Creativity

Goodnight Moon

I crashed my first star party!

Most people have never heard of a star party, so let me set the scene. The Iowa Star Party is a weekend gathering of people all curious about the cosmos. Dark skies improve long range visibility, so to avoid light pollution, the middle of nowhere is ideal. As I arrived to the Whiterock Conservancy Star Field, there were different camp sites lined up, each with 1-3 telescopes setup. The astronomy equipment ranged from homemade to expensive and I enjoyed learning more about astrophotography. It was nice having a friendly host (Cheers Sinclair!) who had our camp on point, excellent equipment, and knew how to effectively lock into endless celestial objects. During the afternoon, you could tell everyone was just waiting for the evening sky to roll around. We sipped on some brews, went on a hike, listened to a talk from an astronomy professor, won the raffle prize, and then the heavenly show began!

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Welcome back to school! This week’s episode of You Don’t Need This Podcast features a caffeinated conversation with a special guest who spent 20 years in the classroom and is now redefining retirement. Enjoy!

Our first stop was a setting crescent moon. It’s hard to align a smartphone’s three lens camera into the sensitive eye piece of a telescope, but it’s not impossible. Objects are a kabillion miles away and everything is always moving so the photos aren’t great, but I enjoy trying to trap time in creative ways. I also captured nightlapse footage and while it may be amateur hour, my short highlight video is entertaining and it leads me to my first observation. Different people enjoy the moment in different ways, but when content creation is habitual, extending an experience becomes an option. Capturing those photos/video is required, but the extra effort shines through a willingness to review, edit, and stitch things together so it can be enjoyed and not just lost in a mountain of media.

My second observation is that we are all weird. Not an alienating type of weird, but a weird that challenged the status quo and what it means to be normal. Normal is boring and as I listened to the experience and passion of veteran star gazers, I’m reminded how easy it is to find a tribe of people who care about almost anything. This level of nerdery is inspiring and can be found no matter the focus, so never stop exploring.

The third observation is through the lens of pure wonder. It’s hard not to be astonished by countless stars surrounding you. I’ve enjoyed many cosmic experiences, such as this trip to Lowell Observatory in Arizona, but I had never felt the spherical movement in our night’s sky or seen the nebulosity of our Milky Way. Along with staring up into the seemingly infinite universe, looking through a telescope never got old. I saw Saturn’s rings, multiple moons and colored bands of Jupiter, meteors, satellite trains, binary stars, globular clusters like M13, and distance galaxies that blur like eraser marks on speckled black paper.

I thought I’d feel more spiritual throughout the evening’s exploration, but it was more fun, relaxing, creative, and scientific. While I have more thoughts on many fronts and I look forward to doing this again, my last observation is more of a hypothesis. Space is for everyone and I believe almost anyone would enjoy an experience like this.

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Forget the social media facade that is Threads. My first BlueSky post (web3) landed while I was at this star party, right before we crashed at 3AM.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Munch Munch

By connecting the global datasphere with computer vision, machine learning, and language modeling, computer science has paved the way for artificial intelligence.

Machines have long used human logic to automate routine and AI is not new, so why has this form of knowledge engineering earned so much attention lately? It’s because AI has learned to speak our language.

Language modeling has taught our digital counterparts how to articulate what it already knows. Not in some robotic, 8-bit voice. AI is now conversational. For example, chatbots are informative, engaging, and entertaining humanoids, while generative AI uses neural networking to transform simple prompts into impressive visuals.

When innovation threatens the status quo, a common response is fear followed by complacency. This is evident in the argument that AI will take all our jobs. Yes, advancing technology will continue to reduce the need for humans to turn knobs and here’s a 2023 Cornell University study on how large language models may impact labor markets. Gone are the days of clocking in on time and keeping your head down just long enough to climb a ladder built to resist change. The willingness to play it safe may extend a sense of temporary security, but this is a choice that makes you easy to replace with cheaper labor and faster tools. To remain indispensable, let AI dine on the dull, devour inefficiencies, and support our own ingenuity.

Start a journey before you see the end. Knowledge is required, but for students, intrapreneurs, and entrepreneurs who stay creative, it’s impossible to compete with being you! As AI munches on mediocre, more of us are invited to build without a map. To make a ruckus with no permission required. To do something for the love of doing it and to care enough to fail.

AI won’t take your job. People who use AI will. It’s a lousy time to be complacent and the perfect time to be creative.

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BEN BOT goes online April 1st.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Time Trappers

We are all able to be trappers of time.

Time trapping is as old as time itself. What started as storytelling in ancient times, led to language that was translated into the written word. Humanity then brought the past to life with audio recording, photography, and video. Now, emerging technologies are allowing telepathic thoughts to mark our memories.

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Proof? Here’s a Nueralink Show & Tell.

Time trappers wield an ability to more actively revisit life experiences. To test your trapping skills, grab a device and open your favorite place to store creative content. Whether it’s writing, audio recordings, photos, video, or other types of art, go back to see what you captured yesterday and one week ago. Now travel back in time even more. Revisit this day last year, two years ago, five and ten years ago! As you enjoy your own nostalgia, consider the quantity, quality, and different types of content you’ve created.

Avoid distractions and stay in the moment, but if you’d like to enhance your time trapping capability, think of fun ways to create more content. This might be a day dedicated to taking an exorbitant amount of photos. Perhaps it’s trying a new app? Maybe it’s finally downloading the video from a memory card and trying your hand at editing it together? What if it’s taking the time to share time you’ve trapped with others? Whatever the exercise is, see if you can form a habit doing it for a few months. Set a milestone, then enjoy looking back at the results.

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What’s our first memory together?

Think about it. Many idea machines prefer to physically write into ideabooks. Music lovers often choose vinyl over endless streaming and how great is a live theater performance compared to any TV show? The time, skill, and passion from those generous enough to create art, makes thoughtful time trapping more strenuous, but more fulfilling in a way.

We are already cyborgs and biotech will further augment the way we seamlessly capture, organize, and share our realities. Until we autonomously enhance our bandwidth, telling a story, writing, recording audio, taking photos, or shooting video will still take manual effort. Let’s mitigate the risk of AI and optimized efficiency, but might the elbow grease required to set each time trap make our personal creations more memorable? Yes, but that will soon be an excuse. In the future, creativity may be the essential currency to add heartfelt context to our trapped time.

I’m without a thesis, but I’ve arrived at an appreciation for long-term, creative devotion. Caring enough to habitually go beyond what’s expected. When ambitious initiative is a fundamental part of your creative system, you’ll be a timeless time trapper who stays in focus, strategically organized, and inspired with lasting purpose.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Linchpin

We are often told being extraordinary makes us special. We each write our own story in life, but as Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, perhaps the sameness of our cosmic composition is what makes each of us fundamentally special from start to finish? This eliminates the need for permission and invites us all to be remarkable.

Our connected era has evolved society away from the industrial age. The factory (existing organizations that have an established system in place) and replaceable cogs that follow instructions to keep the vast machine churning has faded in favor of those who unite tribes, are champions of change, and willing to make a ruckus. Back in 2010, Seth Godin gave those who choose to be indispensable a name: Linchpins.

Linchpins are artists who consciously care enough to go beyond mediocre. Linchpins solve interesting problems and make judgement calls without a map. They welcome weird. They are scientists who stay curious. They are generous and passionate about the art of connection. Through an inclusive, positive-sum lens, linchpins lead and let others lead without seeking credit. They are fearless, in that they are unafraid of things they don’t need to be afraid of. Linchpins leave resumes behind with work that transcends time as they build at speed of trust and relentlessly #givefirst, knowing that accelerating others generates unmatched energy.

The skills of a linchpin are hard to quantify with tradition metrics, but a willingness to bring your true genius to work is an open invitation for us all. Over time, the linchpin’s art often becomes meaningful to many, which makes work less about trading time for money. In this centered state of career nirvana, nobody can compete with being you. Cogs in a machine are replaceable and can therefore be paid less. When you are a linchpin, you have leverage and there is no option but to reward you for work that is a creative expression rooted in lasting purpose.

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“Leaders don’t get a map or a set of rules. Living life without a map requires a different attitude. It requires you to be a linchpin.” -Seth Godin

If indispensability is so accessible, why doesn’t everyone accept the invitation to be a linchpin?

One primal reason is the indoctrination of an education system that was designed to produce factory workers. From an early age, we are brainwashed to pursue perfection, to color in the lines, to follow instructions, to care what others think, and to define success by worldly consumption. Educational transformations are all around us and great teachers willing to be linchpins are activating students to go beyond the system. Instead of molding obedient factory workers who’s only hoping to be taken care of by factories built on promises of the past, we can teach people to take initiative. To invite doubt. To passionately explore one’s superpowers. To solve interesting problems while leading us with reverse charisma and confident humility.

Another reason why some stay complaisant, is the outdated promise of an American Dream. Gone are the days of clocking in on time and keeping your head down just long enough to climb a ladder built to resist change. The factory worker’s willingness to play it safe may extend a sense of temporary security, but this is a choice that makes you easy to replace with cheaper labor, faster tools, and advancing technology. Whether it’s fueling innovative action as an intrapreneur at an organization that prefers linchpins over factory workers, diversifying your career portfolio with an inventive side hustle, or building pain-killing projects as an entrepreneur, we may only live once and life is too short not to enjoy your work.

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What makes you indispensable?

By Ben McDougal, ago