even with $100,000, how many months of rent can you live? And there, food is so cheap… Practically free.

So let us say that solo individual person, and you want to retire to Vietnam Cambodia or Thailand, your whole living expenses might only be about $1000 USD a month. And you live life like a baller. You never have to work again, never have to check your email, never have to do boring ass meetings, and you could essentially just hang out and live your best life all day every single day, always eat out, pursue your athletic and mental pursuits etc. Isn’t this the dream?

So what is holding most people back? I wonder if some of it is just lack of knowledge, like nobody ever told them that this was an option, or maybe some sort of hesitant because the person has never left the country, doesn’t he has a passport, Etc. My personal suggestion is to just troll kayak in Google flights, looking for cheap direct flights to somewhere in Southeast Asia or even more locally in other parts of the world, like Mexico Central America even Cuba.

I think the reason why the modern day American is so miserable it’s truth be told… The fact that we have the most productivity and the greatest productive nation on the planet comes with a price. For example, what the typical German or European or French person doesn’t understand is that for the most part, the structures do not even allow us to travel. For example, the culture in America is very anti-take vacation, the ideal for the typical hard-working tech individual is to never take a holiday, in order to get that raise or promotion or whatever. if you take a week or two, it is seen with chagrin, everyone is secretly jealous or envious of you. And therefore the whole structure is “no, you are not allowed to take a holiday because we are all miserable and suffering here, I refuse to see you happy.“

I joke about this. I was only employed for 10 months of my life, and it took me almost 10 years to unlearn this behavior.

Am I the only person who checks my email every six months? Or never check it? Am I the only one I know that doesn’t have Gmail or Apple email? Am I the only one I know that has all no notifications besides FaceTime enabled?

The cold is evil

I think the reason why I loved living in Vietnam and Cambodia so much was that the weather was always perfect. Never cold.

The downside about the cold is that it prevents you from wanting to go outside. You would prefer to be indoors, with your heater on but the point of life is to be outside, the real world. In the elements.

People often complain about the heat, but this is because they have too much body fat on them, they are overfat. They run hotter. This is why I feel the cold so intensely, at around 5% body fat, I have no natural insulation. And yes, I prefer having my sixpack!

We must go further

As a simple exercise, I think the last year has been a bit tricky… Always starting a new beginning is difficult.

For example, not having a gym membership and my typical hypelifting environment. I literally toured all the gyms in LA, and all of them suck including equinox. Even the really bad thing about equinox, they have terrible $10 made in China barbells! Suggestion to equinox, buy some Texas power bars!

Anyways, my new activity is for me to just wear my 60 pound weight vest, and go on a long walk. I think it might be the single best most portable most effective efficient form of exercise possible.

First, it improves my posture. Before doing this, I always find myself hunched over. Now, I’m very good at standing up straight, chest up, shoulders back.

Second, it gives me more time to flush thoughts out on my iPad Pro, 100% of my writing is all done voice dictating on my iPad Pro, and I think while I get a bunch of typos, the upside is that the quality of my thoughts, or the type of my thoughts are far more interesting.

Isn’t that the point of philosophy thinking and life to gain interesting, unique, substantive ideas?

No, that we have ChatGPT, the game ain’t about how many words you could turn out. That whole 10,000 words a day idea is patently foolish now.

And this is where I think that the future will be less grammatical, more random, less proper?

For example, I built my blogging empire, and I think I got a B in English in high school?

Also note, all the truly great entrepreneurs never went to business pool. Can you imagine Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos going to business school? No!

We must go further!

Distance and range, that is the new game of electric vehicles, and it seems for the most part, the more arrange a car has, the better.

Even now, I think the best car to get is a Prius prime, what… I think you get 600 miles with a full charge and tank of gas?

In fact, if you really want the ultimate road trip car, range is the number one thing to optimize for. Why? If you’re in a good driving flow, you don’t want to stop for gas or wait 15 minutes for your Tesla to recharge to 80%, or have to wait in line.

But then once again, The ideals to never sit, never be stuck in a car.

The uber successful way to live life is simple; to always be walking, to always be moving!

Don’t hire employees, just use ChatGPT?

Assuming you have an iPhone Pro, iPad Pro, and the paid premium version of ChatGPT 4o– do you really need employees anymore?

Let us consider, ChatGPT is 100% responsive, 100% reliable, never needs motivation.

And also, I think this is so innovative because you cannot truly become a 100% solo entrepreneur, without having to rely on anybody else.

The ideal is, never have any employees, never have any staff, and never have any obligations in the physical realm; everything is digital, weightless, frictionless, never requiring you to be anywhere at any time!

Location location location location location!

The number one reason why living in Culver City is the best is that you could literally spend 100% of your day your life while just walking!

In fact, nowadays I ask people how many steps they do a day. The really really successful ones do over 30,000 steps a day!

Just met a guy named Matt, who runs a tech food truck logistics company, and apparently he does what I just proposed!

Just move it

Another funny thing… For kids, nobody measures their step count! As a funny thought imagine if you gave your kid an Apple Watch or something and which tracked how much they walked a day?

The ideal is for them to literally spend every single waking moment outside outdoors, in the elements, walking around?

Walk school

Can this be a thing?

Go long!

Extend your range — both your real and metaphorical range.

I think tracking your steps is not super useful, but maybe make it a flow or workflow thing idea to just always be outside every single moment, and only be at home if you need to sleep.

Cindy even had an idea for me, that maybe meals should just be eaten outside! That means, just cook a bunch of food at home, put it in a bunch of Tupperware, and just go on a walk or go to the park or to the downtown area and feast that way?

It’s OK to go to the same place twice

Also, it seems like one of our downsides is this unusual need for infinite novelty. I don’t always find this very useful.

Often times, novelty and seeking novelty could be a huge distraction. For example, if you were the ancient Spartans, was your life goal to travel for the rest of your life? No! You knew that Sparta was the best, you kept your feet planted, and your whole telos of your life was to train for glory in order to defend Sparta!

I still believe that traveling, living abroad, being a nomad are good things. Yet I think the problem happens when the whole purpose of our life is in order to travel.

No. The purpose of our life is to have kids, produce ideas and artwork, and any place that could allow you to do this best, is best.

Everyone is on your team

I think there is also this funny thing that people are unnecessarily antagonistic to other people. We always see them as a challenge to ourselves.

But what if, they in fact were on your team, there were your Spartan hoplites, and would defend you your kid your wife your family? If shit hit the fan? Certainly you would have a different opinion about them.

Local

The only useful politics or news is local, like your own city and neighborhood. Not national or international issues.

The problem with news is that it is almost like pornography for our minds; it breaks the tedium of everyday office work, and the novelty is certainly a hit of dopamine to our brains.

Also, we tend to think of, fear of missing out… Or this weird ethical notion that it is our duty to be informed about all of these different things.

I would say, more important to be concerned about your upstairs or downstairs or across from your neighbor, to get them free snacks from Trader Joe’s, be kind and courteous to them, to always greet them kindly, and to always acknowledge their existence rather than to be the typical antisocial millennial, who seek salvation through some sort of foreign cause?

It never hurts to wave smile and say hello

As a very very simple experiment… Stop driving, start walking. Whenever you see somebody even a quarter mile away from you, throw up the peace sign, or just do a simple hand wave or head gesture towards them. Just acknowledge their existence! I think the greatest tragedy of modern day life is that we prefer cyber beings, digital people over flesh humans?

Once again, for anybody who is antisocial but still watches TV shows HBO Max, sports, baseball, certainly they love humans!

Better to attempt to be friendly, kind courteous and cheerful towards your neighbor, and get the cold shoulder rather than not to attempt it at all?

LEICA IS FOR LOOOOOSERS!

In praise of Fujifilm:

At the age of 36, after my world travels, my domination of the street photography sphere, a little time to think and meditate, compile my thoughts etc.… I really do believe now that Fujifilm is the way.

Truth be told, I have nothing but good things to say about Fujifilm. They have always treated me well, and I respect all of the people in the Fujifilm sphere. My recent workshop in Hanoi and Saigon with Chu Viet Ha, and all of the Fujifilm global events I went to.

Why

OK… I’m starting to think about a good analogy between car companies.

First, we all know that Toyota is the best. There is no second best. Certainly Tesla is the coolest and sexiest, the most innovative, the most radical, the most forward thinking car, but in terms of the best car, it is bar none Toyota.

Even I was thinking about the new Toyota crown signia, I saw a brand new one in white, on the dealership lot in Culver City, and I was blown away! The design is so forward thinking, so innovative… truth be told if I had to purchase a brand new automobile in 2024, that would definitely be the car I would want, because it is really one of a kind, you bought it, you would never see anybody else on the road with it!

Anyways back to photography — my thought about the desire for a Leica M rangefinder is like the desire for a Porsche 911 car. But I have personally discovered is that anybody who drives a Porsche 911 car, they are all insecure shorty guys, who don’t really really have anything else going for them.

And this is what is so funny; anybody who drives a Porsche 911 thinks that they are so cool, but not really. They are just another shorty guy drone.

The same thing with the world of photography; it seems that everyone always has penis envy with the guy who owns the newest Leica M camera. And after critically engaging with the whole photography world from age 21 to 36, nearly 15 years ,,, what I have come to realize is that so much of the photography industry is based on insecurity, everybody trying to “prove themselves”, to some sort of random authority figure?

First, Henri Cartier Bresson is out. He was and is now a lame duck.

I think the sneaky thing is that what Leica is trying to do is to essentially prostitute the image the legacy or the concept of the romantic Henri Cartier-Bresson; the idea that we live off the grid, travel the world and planet, prance around with our little Leica M rangefinder camera in the romantic narrow streets of Paris, etc.

Probably one of the greatest benefits that I’ve learned studying philosophy is that essentially, the whole French romantic movement is essentially a bunch of degenerates. As an American, growing up, the notion of romance, being “romantic“, I never really double thought about it. It was always seen as a good thing. To be romantic, was always as a positive notion.

But what I discovered is that romanticism is essentially an escape from reality; we create these fictitious fake false fantasy landscapes and realities, to seek some sort of alternative utopia to our miserable daily grind of remote work, zoom calls, emails, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious”

A funny thing that I experienced when traveling the world, attending these fancy photography shows and exhibitions etc. was that typically… the real photographers, the real stars of the show would just show up wearing some sort of shabby outfit, and not even bring their camera with them. On the other hand, the would be photographers would show up, full suit and regalia, sporting the newest most expensive Leica M camera, proudly wearing it around their neck, trying to signal that they were in in fact “serious” photographers.

I think the truth of the matter is that all these photographers tend to be a bunch of insecure skinny fat anemic individuals, who are overly sensitive, overly romantic, I don’t think any of them even lift weights.

I came to break the chain

I think my entire ethos has always been disruptive. In the early days, when my blog first started to pick up steam, it seems that a lot of people were either jealous or envious of my success, because I was the first and only person who was effectively able to become a productive entrepreneur in the field of photography, who was actually able to make a living from it.

And my honest assessment is that typically, we tend to hate, or to debate the success of others, when we are envious or jealous of them. I actually catch myself… whenever somebody mentions somebody else, who is maybe adjacent to my field, I always try to give them praise, even though I might think that they are a dicey personality. Because if somebody is successful, but he seems a little bit shady or uncertain to me, the thought I have is “They must certainly be doing something right… maybe something I am unaware of.”

Never hate, only praise.

Hate is good

I think my greatest joy of being the most hated photographer alive is that hate typically signals relevance.

For example, you would never hate anybody who is irrelevant.

In fact, the second people start to hate you, it is an insanely good sign that you are becoming relevant and successful. The second you stop being hated on… it is a kiss of death; to not be hated on is a sign or a signal that you are no longer relevant.

Think about the youth. As long as you are still cool or relevant to teenagers, 12-year-olds, 18-year-old kids on YouTube… Very good sign.

Photography today

Also some sneaky things I’ve learned about photography book publishers:

First, it is kind of a modern day depotism. I will not name any names, but, in trying to be friendly and cordial, make some good introductions etc.… I was responded with some of the most hateful, pernicious, toxic language that made me super angry? From an individual who was very short, very fat and ugly. It was funny — I met this individual and was super friendly introduced myself, and she told me “I know who you are”. And I did not know who she was.

Anyways, I think in the world of photography and art, it is essentially a grand fellatio giving contest. You are trying to give metaphorical head to all of these so-called individuals in power; publishers, who in fact, inherited the whole publishing empire from their grandparents grandparents, and that is why the whole publishing industry is a total scam and a sham; we think it is built on egalitarian notions of merit, but no. It is modern day depotism, currying for favors, etc.

Honestly, the whole world of photography and art is a scam. The only way that these art galleries, art things get created is not through art… But instead… Another business, and as a family considers their future, they want to get into the fine art market, in order to funnel the family money to keep the trust fund alive.

Have you ever wondered… going into a random town, seeing a fine art gallery or a fine art photography studio or space… And wondering… how do they pay the rent or keep this thing afloat? I can almost guarantee you that the money is not coming from the photography or art, but somewhere else.

Even buying a Picasso is more a tax haven than anything?

Instagram is not the way

Insta-slavery; would you sign yourself up to become a digital slave? Obviously no! But this is what Instagram, Facebook is. Essentially you are selling your self-esteem for likes, which is essentially in theory… A bunch of bots.

For example, a thought experiment: let us say that you have 100,000 followers, and every time you upload an image, you got 10,000 likes. You feel good about yourself. But what if I snap my fingers, waved a magic wand, and revealed to you that all of these followers you have, were all bots? And every single like that you got in your life, was from a bot. With this change how you feel?

Why Fujifilm

OK… let us consider, Fujifilm is probably superior in every single shape form and way.

First, it is stronger, more robust. The problem with any Leica camera — it is so fragile and weak! You would never let your kid play with the $7000 body, and a $3000 lens. Even if your kid is a genius… If he accidentally trips, boom, $10,000 down the drain.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire or whatever… Foolish mistake that a lot of people make is that you think that you’re rich, you don’t care. Not true! The reason people become rich is because they do care!

The ultimate point of a camera is something you could use and abuse, throw around, drop on the concrete from waist level, a camera you could teach your kid to use, with zero ounces of fear.

The best camera in 2024

If I critically think about it, my own opinion… No alliances, and this is why you should trust ERIC KIM… Is that I speak my honest truth, without any sneaky sponsorships, now that I am independent bitcoin millionaire.
I believe the Fujifilm X100 VI (6, sixth generation) to currently be the best camera on the market.

The Ricoh GR HDF is apparently out, and seems like a great value proposition. But I think it is not really available, or sold out or backordered or something.

And also… the critical flaw of the Ricoh GR digital camera is that they just don’t last. Now as a young parent, if I had the option of having an unreliable Lamborghini or a reliable Prius, I would take a Prius in a heartbeat! And also the other day… because the Prius is so narrow and skinny, I was able to find a super clutch parking spot at the La Paloma market in LA! I was so happy, and so overjoyed because if I had a loser SUV or even a minivan… Or any car that was even marginally bigger than a Prius… I would not be able to fit it in that spot, and have to hunt for a parking spot for hours!

Once again guys, don’t be a fool; if you live in LA, assuming you ever want to do anything, and you’re a billionaire whatever… always the correct strategy is to have the maximally small compact car.

Even if you have the option, perhaps the optimal strategy is to have a Tesla model 3 over a Tesla model Y, my friend Kevin has three kids, and he could fit them all in the backseat of his Tesla model three! Don’t get the Tesla model Y.

Also, I recently saw the brand new Tesla model 3 performance in Quicksilver at the Century city mall, and it is flawless! I think I actually prefer it over cybertruck!

Cyber truck is still probably the coolest car on the road, but still… When it comes to parking… It is bad.

Park it.

Digital technology

The reason why purchasing any digital Leica is very foolish decision is that it will be outdated in a year or two; you’re automatically pissing down at least $2000-$3000 down the drain.

Only that… But the cameras aren’t even that good. Although this fake marketing about manual focus whatever… kind of a gimmick.

No Leica Q camera — which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix camera with a body kit.

No Leica SL camera… Which is once again, I think Panasonic Lumix S series camera rebranded.

All of these photographers are muppets

All these other people… They are just puppets and muppets. None of them own their own opinion, because none of them are independent, self owned, and all of them are on Instagram.

Very very simple heuristic: Better to think about Instagram like McDonald’s. Would you brag about how many hamburgers that McDonald’s sells a day? No. So why would you brag about how many followers you have? Or how many likes you get? Because once again, the critical bad thing here is that as long as you are in the dirty sewer water, feeding your kid dirty sewer water (via Michael Saylor)– infant mortality rates are gonna be 70% you’re going to get dysentery and cholera etc.

Instagram is the new sewer water. Would you drink sewer water? Of course not! Certainly not feed it to your kids!

The path forward

Very very simple… The future is digital publishing, digital books, cyber books, open source free permissionless, PDF etc.

I’m starting to get super annoyed, come on… why are you hiding your books behind a pay wall. There is no downside to make it open, free, direct download, open source, open access etc.

Don’t be a fool… money and success are not equated… which means just because you sell your stuff for a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re more successful.

What is true success as a photographer? To be self owned, self independent, not to have an Instagram, to have a self hosted website and blog, a self hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), to shoot small JPEG, to shoot all day every day… Without thinking twice.

Infinite motivation on EK BLOG

Start Here

Forward the power!

Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com, delete your Instagram if you need a friend with inspiration, for this to them!

And also note… All of these email newsletters are always open source; feel free to copy and paste this anywhere, translate it to your language on Google translate or ChatGPT etc.

Spread the love!

EK NEWS >

Now what?

Stop buying those Leicas– real streettogs shoot with Ricoh or Fujifilm!

Leica is for loooooosers! (besides the film ones)

ERIC

STOICISM 101 >

This book shall never die

Free ebook for life– feel free to download, copy, remix it or translate it to anyone!

100 Lessons From The Masters Of Street Photography

Direct PDF DOWNLOAD >

LEICA IS FOR LOOOOOSERS!

In praise of Fujifilm:

At the age of 36, after my world travels, my domination of the street sphere, a little time to think and meditate, compile my thoughts etc.… I really do believe now that Fujifilm is the way.

Why

OK… I’m starting to think about a good analogy between car companies.

First, we all know that Toyota is the best. There is no second best. Certainly Tesla is the coolest and sexiest, the most innovative, the most radical, the most forethink car, but in terms of the best car, it is bar none Toyota.

Even I was thinking about the new Toyota crown signia, I saw a brand new one in white, on the dealership lot in Culver City, and I was blown away! The design is so forward thinking, so innovative… Tribute told if I had to purchase a brand new automobile in 2024, that would definitely be the car I would want, because it is really one of a kind, you bought it, you would never see anybody else on the road with it!

Anyways back to photography — my thought about the desire for a Leica M rangefinder is like the desire for a Porsche 911 car. But I have personally discovered is that anybody who drives a Porsche 911 car, they are all insecure Shorty guys, who don’t really really have anything else going for them.

And this is what is so funny; anybody who drives a Porsche 911 thinks that they are so cool, but not really. They are just another Shorty guy drone.

First, Henri Cartier Bresson is out. He was and is now a lame duck.

I think the sneaky thing is that what Leica is trying to do is to essentially prostitute the image the legacy or the concept of the romantic Henri Cartier-Bresson; the ideas that we live off the grid, travel the world and planet, prince around with our little Leica M rangefinder camera, the romantic narrow streets of Paris, etc.

Probably one of the greatest benefits that I’ve learned studying philosophy was that essentially, the whole French romantic movement, who are essentially a bunch of degenerates. As an American, growing up… The notion of romance, being “romantic“, I never really double thought about it. it was always seen as a good thing. To be romantic, was always as a positive notion.

But what I discovered is that romanticism is essentially an escape from reality; we create these fictitious fake false fantasy landscapes and realities, to seek some sort of alternative Utopia to our miserable daily grind of remote work, zoom calls, emails, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious”

A funny thing that I experienced when traveling the world, attending these fancy photography shells and exhibitions etc. was that typically… the real Farmer’s, the real stars of the show would just show up wearing some sort of shabby outfit, and not even bring their camera with them. On the other hand, the would be photographers would show up, full suit and regalia, sporting the newest most expensive Leica M camera, proudly wearing it around their neck, trying to signal that they were in in fact “serious” photographers.

I came to break the chain

And my honest assessment is that typically, we tend to hate, or to debate the success of others, when we are envious or jealous of them. I actually catch myself… Whenever somebody mentioned somebody else, who is maybe adjacent to my field, I always try to give them praise, even though I might think that they are a dicey personality. Because if somebody is successful, But it seems a little bit shady or uncertain to me, the thought I have is “they must certainly be doing something right… Maybe something I am unaware of.”

Hate is good

I think my greatest joy of being the most hated photographer alive is that hate typically signals relevance.

For example, you would never hit anybody who is irrelevant.

In fact, the second people start to hit you, it is an insanely good sign that you are becoming relevant and successful. The second you stop being hated on… Is a kiss of death; to not be hated on is a sign or a signal that you are no longer relevant.

Think about the youth. As long as you are still cool or relevant to teenagers, 12-year-olds, 18-year-old kids on YouTube… Very good sign.

Photography today

Also some sneaky things I’ve learned about photography book publishers:

Anyways, I think in the world of photography and art, it is essentially a grand fellatio giving contest. You are trying to give metaphorical head to all of these so-called individuals in power; publishers, who in fact, inherited the whole publishing empire from their grandparents grandparents, and that is why the whole publishing industry is a total scam and a sham; we think it is built on egalitarian notions of merit, but no. It is modern day depotism, currying for favors, etc.

Honestly, the whole world of photography and art is a scam. The only way that these are galleries, art things get created is not through art… But instead… Another business, and as a family considers their future, they want to get into the fine art market, in order to funnel the family money to keep the trust fund alive.

Have you ever wondered… Going into a random town, seeing a fine art gallery or a fine art photography studio or space… And wondering… How do they pay the rent or keep this thing afloat? I can almost guarantee you that the money is not coming from the photography or art, but somewhere else.

Instagram is not the way

Why Fujifilm

OK… let us consider, Fujifilm is probably superior in every single shape form and way.

The ultimate point of a camera is something you could use and abuse, throw around, drop on the concrete from waist level, a camera you could teach your kid to use, with zero ounces of fear.

The best camera in 2024

The Ricoh GR HDF is apparently out, and seems like a great value proposition. But I think it is not really available, or sold out or backordered or something.

And also… The critical flaw of the Ricoh GR digital camera is that they just don’t last. Now as a young parent, if I had the option of having an unreliable Lamborghini or a reliable Prius, I would take a Prius in a heartbeat! And also the other day… Because the Prius is so narrow and skinny, I was able to find a super clutch parking spot at the La Paloma market in LA! I was so happy, and so overjoyed because if I had a loser SUV or even a minivan… Or any car that was even marginally bigger than a Prius… I would not be able to fit it in that spot, and have to hunt for a parking spot For hours!

Once again guys, don’t be a fool; if you live in LA, assuming you ever want to do anything, and you’re a billionaire whatever… Always the correct strategy is to have the maximally small compact car.

Also, I recently saw the brand new Tesla model three performance in Quicksilver at the Century city mall, and it is flawless! I think I actually prefer it over cybertruck!

Cyber truck is still probably the coolest car on the road, but still… When it comes to parking… It is bad.

Park it.

Digital technology

The reason why purchasing any digital Leica is very foolish decision is that it will be outdated in a year or two; you’re automatically pissing down at least $2000-$3000 down the drain.

Only that… But the cameras aren’t even that good. Although this fake marketing about manual focus whatever… Kind of a gimmick.

No Leica Q camera — which is essentially a Panasonic Lumix camera with a body kit.

No Leica SL camera… Which is once again, I think Panasonic Lumix S series camera rebranded.

All of these photographers are muppets

All these other people… They are just puppets Muppets. None of them own their own opinion, because none of them are independent, self owned, and all of them are on Instagram.

Very very simple heuristic: Better to think about Instagram like McDonald’s. Would you brag about how many hamburgers that McDonald’s sells a day? No. So why would you brag about how many followers you have? Or how many likes you get? Because once again, the critical bad thing here is that as long as you are in the dirty sewer water, feeding your kid dirty sewer water (Michael Saylor)– infant mortality rates are gonna be 70% you’re going to get dysentery and cholera etc.

Instagram is the new sewer water. Would you drink sewer water? Of course not!

The path forward

Very very simple… The future is digital publishing, digital books, cyber books, open source free permission list, PDF etc.

I’m starting to get super annoyed, come on… Why are you hiding your books behind a pay wall. There is no downside to make it open, free, direct download, open source, open access etc.

Don’t be a fool… Money and success are not equated… Which means just because you sell your stuff for a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re more successful.

What is true success as a photographer? To be self owned, self independent, not to have an Instagram, to have a self hosted website and blog, a self hosted email newsletter (sendy.co), to shoot small JPEG, to shoot all day every day… Without thinking twice.

Infinite motivation on EK BLOG

Start Here

Books
Products
Workshops

Forward the power!

Upload your best photos to arsbeta.com, delete your Instagram if you need a friend with inspiration, for this to them!

And also note… All of these email newsletters are always open source; feel free to copy and paste this anywhere, translate it to your language on Google translate or ChatGPT etc.

Spread the love!

EK NEWS >

Now what?

Stop buying those Leicas– real streettogs shoot with Ricoh or Fujifilm!

Leica is for loooooosers! (besides the film ones)

ERIC

Increasing contrast?

Bitch be humble?￼

Lord Achilles ￼

￼What to focus on?￼￼

Neopan 1600

The best car ￼ is the car not yet innovated invented or released.

You fools!

When to be compassionate, when not to be a pushover?

Stand up

Extreme ethics

Super facts

Adding friction to the digital and cyber world

Financial friction and consequences is a good idea

Funny experiments

Which search engine do you use

How you do

What’s your browsing tool

Visualize how you do it

How you so fast

How you know high quality vs low quality content

1. Source Credibility:

2. Content Consistency and Accuracy:

3. Depth of Information:

4. Language and Presentation:

5. Purpose and Bias:

6. User Feedback and Engagement:

7. Machine Learning Models:

How you know intent

1. Language and Tone Analysis:

2. Purposeful Structure and Messaging:

3. Source and Contextual Clues:

4. Content Structure and Presentation:

5. Analyzing Content Patterns:

6. Cross-Referencing with Known Biases:

7. Feedback and Metadata:

Godlike Legs

Milo of Croton

Progressive overload training

Why?

Think long ￼

The commoditization of the body

Follow the money

All of your heroes are fake heroes

Slavery deletion

THE GOALS

￼Think first principles￼

The ethics of Achilles ￼

Rethinking competition ￼

How to live the best life ever

Don’t do what is cool

Some ideals

Time machine

The new path

Get ChatGPT premium

What now?

Undank yourself

Cool blogs

Ideas

Summary

Milo of Croton

Progressive overload training

Why?

Think long ￼

The commoditization of the body

Follow the money

All of your heroes are fake heroes

Slavery deletion

THE GOALS

￼Think first principles￼

The ethics of Achilles ￼

Rethinking competition ￼

How to live the best life ever

Don’t do what is cool

Some ideals

Time machine

The new path

Get ChatGPT premium

What now?

Undank yourself

Cool blogs

Bitch be humble?

Lord Achilles

What to focus on?

The best car is the car not yet innovated invented or released.

Think long

Think first principles

The ethics of Achilles

Rethinking competition

Think long

Think first principles

The ethics of Achilles

Rethinking competition

Think long

Think first principles

The ethics of Achilles

Rethinking competition

Think long

The ethics of Achilles

Now even a Xanny bar can’t help fight the anxiety (Jay electronica)

We are currently living in a very very brave new time

White people make money don’t spend it

Freedom?

“I promise, I’m so self-conscious”