The Desk of BBS

Why do we expect that words on the internet are somehow important? For some weird reason, they feel printed. As a sort of grand statement by the author to the world. The internet has made it that there is little experiential difference in reading a rando's blog and the New York Times. Add to that the constant decrease in quality and journalistic integrity by such formerly highly respected outlets and we get a generalized return to the mean. Substacks have somewhat filled the void of independe...

It feels like we are standing at the precipice of a new era. Or perhaps a return of the reverse of a long historical cycle that has trended towards ever greater centralization after the World Wars. As the British Empire unravelled, the United States expanded its strength across the western hemisphere. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US found itself the sole superpower and, arguably, the world's de facto empire. The generations that managed the growth of the USA up until 1...

You too have a digital toolbox. You might not call it that but you kinda sleepwalked into one, regardless. Over the course of several years I started seeing every screen for what it was. A collection of stuff that did certain things for me and to me. Screens include phones, laptops, tablets, TVs, etc. Take the most installed app on most phones: Facebook. You probably also started hating it a little but that is besides the point. It is a tool that helps you connect with friends, check out event...

How about: A Virtual Reality game where everything is built just as the gamer is exploring their environment. By applying Machine Learning–situations, characters and objects are being created using a mix of randomness and the gamer’s choices, in a way that maximizes pleasant surprises and builds a story that, every time you progress, it gets better (as in tailored to your likes). On top of everything, the currency unlocked inside the game through increasingly complex challenges is a coin traded...

As a guy who was, and still is, lucky to be alive. To be born to hard-working parents. To people who are still the clear example of what one can achieve just by believing in a better life. And finally in a place that just happened to be on a rising economic slope. I’ve seen lightning high risers and blazing low descenders. I still can’t certainly say what paved the way for either. But I’ve got some guesses. First, a bit of a back-story. On the street where I grew up, there were quite some di...

I was waiting for a traffic light to turn green. Being in a hurry it felt like an eternity had passed. Suddenly a homeless-looking old man passed behind me and pressed the button to cross. I did the same thing a minute ago. So we were now two strangers waiting for the light to turn green. An eternity passed once more and the light was still unchanged. The old man, possibly irritated, crossed over and I was thinking of being late as a definite possibility. I didn’t give any thought to anything...

Looking back, not just at this year, I can’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude towards all the people I’ve met along. So beautifully complex our lives. Such powerful statements of human existence we have become. Suffering has been a catalyst of our transformation. A type of pressure that brought diamonds into existence and people into the truth. A simple truth, that we are here for a brief moment only. The days are long but the years are short. While life’s meaning is nowhere to be foun...

You probably expect a visceral confession or a sort of dirty secret to be revealed. I promise you’ll get both if you continue reading until the end. As you’ve probably figured it out by now the title was a shameful click-bait. But don’t go just yet. We’re only just beginning the ride deep into the mind of most online marketers today. Let me tell you what has become a sort of cocaine for me since I’ve started working in Online Marketing: numbers. How can numbers have effects similar to cocain...