OPEN SOURCE DOWNLOADS

Street Photography Starter Kit Download Links:

  1. What is Street Photography? (2.4gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/83a4s91i0lwi7s5/0.%20What%20is%20Street%20Photography.zip?dl=0
  2. Black and White (2.3gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/l76eh3khc1pxj56/1.%20Black%20and%20White.zip?dl=0
  3. How to Shoot Street Photography (2.2gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/iloxnstsvnbjxvy/2.%20How%20to%20Shoot%20Street%20Photography.zip?dl=0
  4. Street Portraits 101 (1.9gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/3tbs9g8pwg6gitm/3.%20Street%20Portraits%20101.zip?dl=0
  5. Conquer Your Fears (430mb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/6benxn3jwdakt72/4.%20Conquer%20Your%20Fears.zip?dl=0
  6. Composition (460mb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5l4gyp979o8z45/5.%20Composition.zip?dl=0
  7. Masters (107mb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/7z1wahoig2v4s71/6.%20Masters.zip?dl=0
  8. Editing and Post-Processing (1.3gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/elryenpk99uhpqh/7.%20Editing%20and%20Post-Processing.zip?dl=0
  9. Photography Projects (1.4gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/zbj9c8q304buo0u/8.%20Photography%20Projects.zip?dl=0
  10. Motivation (3.7gb)
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/puajt36r2hlcnwx/9.%20Motivation.zip?dl=0

Culture Clash?

I think a big problem in today’s world, whether interpersonal, within families, nations etc.… Is this issue of culture.

For example, I am Korean, Korean American, born and raised in the states. Also, marrying Cindy, who is Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, born in refugee camp in Long Malaysia, being sponsored to the states, etc. Much of understanding Cindy, her mom, Her side of the family, is understanding that the refugee mentality is a quadrillion times different than what I was raised, coming from a rich and affluent family, coming to the states.

For example, it seems that the refugee mentality is about frugality, economics, and positive. What does that mean? That means that too “waste money“, is a mortal sin. A sin against God. For example the simple act of keeping on a lightbulb when you aren’t using it… It is not an issue of money it is an issue of morality. Just for fuzzies, I calculated it with Chachi P4, how much it cost to run a single lightbulb all day and I think it mounted to three cents at most. Therefore keeping on a light for even an hour or two longer than I should, might only be 5% of a penny. Less than peanuts.

However what I suppose is the critical thing to consider is that at the end of the day, it is a cultural war, a cultural clash.

What is the solution? Just leave other people alone.

For example, some issues that I’ve faced when it comes to American, Korean American behavior. The first one is about greeting. In Korean, Korean American culture, to greet somebody and get a response is an integral part of life. “To say, “ahnyeungee-gehsehyoh” and “ahnyungee-gah-seh-yoh” (and also get a response) is critical.

Also in American culture, to say hello, and get a response it is normal.

But I suppose in Vietnamese culture, maybe just Cindy‘s family, this is not common. It seems that people don’t really acknowledge each other’s existence, don’t make eye contact don’t say hello don’t say goodbye etc. This invokes my fury, however, I suppose if it is just the way that their family culture is, I should just tolerated, or just leave them alone.

Perhaps I’m the tyrant?

Then the realization… Perhaps the critical issue here is an issue of a culture clash. The issue is that everybody is trying to superimpose their culture on others, to do as they please.

My way or the highway?

What is a Nazi? What is a tyrant? somebody who tries to get you to do what they want you to do or what do you think you should do, rather than just leaving you alone.

For example, an issue with shared or communal things, or when you’re just by yourself.

For example, a big annoying I’ve had is in regards to lights. I always like all of the lights on, I think maybe for myself, I need the light. I need it to get me going.

Bur for others, they seem sensitive to the light, like having too many lights on actually hurts their eyes or their head, and or perhaps it is a money economic thing. And also a funny theory, are women more sensitive to the light than men? Meaning that men prefer higher stimulation and higher lutz, nits, lux and light?

Regardless, this is my thought:

If you are sharing space with somebody else, and there is one person who is sensitive to the light, and would prefer to keep the light off, keep the light off.

However, if you are by yourself, not disturbing nobody else, and then somebody invades your pace and turns off your light, this is what invokes my fury.

Guns in America?

I also think this is the tricky thing when it comes to guns in America. For example let us say that you are living by yourself on your own private range somewhere in Idaho whatever. Let us say that they like all of their guns or whatever. Then, nobody should be permitted to invade their property and take all of their guns.

However the issue is when it comes to public, public spaces etc. For example, this insane notion of “conceal and carry“. The biggest issue here is an asymmetry;

You know that you have a concealed gun on you, but I don’t.

For example, let us say that some loser has a conceal and carry gun on him. And I don’t, and I don’t know that he does.

Let us say that we get into some sort of altercation, or argument., Unwarranted, let us say that he is in an inferior position and feels threatened, he might shoot me with his gun and kill me, even though he is a “licensed”, gun holder.

Perhaps a solution is actually a little bit more unorthodox; if one is going to have a gun in public, one should have it publicly displayed, on their holster for everybody to see.

This was actually a really really random thing that I saw when I was traveling with Cindy, and we went to Penn State. I randomly saw an older man, with a cowboy hat, also ironically with the same Verbum five finger shoes I had entering the CVS with his gun proudly on his right hip.

to me this was really interesting, because ultimately, because I knew that he had a gun on him, I made the obvious decision of not entering that premises. Also I like this idea that if you enter a party or a wedding that there be a public “gun check in.” if you checked in your coat, you should also check in your gun, like how they do it in gangster movies or John Wick. Whether we like it or not maybe everyone should be patted down?

“Please have compassion!”

Another funny thought; can you force other people to have compassion? No.

For example, the big issue with the Middle East, Israel versus Palestine, Jewish people Jewish hate, anti-Semitism etc.

What I am currently witnessing is that both sides is trying to get American public to have compassion and empathy for them, and to paint the other side as the bad guys. Yet, unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be very effective. Why?

First of all, people in America don’t really understand what Israel is. For example, people in America abstractly know that Israel is a state somewhere in the Middle East, but there isn’t a strong understanding or attachment between the notion of Israel as a state, Israeli, and Jewish people. Even for myself as a UCLA undergraduate educated, born in the barrier my whole life, growing up with a lot of Jewish Jewish American friends, and not being weird to see the star of David or the little Jewish hat, even it took me a long time to understand What Jewish, Judaism is and was. For example, Seinfeld. I had zero idea that it was a show about Jewish, Jewish American culture. I also had no idea that Steven Spielberg was Jewish, and I also had no idea that a lot of Hollywood, media was built and run by Jewish people and personalities, even that John Stewart was Jewish but he changed his last name to sound more “American“.

Are Jewish people “white”?

The interesting juicy question that I’ve asked a lot of people, whether they be typical Caucasian, or Jewish, Jewish American, orthodox or unorthodox or reformed etc., is this:

“Are jewish people ”white”?”

After hearing all of the responses, and also having some time to think on my own, my personal takeaway is this:

No.

Why? In America, it seems a lot of successful people are closet Jewish. Meaning that they are Jewish, have a Jewish mother or a Jewish heritage, yet for the fear of persecution have hidden it.

Why? People have been scape code for millennia. Why, just read the first recorded history of the Jews, by the Roman historian Tacitus? (Need to check this later):

Essentially he said many things — the gist:

The Jewish people are a mean, despicable group. They do not enter inter-marry with other races, they only believe in one God, they don’t share gods, etc. Their religious worships are strange and mean.

Also, according to him, the reason why Jewish people performed circumcision on male children was to differentiate themselves with others. Personally speaking as a Roman Catholic, I am circumcised and always wondered this issue of circumcision. The general spiel we get is that we get circumcised for sanitary reasons, or aesthetic reasons. But because Roman catholicism is essentially Judaism 2.0, (let us not forget that Jesus was Jewish), the tradition continued.

Who is the bad guy here?

What do I find a little bit bizarre is that Israel, wants the whole world to be compassionate towards Israel, yet, everybody knows that Israel is strong, the Israelis have one of the most formidable military on the planet, apparently both women and men are trained in the military.

Also, the US military and department of defense, head commander Austin said that America has a “ironclad” commitment to Israel. What does that mean?

What this means is that the reason why America is so committed to Israel is because America wants to also defend her own personal interests in the Middle East, and they also want a launchpad to patrol the area and overall perimeter. The same reason why America bailed out South Korea via the IMF, And they want to keep their positioning, their strategic positioning in Asia and east Asia.

Do we have compassion for the strong?

I think as a general bias, at least in America we root for the underdogs. Let us not forget that in fact America was once the underdog, the general narrative goes that the British were the bad guys, and the scrappy Americans went to America and search for freedom liberty etc.

For myself personally, I probably empathize stronger with people from Palestine, Palestinians etc. Why? I think when America and the other countries were diving up the land in the middle east, the reason why they “gifted” Israel to Jewish people was this:

They wanted to make a strategic outpost for US military control in the region.

I am not 100% certain, but I would surmise that in fact, a lot of US military investment went into Israel, and also a lot of great Israeli innovations have actually percolated to the states.

Let us also not forget that some of the greatest thinkers and innovators, many of them are Israeli. For example, Daniel Kannemann and Amos Tversky are unabashedly Israeli, from Israel, Israeli American.

Israel?

I’ve never been to Israel, but I’ve met many Israelis. I have nothing but good things to say about people from Israel. Many of them I have met are good-looking, tall, highly intelligent, have a strong world view, and also very global in thinking. Also when they talk about the military and Palestine in the Middle East, they are all a little bit low-key and hush-hush about it. kind of like how America is in regards to our military intervention all around the world.

Whenever I meet people who are Palestinian, people in the states, a lot of great innovators I’ve met in the world of Internet tech entrepreneurship, even crypto, many of them Palestinian. Or from Palestine. Why? When you’ve had everything taken from you, that entrepreneurial spirit is integrated into your soul body and worldview, and you come to America the land of opportunity.

Even one of the new friends I’ve made at the gym, a successful 70-year-old Israeli American man who immigrated to the states from Israel when he was 15 years old, told me… “Of course we went to America, the land of opportunity!”

So what should America do about things?

I have some simple suggestions:

First, don’t have an opinion about politics, if you have a strong opinion, enlist in the military and do something about it. Doesn’t matter whether you are man or woman, trans or whatever.

Skin in the game?

What I believe is the next frontier is in the realm of ethics. Why? Ethics is true power. Whoever controls ethics controls the people.

Why? Ethics is the little pretty on your shoulder who is always watching, and which governs your thought behaviors, your physical behaviors etc.

I have a funny joke: just ask somebody “what do you really do when you’re watching Google incognito? Or, that night, when everyone is asleep or you are in your room by yourself, and you turn on your VPN and go to pirate bay… What do you download, torrent, or mirror?”

Next steps?

I would say strive to become more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more wise, more practical, and also have more skin in the game. Nas seem to start that every opinion you have must also have a correlating physical behavior associated with it, which actually is impacted in the real world.

The real world

Also a very very very very practical thought I have:

No more discussions on the Internet.

Why? ChatGPT4 is so insanely good now that it is so so so so so so insanely easy to make some sort of bought, that impersonates a user online, a Reddit user, etc.… Can you imagine forging a false relationship with somebody on the Internet, with Internet forums, etc.?

Therefore, the ultimate skin in the game is if you have some sort of discussion, argument, debate about anything… Make sure to do it real life in the flesh.

For example, for the most part I am anti-Donald Trump, but I also find him hilarious, and also, I actually think some of his ideas are good. For example, I think Donald Trump‘s anti-China policy is a good one; him trying to band TikTok in America was actually very good idea. Why? The biggest issue in today’s world is With all these young kids on TikTok, do they not know is a Chinese company? This is a low-key propaganda way of China inoculating the American youth with Chinese ideals. Same thing goes with league of legend, Tencent games etc.… It is all RIOT, owned by a Chinese company.

Is China bad? No. However, I think with America the best way to think about China is that they are a “frenemy“— part friend, part enemy, but mostly it is all for show.

For example UCLA versus USC; ultimately nobody really cares. So many people I know when UCLA is undergrad and ended up going to USC for graduate school med school or dental school or law school etc. Funny enough it doesn’t seem to go the other way.

What can and what should you do as an individual?

I was also experimenting with the new ChatGPT voice, the audio of the voice is insanely good. Kind of like the movie “her“, with a personal AI assistant women that he falls in love with, or maybe even in Blade Runner 2049, the beautiful AI that he falls in love with, funny enough that Ryan Gosling is also low-key an android.

Ultimately things I would not trust include podcast, because I bet you already right now, there are fake podcast AI voice things out there, spewing out some sort of nonsense.

What can you trust? People in the flesh, YouTube vlogs… Why? As long as you can see a real human face and a real human voice at the same time, preferably not looking super cartoony or fake or 3-D animation generated… You know that they are real and their opinions are real.

Also, what you create must be open source, permission list, maybe on the block chain, on Hackable, impossible to take down, and not hosted on any foreign site or website.

This means no wordpress.com, which is actually censored in Vietnam and mainland China. Also, truth be told I think eventually, sooner or later, even normal websites will get censored, sooner or later.

So what can you do?

It seems that, at least for now… Email is not censored. If you have some sort of open source permission less newsletter, hosted by sendy.co — at least one thing that cannot be tampered with is accessing and contacting other human beings.

in today’s world, it seems that people check their email more frequently than they even check social media. And whether or not we like it, even though I personally hate email, it looks like at least in our lifetimes, people will not stop using email. Social media will come and go, this includes Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, (Twitter is already gone), Snapchat, etc.

Even within my short lifetime, I was born in 1988 and currently 35 years old, I have already seen the rise and fall of Xanga, live journal, my space, GeoCities, Alta Vista, etc.

Create your own new carte Blanche culture?

There are a lot of things we could do, things we cannot do, things we could change and things we cannot change.

It seems that one thing we cannot do is change the culture of others. I cannot suddenly start forcing Jewish people to eat pork, I cannot force Islamic people not too fast, etc. Also when it comes to our families, we cannot change the culture of other families. My personal thought is dip out, create your own new family culture, fresh and anew.

Fin.

How to Be a Visionary?

The notion of “visionary“, comes from the notion of vision. That is, what is your creative vision, your life vision, your art vision, or your idealized vision of the world?

First, I think we need to deposit some ideals. The weird modern-day notion is that it is not considered virtuous to be idealistic. I consider this thing, because when all the kid growing up, it was all about idealism optimism, happiness and joy, changing the world, and everything was much more carefree. Think about all the fun Eddie Murphy movies, Robin Williams, etc. What they make a flubber in today’s world? Or even a rush-hour movie?

Things you really care for?

My open source vision, open source photography, the true game changer. The one that up ended all of these Anemic photo book publishers, honestly 99.99% of photo books on education all are weak. ERIC KIM totally disrupted the photography information market. And this legacy shall outlast me.

What is the etymology of legacy?

I shall make a monument more lasting than bronze!

I think one of the greatest and most noble thoughts uttered by Horace the ancient Roman poet was his idea that he would make artwork more lasting than bronze!

My funny life ambition is I want to have an army of children, all named after my favorite philosophers poets thinkers and innovators.

The reason why I think Elon Musk is so great is that nobody will ever forget who he is, his legacy, or his creations. SpaceX, Tesla, maybe even x.com will outlive him. I still think it is so freaking genius that he purchased x.com… The most beautifully sublime domain name of all time. In fact, I believe for innovation, the future is still Internet, the Web, the World Wide Web, as well as the Internet, Internet domain names etc. In fact I am currently on the rampage buying out domain names, hungry and eager to colonize the web.

Why be a visionary?

I suppose the very pragmatic thought is why be a visionary?
First, I think life is just more fun and interesting. Whether you are right or wrong, successful or not, rich or poor, whatever… It all don’t matter.

The human element.

let us never forget that at the end of the day, it all comes down to the human element. The point ain’t to create things for the point of making them, but… The point and purpose is for the sake of others, other human beings etc.

Insanely epic and grand structures?

Amazon goals

The funny thing with Amazon is that everyone loves to hate on Amazon and critique it, yet everybody I know has an Amazon prime subscription. The simple heuristic:

One should not be permitted to criticize or critique something if one has an active subscription to it.

For example, all of this yada yada yada about workers being taken advantage of, these poor Amazon delivery workers are these poor Amazon supply workers etc. Yet if you really care, you would have skin in the game and actually cancel your Amazon prime subscription. Rather than keeping your Amazon prime subscription and just criticizing it.

Why does everyone hate on Jeff Bezos?

Actually in terms of innovators I think one of the most underrated innovators is Jeff Bezos. Why? His insanely grand vision, how he got so swollen, and also, he has real balls and skin of the game.

What actually made me win his respect, and gain his respect was the fact that when he got caught red-handed cheating on his wife, with that Newporter reporter, what happened was he publicly wrote a medium blog post article outlining the blackmail and sabotage, including all of the juicy details. This is a true man, a true Mench.

*

how to have more visionary thoughts?

A very simple suggestion I have is this:

Tried to walk at least 50 miles a day.

The more you share the wealth, the wealthier you will become

PHYSIOLOGY, PHOTOGRAPHY & THE FUTURE OF AI.

A quick overview of some recent thoughts, namely, around physiology, our human physiology as well as AI, ART, ETC:

Something I have cared for a lot ever since I was a fat kid in New York, was diet health physiology and everything in between.

Ever since I was 11 to 12 years old, fat with a triple chin, I have literally experimented with every single diet out there, save this nonsensical vegetarian and vegan trend.

Why does this matter?

I met this cool guy the other day, at the Phils coffee shop in downtown Culver City, named Sodi (his website is https://stedmanhalliday.com/).

We had an interesting chat about how fitness is so critical, especially with all of these silicon valley tech utopists who just think of their body as an afterthought.

I vibe with Stedman Halliday because of many different reasons.

First, the focus on recovery as a first thought is a good one. For example, another day when I was really really tired and exhausted, instead of just taking a shower like I typically do, I filled up the bathtub with really really really really really hot water, and had a really really hot bath. It seems that the trend is towards ice baths, ice plunges etc., but also, I think taking insanely hot baths is also a good idea.

Why? To be able to tolerate an insanely hot bath, literally on the edge of boiling hot water, is also an effective bodily turbo charger. To me it is like my MacGyver way of harnessing the power of the hot sauna, without having to go to the gym.

In fact, maybe having a bathtub might be one of the greatest luxuries in your living situation. Rather than thinking of taking a really really hot bath as a frivolous luxury, maybe we should think of it almost like drinking more coffee or caffeine.

Food

Currently what I am doing, and what I have done ever since I was living in Vietnam in 2017, which is almost 6 years now, is simple:

Intermittent fasting throughout the day, this means no breakfast, no lunch, only one massive 100% carnivore dinner.

During the day I only drink tapwater, black coffee, that’s it.

There’s also this funny story in the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk when he was visiting the Twitter office, one of the employees offered him some of the sparkling death sparkling water, and Elon refused and said, “I just drink tapwater”. Haha.

And when I break my fast and eat dinner, which could arrange anywhere in between 6 PM and 10 PM, I strive to eat at least 4 to 5 pounds of beef or lamb.

Achilles and Chiron the centaur

Another great thing I have learned from ChatGPT is how great wonderful and effective ChatGPT is, at least 1 trillion times better than Google. In fact, my current thought is Short Google; ChatGPT is at least 1 billion times more insightful and accurate in terms of being able to accurately Find information about anything.

For example, a simple heuristic:

The best calling card is now, not to tell people to Google you, but instead, to ChatGPT you!

Why? I’m starting to have this low-key suspicion that Google is doing some sort of behind the counter deals with individuals, and somehow tweaking they are all rhythm for subjective ends.

However with ChatGPT, it is less biased, less meddling.

For example, get ChatGPT on your iPhone or iPad, just pay the $20 for the subscription model, you could cancel it anytime, and just ChatGPT:

Who is ERIC KIM?

The new phrase:

Just ChatGPT me bro!

My thoughts and experiments

I think the biggest issue with diet health physiology and nutrition is that people are so subjective, and also, there is far too many politics, ethics and morality behind it.

For example, I never trust anybody who says:

Don’t eat meat, it’s bad for the planet!

What? Do you know what else is bad for the planet? Your Amazon prime subscription, Netflix, YouTube, your iPhone and iPhone Pro, your MacBook pros, your Tesla, your Range Rover etc.

Simple heuristic:

Never trust nobody who makes commentary about the planet and has either a Netflix subscription, Amazon prime subscription, or owns a car, any card, irregardless of gas or electric. Or watches YouTube. Or has an iPhone, iPhone Pro, and has Instagram Facebook, etc.

Honestly it is all bad for the planet.

My immortal and ethical thought is this:

Don’t do what is “best for the planet“, do what you believe is best for you.

Is the planet made for men, or is man-made for the planet?

Body shaming?

I have observed a funny reverse trend; man is not permitted to walk around, topless in public, show off his body and muscles, and also, not allowed to wear short shorts, or show off his crotch bulge.

I find this highly paradoxical, because nowadays, women are permitted to show off all their body parts! Even nowadays in LA, seeing a woman wear some sort of translucent white shirt or tank top, nipples popping through is not really a big deal anymore. I think this is a good train; there’s this weird quote for men and women that this is seen as a taboo, yet, it seems that most men watch pornography and secret, just ask somebody for fun, “When you turn on Google incognito, what do you really look at?”

Or—

What do you think of Maria Ozawa?

Or,

What do you torrent on Pirate Bay, when you turn on your VPN?

The logic of 100% carnivore diet

Some nuances:

First, what is it that Achilles was fed as a child by his personal trainer, Chiron the Centaur? Legend has it that he was fed entrails, which included bone marrow, hearts, and other offal matter.

I also have an orthodox theory that cholesterol, dietary food cholesterol, is a natural steroid.

I believe the new ones here is critical, because people make this foolish calculus:

If I consume more dietary cholesterol, cholesterol in my food, then my blood HDL, bad cholesterol blood levels will go up, and I will eventually have a heart attack and die.

Also fat –

If you consume more dietary fat, or saturated fat, you will put on more body fat.

However, this ain’t true. I think the big issue is that in today’s world, or modern day English, the semantic lexicon issues is confusing.

Just try it out!

Whenever I get to Korean barbecue, all eat Korean barbecue, my favorite food items to consume include all the innards; beef large intestine, beef liver, beef, beef tongue, etc.

People say that eating meat is “bad for you“, but what about organ meats? Are organ meats “meat”?

Training thoughts

So the question is this; what is the best way to train?

My personal thought is towards some sort of ancient spartan, ancient Greek notion. The thoughts I’ve been thinking:

How did or how would the ancient Greeks or Spartan train?

First and foremost, they’re very very interesting thing is that most depictions of these great heroes and demigods is not having super super big chests, therefore the simple thought is that perhaps benchpress is a bad idea.

Also for fun, I’ve been asking ChatGPT to generate me images to visualize what an ancient Greek would look like when they were training; how a demigod would train, how Achilles would train, how Hercules would train etc.

What is more notable about their physiology and stature?

When I observe ancient Greek statues, or visualizations of ancient Greeks, what do I look at?

First, how upright they stand. Second, they never have a shirt on. Third, how massive their legs, back, and shoulders are.

My recent experimentations with training include heavy sandbag training; I ordered a 400 pound sandbag on the roguefitness.com website, and I just been going to the local park and filling it up with playground sand.

Second, Farmer’s Carry. I ordered these farmers carry handles on Titan.fitness, and it is very interesting! The skill is not just picking it up, but walking with it.

For example, it is one thing to lift 4 plates, it is another to farmers walk and carry 4 plates for the distance.

Another thing I have observed about lifting a heavy sand back off the floor, crouching down picking it up, shouldering it, or holding it to my chest with my fingers intertwined, and walking it for a long distance is it really strengthens my triceps, my fingers and my grip and hand strength, my foot strength, my feet, as well as my abs, obliques, and back. In fact I felt more sore carrying around I have sandbag than I did atlas lifting 1000 pounds at the gym.

Train like atlas

One of the big innovations I did while I was in Orange County was my notion of the atlas lift; loading up the barbell with as much weight as you can, and just lifting up and standing up. No squatting involved.

In fact, it looks like that my training style is starting to trend more towards a strongman concept; just lifting really really heavy stuff, and doing it in a more old-school way.

For example, atlas stones. To be able to just lift up a very very very very heavy boulder, and presumably throw it at somebody, is an interesting idea. This is what Achilles did; in some of the fight scenes of the Iliad, Homer would write:

Achilles would lift up a massive stone, that which barely two strong men could lift, throw it at his enemy, and the boulder hit their hip, and black death descended upon them.

Also something I have been observing is that perhaps heavy sandbag training is a good idea because it is “safe”, and also, more accessible. Anyone could buy a cheap sandbag on Amazon, and then just go to a local playground and fill it up with sand.

Now what?

Ever since moving to LA, I’ve become more and more reticent to join the gym. Why?

First, I prefer to be outdoors.

Second, I don’t like wearing a shirt.

Third, hygiene.

Working out at the park, in a parking lot, in your garage, or outside is not ideal, but, it is more interesting and innovative.

A simple thought is to just troll amazon, Titan.fitness, or the roguefitness.com website and buy a lot of fun weight lifting equipment! My simple thought is only procure equipment that you could easily throw in your trunk, because it is fun to be able to just put in your trunk, drive to your local park and work out there.

Now what?

Some more thoughts:

  1. Bear lifestyle: Apparently bears walk 50 miles a day. What if we humans did the same?
  2. Photography health and fitness is all connected: why? If you do not feel well, you’ll have no in motivation to make photos. My very simple thought is that first, focus on your health and wellness, and then the guitar will come naturally! Even a simple thought is being able to do a deep “as to grass“ squat is beneficial in photography, to get all the angles.
  3. If you work in cinema, or cinematography, it seems that handling these camera rigs is insanely arduous and also very physical. If you look like a bodybuilder, and had the strength of a demigod, or look like a strong man, or look like ERIC KIM, certainly wouldn’t this help you be a more capable camera operator?

Photo assignments

Here this is where I think shooting selfies of yourself, topless if you’re a man, or in the sports bra for women is a good idea, because Vitar is a good way to keep you motivated and on track with your fitness diet health and physiology.

These are my very very very very very simple suggestions: mostly via negative.

If you want to lower your body fat percentage, simple things to do which include:

  1. Don’t eat breakfast or lunch, only dinner. During the day drink lots of tapwater, black coffee with nothing added, or green tea.
  2. Just experiment; don’t need any fruit or vegetables, starches, leafy greens, etc. No nuts.
  3. Experiment with 100% carnivore diet, or maybe 100% organ meat diet. Only beef heart, beef intestine, either large or small, beef kidneys, beef liver, beef tongue. If you don’t like organ meats, just eat 100% grass-fed ground beef, get it at Costco or Aldi or somewhere cheap. The percentages which taste good are 80/20 or 75/15– I like the wagyu ground beef at Costco.
  4. Quit alcohol, weed, beer, drugs, EDM, festivals, bars, restaurants, etc.
  5. Quit almond butter, avocados, whole grains, fruits, fruit juices, fake sugar supplements, real sugar, starches, coke, Coke Zero, pre workout powder, protein powder etc.

When you break your fast aim for 5-6 pounds of meat a dinner.

How to channel your wellness?

Then the simple thought is once you are very well, how do you wish to channel your wellness?

Ultimately, I don’t think it is fitness for the sake of fitness, but rather, the fitter and stronger you become, the more adept you will become as a thinker, writer, creator, photographer etc.

Think more, become more.

START HERE

Also

Books

Photo ideas

Zen photography assignment: strive to make the most minimalistic Zen photo, and upload your best Zen photo to arsbeta.com

ChatGPT experiments

I love AI. Download ChatGPT to your iPhone or iPad, and upgrade to the paid subscription, an experiment with it for a month.

Upload your photos to it, and ask ChatGPT to give you feedback on your photos, or you could upload three photos, and just ask it which of the three he thinks is the best.

Don’t miss out on AI; this is the biggest thing to hit the planet ever since the Internet!

Diversify

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, it is good to have many different baskets. Why? If there is a single chokepoint or a single point of failure, this is not good.

I think the best way to think and approach things is just assume and predict and know that sooner or later, it will break, go down, become inaccessible, etc.

A simple thing that you could do with websites is this: how many different mirrors of your website, on different platforms. For example, build wordpress.org websites on Amazon web services, build it with blue host.com, ionos.com, The only thing I would probably not build on is Google, which always deprecates their old technology, and has a bias to discontinue products.

Also WordPress.com, maybe even Tumblr.

Propagate all the platforms!

Think islands, web, webs, multiple redundancies.

Train with EK

Random — if you live in LA and want to train with me, just shoot me an email at eric@erickim.com

Stoic training, stoicism and physiology?

Another fun idea that I have is that maybe there is in fact a link between stoicism, physiology, and also bodily training.

Why?

First, let us consider our physiological response to stressors environment etc.

Example, when I get angry, it is a physiological response. I feel the cortisol and stress entering my face, and enlarges my eyeballs, I get a huge shot of adrenaline etc.

Therefore, my simple thought is if you want to become a true stoic, the training must be physical, physiological.

Also, fear. What is fear? Fear is also manifested as adrenaline, as well as stress hormones, chemicals in your body, etc.

To conquer fear, and to become a true stoic, I believe it is all about mastering your physiology, mastering your stress hormones and responses etc.

It is all about training

ASKESIS an ancient Greek, the same notion of aesthetic, or aestheticism is rooted in the notion of training. As guesses, becoming harder, becoming stronger.

Even our best friend Nietzsche says ultimately the goal is to become the hammer, the diamond. To not be soft and yielding, but to create, become harder.

Why is it that softness is considered a virtue in today’s world?

A funny observation that I’ve made is that in today’s world, to be soft, yielding, open minded, flexible etc. is seen as a virtue. Yet I find this very paradoxical and little bit contradictory in the sense that it is all context dependent;

For example, racism, Nazis, holocaust deniers, anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic or anti-African-American people; shouldn’t we be maximally intolerant to these people? A zero tolerance rule here is good.

My personal thought is that in order to become more virtuous, we actually must become harder. To become more unyielding, to become more strict, and more harsh.

For myself, even though there is a lot of things about Korean culture which I deem as bad, one of the good things that come out of Korean culture is that the man is expected to be hard, strong, stoic, never showing his emotions or feelings etc.

Why do I believe this is a good thing?

Certainly if you grow up in America, sooner or later you’re going to naturally learn to be open minded, flexible, etc. So I think that we also need the antipodes; do not just be soft and yielding and flexible, but also to become harder and stronger and more staunch.

“Never say no more than once, if you really mean it” – NASSIM TALEB

Child rearing?

Never say “last one”?

Now that Seneca is two years, nine months old, he is an expert negotiator. He knows how to ask for 30 more seconds, one more minute, etc. Essentially he knows how to game the system.

I think from a lexical perspective, we must be very sparing with our words.

For example, it seems that the wise idea is to not just use words, but rather to enforce them.

For example, never tell a kid that something is dangerous if it isn’t really dangerous. What is truly dangerous? Kids running into the street and getting hit by a car and getting killed, falling from a very very very high surface and cracking open their skull and brain, etc. A lot of the time when we tell a kid something is dangerous, you’re just giving them false words.

“Never apologize or say “I am sorry“, unless you really mean it”. – NASSIM TALEB

Now what?

I would say now I’m moving forward, do radical experiments with your health, physiology, well-being, etc. Make this your number one critical priority and I think everything else will follow.

EK EXPERIENCES

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What is ERIC KIM up to?

  1. AI: I just built ERICKIM.AI.
  2. Thinking about the centaur approach, the general idea first came from chess, in which a human player with the assistance of a laptop in a computer made a more formidable opponent than just human or just computer themselves. I think this is very interesting, because a computer plus human will outwit just a computer. or in other words, AI which assists a human being will make a stronger opponent than just computer or just man alone.
  3. If you’re passion is creativity, photography or art etc., you must download Chi BT to your phone and iPad, and subscribe to the ChatGPT plus plan, which is only 20 bucks a month. I think it is literally the best invention known to mankind as of now. Rather than spending $2000 on a new iPhone Pro, just take the plunge and spend the measly 20 bucks on the greatest invention of all time!

I think one of my current fun things is combining photography AI and creativity. Why? Anything which is a creative stimulus and turbocharger for you is great!

Don’t miss out; this is your opportunity.

In fact, Don and Jose gave me a good idea; maybe I will do some sort of AI art creativity photography workshop in the near future. Stay posted.

How to get started with ChatGPT

Very very simple. Open up the App Store, and search touch GPT and download the official ChatGPT app by open AI. Then, click the ChatGPT for icon in the top right corner, and then subscribe to the paid model which is only 20 bucks a month. Then, click the little slider drop-down thingy, and switch it to the image generation tool which is DALL-E (I think it is named after Wally, the cute little robot from the Pixar movie).

My suggestion is have fun with it! Some creative thoughts:

  1. Ask it to write a haiku about XYZ
  2. Ask it to explain a complicated concept to you as if you were five years old
  3. Ask it to give you a summary of the best ancient quotes about XYZ
  4. For DALL-E, the image generation AI, make it as hilarious and preposterous as possible! For example, put in a prompt like “Make me a picture of a Spartan demigod deadlifting 1000 pounds of bitcoin, in the spirits of Korean aesthetics”

Market manipulation?

Thinking about FTX, the same guy, as well as the GameStop story, dumb money.

I think what people do not understand about finance is that ultimately, it comes down to human beings. I think the biggest issue though is as Michael Lewis revealed in flash boys, there seems to be weird under the table market manipulations which help some individuals get stupid rich.

Ultimately, the market, the modern day agora, I think it all comes out to speculation not “investing”. And even more than that, pride.

For example, my bitcoin pride. My funny idea is that I no longer care for US dollars, only bitcoin. in fact, now that bitcoin is bouncing back, I envision a third grade rally. I’m thinking about trying to buy more.

So what is the future of AI?

Some of my visions:

AI VISION.

I think i’ve discovered the next $10 trillion industry; AI, artificial intelligence etc.

My vision

I have some grand visions for AI:

First, some sort of photo creation AI, or some sort of AI that helps you cull down your photos. for example, I currently have a backlog of about 10,000 photos, not really sure when I’m going to have the time to look through all of them.

Some sort of AI photo curator division is you could just feed it 10,000 images, JPEG, and have it simply sort and filter it down to your most interesting or best shots. You can give a custom instructions, and it will learn your preferences overtime.

Also, writing. It seems that a lot of writers have issues with “writers block“, which means that they have a vision of what they want to write, but, what holds them back is that somehow they get stuck somewhere.

A very simple solution is having AI help you write more. Some thoughts include more robust and accurate voice recognition models, which allow writers to simply voice dictate their thoughts and write, instead of having to use the agency of a keyboard.

A camera without a shutter button?

Another fun idea that I have is some sort of notion of a camera without a shutter button. Kind of like the narrative clip, or the Google clips; I sent you some sort of device that you have mounted on you, and it automatically shoots photos when it sees something that is significant.

I still think it needs to be some sort of standalone device, because the big issue is with a clip, there are still human concerns about privacy, being creepy etc.

The future for phones?

Whether we like it or not, it looks like we are stuck with this phone analogy. I hesitate calling it a “device”— this doesn’t really mean anything. We should just call it an iPhone; essentially everyone in America at this point has an iPhone.

What should a phone be?

We gotta make AI on phones better.

For example this is where I think Google is doing a very good job, they are actually using AI to try to make her lives more helpful.

For example, this call screening technology. The general idea is that if you get a unknown phone call, I hate picking it up. I hate scammers. It seems that Google AI is very good at screening these annoying phone calls.

What I actually think that the most critical thing about AI in phones is that there needs to be some sort of thing which allows you to know whether a certain phone call is critical or not, at this given moment.

For example, the biggest issue that we have is getting interrupted. Getting distracted, notifications etc.

In fact, I have a bold suggestion for Apple or maybe even Google:

When you first set up your phone, by default have all of the notifications off, and then later, give the user the ability to enable them all.

Or another simple suggestion is when your first setting up your phone, give a prompt to the user asking them whether they would like to have all notifications on or off by default, and or give them the ability to customize which notifications they define important.

For example, all of my notifications on my iPhone are disabled it besides FaceTime. This is a good filter because the only really critical person I need to contact me is Cindy. And she knows that if it is urgent thing, she knows how to FaceTime me.

By default I turn off text message notifications because 99.99% of them are not urgent nor interesting. Also from a pure efficiency and productivity perspective, it is far more efficient and productive to just give someone a phone call or FaceTime instead of texting them back-and-forth.

chatGPT phone

My idea is that open AI and ChatGPT should make their own standalone phone. This might be the next trillion dollar company. Or maybe open AI could collaborate with Microsoft and build their ChatGPT phone on the windows phone platform concept.

Siri is pretty good, but it looks like ChatGPT is at least a quadrillion times better. If you could naturally integrate both ChatGPT directly into the phone, the tight integration of both software and hardware and AI, I think you have hit a gold mine.

For more thoughts email me at eric@erickim.com

Other ways that AI could be very useful

Let me give you another example. Let us say that I recorded a vlog and I want to directly upload it to YouTube and my website, and also extract the audio file, and uploaded to my website and my podcast platform etc. I should be able to do this all via AI script, without the need of any other foreign intercession.

Also, I want an easy way to quickly filter all my photos, and also I want to be able to do it off-line. I think the big Achilles heel of ChatGPT right now is that is pretty much useless without an Internet connection, Wi-Fi, or a mobile 4G or 5G connection.

No more iPhone?

I love my iPad Pro to death, but I hit my iPhone with a passion. It really sucks.

It sucks so bad I’m thinking about switching to android, back to android, maybe this time getting a Google pixel phone.

Honestly all the phones are bad, maybe the best solution is just no phone.

Now what?

  1. Download ChatGPT to your phone or iPad, and subscribe to the $20 a month subscription plan, and start generating images! Have fun with it, the more silly and ridiculous and preposterous, the better!
  2. The next time you go on a walk, play with your kid at the park etc., just leave your phone at home, or locked inside your glove compartment. I’m starting to think more and more that having a phone, iPhone or a smart phone is bad for your brain. It makes you think poorly. Instead when you’re out and about, just walk around with your iPad Pro! No keyboard or no loser stylus.
  3. Within reason, spend maximum time in the direct sun, maximum UV absorption, ideally take off your shirt, and wear short shorts. I think the new modern day signal of power and prestige is having a full body tan. Even Elon Musk looks like a bleached whale.

Books to read?

I highly highly highly recommend Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson, just download it to your iBooks store, Kindle, by the hardcover or just listen to it as a audiobook! The audiobook option might be interesting if you spend a lot of time in a car and commuting. Lots of lessons here.

I’m starting to read the book “going infinite“, specifically because I am passionate about bitcoin and crypto. Also I think Michael Lewis is just a great writer; his writing is fun, carefree, and also very insightful.

The Jeff Bezos invent and wander book is great. And also zero to one by Peter Thiel still resonates today.

More thoughts to come!

EK

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If this gave you even one funny thought, feel free to forward to a friend!

ERIC