Hello dear reader, is this thing on? It's been a while.
In case you might not remember, I'm Rosano from https://rosano.ca — you might have signed up from one of my various projects or newsletters.
I'd like to try something new here and hope you'll enjoy it, but if it's not your thing there's a one-click unsubscribe link below; no hard feelings.
I'm motivated to start a newsletter again, after being out of it for some years, and mix the approaches I've tried so far.
Currently feels fun to try quarterly (Occasion-al) updates about things I've experienced, published, or encountered; it's inspired by a private one from Nathan Hewitt, as his seems to be about connection and a kind of life and online digest.
From publishing Ephemerata, I learned that I enjoyed the sharing, ritual, and weirdness—as did other people—but weekly is too much for me, and maybe monthly too.
My posture has shifted from "I should take as little space as possible because I'm probably not worth your time" to "I'd like to connect regularly with people who like what I'm doing, want more, and expect the unexpected".
Would also be nice to have one newsletter for a change and not several. Perhaps the nature of a secular church is that it serves many interests unevenly at different times, but remains worthwhile for all.
If you'd like to join me, read on. There's a lot in here; feel free to skip around.
Last time I felt online like this was in 2022.
Since then I've been mostly doing Strolling and Vibrations videos featuring conversations and music, respectively.
The visual/emotional media format is something I had rejected for years prior, preferring the written word for various reasons, but I think I'm finding another voice in video which, although probably secondary to my writing one, is meaningful to me; I'm grateful that it has given me a way to connect via "Internet stuff" with people outside my tech bubble.
My plans for 2024 sort of didn't happen since my father passed away. It's been quite a journey to experience everything involved with that. I find myself only now having space again to pick up where I left off.
I'm currently in Porto with my partner to research affordable places to settle in Europe. Portugal seems to have many places that could fit our street rat backpacker lifestyle, but France or Germany are also interesting, as I have more friends and connections there.
After spending too much time this year concentrated on administrative things, I'm finally able to make some much-needed progress on my projects.
I've been waiting for years to make a better homepage, as I increasingly sense the present one doesn't sufficiently represent what I do. Currently doing some very satisfying work to put all my publishing together inside Journal.
There are Strolling conversations from 2023 that I wasn't able to edit in 2024. I want to get to each of them at some point, but it's a slow process as I still haven't managed to delegate this or get other people involved. I might accept that it's my work to do and be content that it takes the time it does.
I've recently published conversations with:
“There’s no negative side effects to this, except maybe you have too many sweets.”
“Hours of my life were being pulled into this thing that did not serve me.”
People we know are complex and complicated, but somehow those we don’t are simple.
What kind of environment does it breed when we hire people to watch other people do time?
With as many points of view as there are people, how deeply are you listening?
Everything feeds you when you’re loving it.
I estimate each conversation takes me about a week to produce, to include importing, uploading, listening, marking sections, editing snippets, exporting, and publishing on various platforms; sometimes I record an intro and outro to add context that might not be obvious from the exchange itself.
Lot of work actually… If I finish 1.5 per month, I'll be done with my backlog in about 2 years!
If you've appreciated the fruits of this, consider sending me a gift. And thanks to Paul, David, and Holger for contributing each year 🫶🏼.
Am I the only person on the Internet doing this kind of project? Please let me know about the others.
I've recorded a bunch of music in the last years and can finally see it on one page, which is important for me because the idea to even put them online was to have observe musical development over time.
So far, I'm most proud of my recordings for Bach's Prelude & Fugue no. 5 in D major and Paulo César Pinheiro's Toque de Angola.
I recently shared a small piano improvisation exploring simple percussive textures.
Hope to have more vibrations eventually.
I feel powerful, as if I can tackle anything. I can get answers by simply reading. I can just look at the code.
It's a relief to sense the psychological impact of no platform, no ads, and no random obfuscation of my work.
What’s the difference between years passed and time trained?
Slowly returning to this thread, but don't have much to share yet.
Hopefully a new app coming soon.
Also trying to make sure what I do technologically is interoperable and that I don't fork the ecosystem.
I'm thinking again about ways to implement pointing at the wrong thing and GitHub as storage so that people can make dinky little web apps to do fun things with public data. If you have technical expertise, I'd appreciate tips on a safe way to store OAuth tokens such that the server administrator can't read them; this might be an important piece of my solution.
[Features describe, whereas benefits are emotional.]
[Test the market with these questions: 1. Have people asked for your help? 2. Are there enough of them willing to pay for your expertise? 3. Are other businesses serving the market but without your approach?]
[Industries or movements with many fans and haters always present a good business opportunity.]
[When the price is too high, a wince or verbal “How am I supposed to do that?” offers your no to the problem rather than the person.]
[It’s easier to sell more to existing customers than find new ones, so offer a menu of add-ons to increase your average revenue per job.]
[Output-based metrics measure numbers you don’t directly control, such as traffic, signups, revenue, growth. Activity-based metrics track things you do to influence the other numbers, such as calls made, posts published, machines in operation.]
In 1940, there were forty-two workers per retiree, but that number has fallen to three to one, meaning that there are not nearly enough workers to support Social Security beneficiaries.
[The economy is people and their ability to live, not numbers. We didn’t need to make conversations with our cleaners to understand the lives of everyday people.]
This is another general rule of trading: you don’t necessarily make money by being right, but by being right when others are wrong.
The person who helped me shift never made me feel small. Minds change when they are made to feel large. When they are respected and gently challenged. When they are helped to stretch and make more room for another point of view.
[A movie lets you spend time together without having to make lots of small talk; sports might even let you root for the same team.]
[Getting near is important for seeing clear. If we avoid those who think differently, our understanding risks to be superficial.]
Can you use a hammer without injuring yourself? Give Habitat for Humanity a call. Are you a budgeting ninja? Call Boys and Girls Club and offer to teach young men and women to budget. Do your friends tell you that you talk too much? Go to a retirement home and talk with people who have long been forgotten.
[We most desperately avoid introspection when forming awkward but vital ideas, and that’s when the news grabs us.]
[‘Dining, Travel, Technology, Fashion’ headings can be renamed to ‘Conviviality, Calm, Resistance, Rationality’ as those are what we seek to acquire from our consumption in those domains.]
The news knows how to render its own mechanics almost invisible and therefore hard to question. It speaks to us in a natural unaccented voice, without reference to its own assumption-laden perspective. It fails to disclose that it does not merely report on the world, but is instead constantly at work crafting a new planet in our minds in line with its own often highly distinctive priorities.
This is why, paradoxically, to reach the widest audience, you write to the narrow audience. Your objective as a writer is to give your primary audience material they’ll want to re-tell. They do the work of translating it to wider audiences in specific contexts; you do the general articulation in rich detail.
The Hero as Flexible Bureaucrat
“I’d bend the rules too, if I knew it would save millions of lives”. Yes sure of course so would I, but would you bend the rules to save someone an hour of unnecessary paperwork? Knowing that if your boss found out he might use it as a pretext to fire you? That’s the kind of subtle, small-scale heroism that, repeated millions of times, creates a more humane society.
My first open source psyop - postmortem
[Information asymmetry is not only about lies, but whether someone can hear the correction or feedback.]
There is a place beyond words and beyond understanding; don’t run away from it. When you rest in it, not knowing is knowing. Good is bad. Right is wrong. I am you. The space between objects shrinks to nothing. To grasp it, let go. To control it, surrender. To succeed, fail. To know, don’t.
Zero-sum Thinking and the Labor Market
The only reason I got my chance - a truly lucky break - was because people bet on me. A computer would have instantly rejected me because I didn’t meet some arbitrary qualification. AI has spurred us right into the depths of what David Brooks calls the rejected generation - endless nos from platforms that are meant to serve as human interfaces (slot machine grabs across dating, investing, and now jobs), but really end up dehumanizing the whole process.
The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
we have a world where friction gets automated out of experiences, aestheticized in curated lifestyles, and dumped onto underfunded infrastructure and overworked labor. The effort doesn’t disappear; it just moves.
The Technium: Better Than Free
[When copying makes things free and infinite, 8 ‘generative’ values that people might pay for include: immediacy; personalization; interpretation, support, or guidance; authentic versions; easy access on multiple devices, and backup; physical representations or in-person events; appreciation through patronage; discoverability and distribution.]
A book cannot do something for you. Instead, reading a book can change you into someone who can do something for yourself. The role of a great medium is not to help people get things done, but to help people become deeper people — by providing a context in which they grow their skills and knowledge, broaden their context and perspective, and deepen their awareness and discernment.
The Most Valuable Bit of Information You Wish You’d Known Sooner
[Forms of leverage to gain more output from your input: labour (from employed, to self-employed, to employing), media (made once, licensed infinitely), capital (no need to sacrifice time), technology (build once, many people use it); stack different forms together.]
The Money Expert: “Do Not Buy A House!”
[Whether I’m feeling good, I show up. When I’m feeling bad, I still show up. That’s the rep.]
Ex-Google Officer Speaks Out On The Dangers Of AI!
[Whereas having 50 extra IQ points in today’s world makes a difference, a future where everyone can borrow 4000 will render everyone’s baseline irrelevant, and therefore: 1. we are all effectively equal, and 2. we all become peasants to the 1% as the middle class vanishes.]
[I appreciate things that make me cry because they give me the chance to shed a few more of the tears repressed during childhood, when I had learned that doing so was dangerous.]
[Nudging people towards your conclusion while making them think they arrived there themselves will keep them resistant to questioning their basis for belief.]
[‘Is it possible that…’ has a very low barrier for proof.]
Who do you trust (when you don’t trust the news)?
[If manufacturers of cars bear some responsibility for your private vehicle’s safety issues, as airplane manufacturers would if flights put people in danger, perhaps so should social media companies for presenting alternative realities that lead to real world catastrophes.]
Why You’re Thinking About Unemployment Wrong
[The economy is what enables masses of people who don’t know each other to coordinate and push the possibilities of society.]
A lazy person’s guide to delicious meal prep
This is the power of Combinatorial Cooking. From a seemingly limited set of base ingredients, there is a whole universe of food options you can prepare quickly and easily.
The wok lets you boil, saute, stir-fry, and simmer. The spaghetti spoon lets you stir, mix, scrape, and mash. They’re both incredibly versatile and easy to clean. It’s all you need to make any Combinatorial Cooking recipe. Plus, using a wok makes you look and feel like a real chef, that’s just science.
[Seeing whether projects are as open-source as advertised.]
[Friendly explainer and guide to getting started with RSS feeds.]
You’ve just made a website, but now you’re unsure where to go from here. Here are some ideas for things to add and techniques to learn.
Find people to talk to or collaborate with by searching across the /about, /ideas and /now pages of 6692 personal websites.
David Braid told me he uses this open-source software to tune pianos in the following way:
“having a platform profile is like living in a single-room apartment, whereas having your own site is a castle with unlimited rooms.”
i learn from everyone, but the teacher is myself
composing (to place/put together) becomes necessary when you don’t have everything
from observing what you see to observing how you watch
mocking your opposition without reducing their power is not a flex.
learn to teach so others can learn
Listen as a distraction-free playlist, without accounts or sign up.
Cachila: Uruguay – Tambores del Candombe N° 2 (2009)
Pure vocal percussion, sometimes with actual drums. Can’t help but solo or move on some of these explosive rhythmic drives. Some tracks fuse conversation, sound play, and humour.
Jacob Collier: Fascinating Rhythm
One of his first popular videos, from 2014 yet doesn't feel dated.
melodic phrasing feels vaguely baroque; harmonies make giant steps; solid groovy beat; bought this right away
Brad Mehldau: The Greatest Jazz Pianist of Our Generation
[Written chord changes are an expedient way to quickly coordinate playing together, but they lack precision to specify things like voice-leading, even from more popular songs like Blackbird.]
[I like to add a note to so-called ‘stock voicings’ for crunch.]
[The intellectual aspect of improvising happens as you make sense of music. What happens in real-time while playing is a natural reflexive response based on everything you’ve learned.]
[Can you tell the same story with just two notes?]
catchy tune without words; complex drumming and rhythms but flows easy; video and imagery kind of absurd and hilarious with some famous figures doing a cameo.
Nas feat. A Boogie Wit da Hoodie & YG: YKTV
Triplet tension in chorus; lyric flows while never mechanically aligning with the beat’s grid; bass triplets that happen a few times create a feeling of suspension; contrast between silence and full beat avoids monotony,
I love receiving music by the way; be welcome to send me recommendations anytime, anywhere!
That's all I have to share for now.
How was it? Something missing or could be better? Feel free to reply and share any reflections you might have, or just say hello.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time 👋🏼.
