justing.net

Week Notes No. 40: Stray Thoughts

By Justin G. on

Here are a few more random thoughts I had this week.

No intentional theme here, but if you see one, maybe email me about it.

A paver's graffiti of the word 'trench' on a canvas of black asphalt.

'Trench'

Stray thoughts

Layouts

Going to a different Costco than usual is like entering a parallel gonzo universe. All the same things are there, aren’t they? But a rather different set of decisions have been made about their placements. I mean, it’s a giant empty box of a store, how many ways should you arrange the contents? Maybe it’s a form of character, individuality, for the stores. A freedom for the managers or an iterative exploration for corporate. Who knows, maybe it’s nothing. Do all the big box stores have this feature? Ikea, Sam’s Club, Best Buy. I guess I hadn’t questioned it at smaller scales; all your Wegmans’, Luckys, Safeways, Wincos, and Tops are different and that’s perfectly expected. It’s nothing, nothing.

Retelling

It’s a pity that so much time is wasted on unwanted remakes. If the first version is good, let it be. Go find some new story to tell. Or a new way to tell it. It’s embarrassing and annoying.

And not at all the same thing as rewriting stories as plays, which is what they say that Shakespeare did. That was a different time, with a different media literacy, different things that you could expect of the audience.

Sure we’re still working out what you can expect from the audience today too, but it’s not tolerating unnecessary remakes. Today you don’t even have to go to the theater (or the Blockbuster) to revisit an earlier release. If the earlier attempts failed in some way, sure give it a go. But when the original was already quite successful, it’s a waste. How many of those succeed anyway?

Open here

You know those little notches on bags for opening the package? At this moment I’m thinking about food packets. Chips, ketchup, family size M&Ms. That sort of thing. They never work. Well, never is hyperbolic; they’re really not dependable. Based on my non-scientific and imperfect memory, I estimate that something goes frustratingly wrong about one time in three. Just one way it fails: the tear goes crooked and doesn’t fully open, or doesn’t open at all, or opens too much, sometimes way too much. It’s seemingly random; no pattern that I can find. Packaging from companies that worked fine suddenly stops opening reliably. Maybe they got a new machine. Whatever, not my problem. Except it is my problem right now. In my opinion it’s a failed technology and we should all just go back to using scissors like our ancestors did. Opening a bag with this tear off tech has only possible use: in an emergency and as a last resort. Or, maybe I’m the common factor. I could just lack the skills. Another possibility is that I’m just seriously unlucky with this particular invention. And you know, if this is where my bad luck is concentrated I’ll take that deal every day of the week. But if it’s not either of those things, if I’m not the only one, then these QC departments, packaging engineers, and marketing teams, they all need to get out of the office for a bit and have think about what exactly it is that they think they’re doing.

Attempting to make sense of things

Algorithmic Feeds

That the algorithm intensifies is obvious from control theory. It’s a feedback loop that amplifies the material which its creators deem most engaging. And the people who write1 for that platform notice what it selects and tune their new material to it.

Big step back: is it like shouting fire in the theater? Who is shouting, the algorithm or the people writing? In this globe theater we’re all but whispers. Methinks it’s the amplifying algorithm that is actually shouting. But both are responsible.

Intensification

If the algorithms intensify, or find more intense versions of the things that people like, or people make more intense things that the algorithm has pushed before, are there things that can’t be intensified? Things like ambient music. Is there such a thing as intense ambient? I think that’s just a different thing. Maybe ambient is a fixed point, something that no algorithm can intensify. Are there other equalibria? Can tissues be intensified? Or soft lighting? Can you intensify a tortilla? All these things are already at peak conceptual softness. Adding more would fundamentally change them.

  1. I mean in general. It could be pictures or video or whatever. 

Email me your favorite ambient.

Posted: in Notes.

Other categories: week notes; stray thoughts.

Back references: none.

Tags that connect: [[algorithm]] Week Notes No. 39: Output.

Tags only on this post: big box, floor plans, grocery store, intensification, packaging, remakes, tortilla.