8-24-2025 MY INSPO: what peaked my interest this week

 put it on

i recently bought some puma palermos at our local ross - dress for less store. this store has become our holy grail for shoes. they always get interesting heels and their doc marten selection is irresistible, always 50% off.

to justify buying new sneakers, i convinced myself it was for my salsa classes. i disliked the feeling of chunky sneakers for dance. it didn't feel as good as something more "down to earth". and the color stuck with me for a full week - bright coral with neon soles. i wouldn't have needed convincing in middle school when neon was all the craze.

sib reassured me, her being obsessed with sneakers forever and always. her theory goes: "you don't have to care about fashion, or you could have a very niche style. tomboy, goth, fashionista, or someone that simply doesn't care. if you have a good shoe game, you are instantly stylish." sib believes that a shoe makes the look. she follows the words of carrie bradshaw closely. 

i didn't think the same for myself, but i did some sole-searching. 

my first ever fave sneakers were a pair with bratz dolls on them. then in 3rd grade i got completely black converse (my first ever pair) - with a graphic batman drawing in bright yellow. high tops. sib and i both got the same pair. since then, there was never not a time i didn't own a pair of converse: purple low tops, classic black high tops, white one stars, two shades of blue, and many more. 

my dad used to laugh at us when transition spring/summer to fall/winter shoes, and was amazed (or perhaps, appalled?) at the amount of shoes collected between the three of us, mom, sib, and i.

during this transitional period, shoes might just be my outfit saviors.

pimp my car - brit way

here's some electrifying topics that inspired me this week.

first, sib and i had a close encounter with a mini cooper with union jack tail lights. many of my topics delve into the beauty of punk, and nothing screamed punk as much as that car did. i never cared for mini coopers, but in that moment, my honda felt replaceable. 

while researching photos for the blog's enjoyment, i discovered that mini cooper makes more union jack car accessories. look at this sun roof?!

during my day-trip to columbus on friday, i passed by a mini cooper with union jack rearview mirror deals as well. british invasion found in the car industry.

modern prometheus

i was looking over my bookshelf and read books, helping sib choose a book for her next read, and i was explaining about the book the dawn of the new everything, by jaron lanier - inventor of the v.r. system. boyfriend gifted me this book, he got it from someone, never read it, knew i'd read anything that comes into my hands. and i did. i've never even used a v.r. set, and my knowledge was (and still kinda is) limited. but i got to say, it was a fantastic book to read. i read it back around 2020, when the words artificial intelligence still seemed futuristic. what is lanier's opinion on ai? this article from the new yorker from 2023 gave insight to what he thinks. coming from a computing mastermind, and self-proclaimed humanist, i felt a bit more reassured about the future of ai. 

i am the world's #1 ai hater - because the saturation of it and fear mongering around it truly made me forget the benefits - it just turned stupid and stupefying. yet, lanier reminds us to steer back to what it should be - in a utopian and idealist capitalist society.

the most pragmatic position is to think of a.i. as a tool, not a creature. my attitude doesn’t eliminate the possibility of peril: however we think about it, we can still design and operate our new tech badly, in ways that can hurt us or even lead to our extinction. mythologizing the technology only makes it more likely that we’ll fail to operate it well—and this kind of thinking limits our imaginations, tying them to yesterday’s dreams. we can work better under the assumption that there is no such thing as a.i. the sooner we understand this, the sooner we’ll start managing our new technology intelligently.

digital stuff as we have known it has a brittle quality that forces people to conform to it, rather than assess it.

a humanist like me wants people to have more control, rather than be overly influenced or guided by technology. Flexibility may give us back some agency.

a.i.-policy conversations are dominated by terms like “alignment” (is what an a.i. “wants” aligned with what humans want?), “safety” (can we foresee guardrails that will foil a bad a.i.?), and “fairness” (can we forestall all the ways a program might treat certain people with disfavor?). the community has certainly accomplished much good by pursuing these ideas, but that hasn’t quelled our fears. we end up motivating people to try to circumvent the vague protections we set up. even though the protections do help, the whole thing becomes a game—like trying to outwit a sneaky genie.

i frustrate over the fact the ai is everywhere around us on the net, but no way to opt out for those who prefer an "old-school" web browser. having the option would feel less forceful. which is what is creating friction and lack of flexibility for us who may be more hesitant. if ai wasn't shoved down my throat, i wouldn't be such a hater. 

we all seem to agree that deepfakes—false but real-seeming images, videos, and so on—should be labelled as such by the programs that create them. communications coming from artificial people, and automated interactions that are designed to manipulate the thinking or actions of a human being, should be labelled as well. we also agree that these labels should come with actions that can be taken. people should be able to understand what they’re seeing, and should have reasonable choices in return.

 

the systems must be made more transparent. we need to get better at saying what is going on inside them and why. this won’t be easy. the problem is that the large-model a.i. systems we are talking about aren’t made of explicit ideas. there is no definite representation of what the system “wants,” no label for when it is doing a particular thing, like manipulating a person. 

 

suit up!

peep this fantastic design by toronto-based designer hyunwoo. of course peSuit and tie would find this design fantastic. two jackets with tie-shaped cutouts, something i may beg sib to recreate...