Sean
Braacx

A creative outlet

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Glasses and Moustache
Moustache

Welcome to my creative outlet. A place to share ephemera I’ve collected online and offline,
along with some writing.

  • Wisdom Lost

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    Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
    Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

    TS Eliot, The Rock

    This quote from TS Eliot’s play, The Rock was written in 1934, but seems even more relevant today. We are amassing an ever increasing amount of information, and can now get an answer for anything from AI (though not necessarily the right one). However, we forget that the value is not just in the information but the wisdom that it took to gain it.

    How can we be people that value the hard work of gaining wisdom in an age of instant gratification and ease? How do we push back against hoarding information without truly understanding the world in which it belongs?

  • Word of the day #1

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    As I read books and articles, I have a habit of saving unique words (or phrases) that I like. I’ll be sharing them here on occasion, so you too can sound smart at dinner parties.

    Pettifogger

    1. Someone who quibbles over minor details.

    I think I like this word so much because I can be a pettifogger at times. Unfortunately this is a trait my sons have inherited; if I say the time is 7:30 and its only 7:29, I will be corrected 🤦

  • AI Isn’t Coming for your Job

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    But at least we can make videos of cats diving in the Olympics.

    No. AI* isn’t coming for your job.

    Don’t get me wrong, many jobs are disappearing, especially at the lower levels, but AI isn’t some sentient being plotting your destruction.

    Continue reading

  • AI Cactus

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    My Father’s Day card this year had a cactus theme, as my boys know how much I like them. However, my favorite part was the AI cactus, complete with totally impossible physics. I’m so proud they understand the limits of AI 🙂

  • Measuring Success

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    I consider the success of my day based on the seeds I sow, not the harvest I reap.

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    This is how I want to evaluate my days. Not based on my output, but if I invested my time in the right things. It may feel less productive, but that is okay.

  • Questionable Quotes

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    There is this silly game my wife and I play, we take a sentence and put air quotes around a random word – the goal being to change the meaning and make it much funnier.

    This request for feedback does the same thing, making me question whether they “actually” want my input 😂

  • Perfectly Framed

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    How do we stop it from getting bigger?

    I spotted this in Sayulita, Mexico. I love how they committed to painting the rolling shutters to perfectly frame the plant (at its current size).

  • Back Flip Physics

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    Skip this if you get dizzy easily

    A friend of mine bet that if I did a back flip with a cup of water, the centrifugal force would keep the water in. You be the judge 👇

  • An AI Free Blog

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    AI free since ’83

    Starting today you will see this little icon on the bottom of every page. Nothing on this site was, or will be, generated with AI. No images, no videos, and most importantly, no writing.

    I’m not opposed to AI (well not fully) – however, besides the obvious environmental and human concerns, using AI to generate content for this creative outlet completely defeats the point.

    My goal is to learn, grow, and challenge myself – and document and share my thoughts and findings along the way. The hard part of writing or editing or capturing is the good part. I don’t write just for the output; the process of taking my random thoughts and making them coherent is where I improve.

    For example, Post-Snob was an idea I’d been playing with in my head for at least a few years, however it took time and multiple drafts, iterations, and sketches, before it came together into something I felt was worth sharing.

    As AI develops, and the uptake and implementation of it grows, my stance may change. However, I firmly believe that creativity is one of our core human values, and outsourcing it to a machine means we lose more than we gain.

  • Abiding & Gardening

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    The Bible is full of gardening analogies that spoke to the mainly agrarian culture of the time. My favorite of these is in the Gospel of John, where Jesus calls us to abide (or remain) in him, summing up the secret of the Christian life.

    I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

    John 15:5 ESV

    Although I have known and studied these verses for years, it recently got a fresh meaning for me.

    In our garden there are two grape vines that I am beginning to care for more earnestly. I cut off one of the branches, but left it in place. The next day, all the leaves were completely withered and dead; I was surprised at the speed.

    This immediately made me think of the verse above. When Jesus says apart from him we can do nothing, he doesn’t mean we can limp along on our own, but without him and the life he provides as the “vine”, we wither quickly and completely.

    Compare the before and after of my grape branch below 👇

  • Post-snob

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    Sean, quit being such a post-snob.

    In our consumer-driven society it seems like you can become a snob about almost everything. I don’t mean this in a purely negative sense, but rather the idea that you can get increasingly obsessed and aware of more subtle nuances of anything. This might be sports cars, coffee, or vacuum cleaners – every category of thing can be an area of specialization and opinion.

    I will fully admit that there are things in my life, namely coffee and wine, in which I am probably still in the snob category. But as I think about interests I’ve had in the past, and my journey into them, I have a theory I have been wanting to share.

    Continue Reading

  • Beatings & Morale

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    They will probably continue after morale improves too.

    If you join a zoom call with me, my background isn’t a perfectly curated bookcase or beautiful plants, its this flag …

    pirate flag

    I chose this, not only because it was hanging in the developers section of my first office job, but because it is the antithesis of how you build a good culture.

    Sadly this mindset is all too common and so dejecting. I recall working at an office where the production team wanted their area painted (a small request), but the business team wouldn’t do it until revenue targets were met – something the production team was not even responsible for!

    At StoryTap, one of our five values is Family. We want to support our team members personally and professionally, proactively helping them so they can do the best job possible. We haven’t always got this right, but seeing that flag behind me is a constant reminder of how important team morale is and how I don’t want to operate.

  • Virtue & vice

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    Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

    Ralph Waldo Emerson

    This quote is a good reminder of how every thing we do, especially the small things, show our true character and what we actually believe. What does your life (and my life) say?

  • Angry electricity

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    I spotted this warning sign in a small Alaskan town and appreciated how the designer made it angry electricity attacking a young child. Not exactly comforting, nor technically accurate, but hopefully keeps people from trying to open it!

  • The Seas Roar

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    Creation is always pointing us to the maker.

    Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
        the world and those who dwell in it!

    Psalm 98:7 ESV

    As I travel through a somewhat turbulent North Pacific ocean, with nothing but water as far as the eye can see, the verses in the Psalms that speak of the seas are seen in a new light.

    I am in awe of their size and power, and my own insignificance and lack of control in comparison. And yet, these verses are a comfort, as they tell us that these seas are created by our God, that they (and all in them) worship him, and that his love for us is as vast as the ocean!

  • Establish the work

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    We all desire for our work to have value

    Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and establish the work of our hands upon us;
    yes, establish the work of our hands!

    Psalm 90:17 ESV

    Establish comes from the Latin word meaning “to make firm” – and as I read this prayer, it resonated deeply with me. It feels like so much of the work I do is ephemeral or fleeting. What is important today is forgotten tomorrow, and even the “good” things I have built are mostly digital, simply 0’s and 1’s that could be erased and never seen again.

    I long to have the work I do make a meaningful impact, or at the very least, not be a total waste of time and effort that could have been better spent. The truth that God will establish our work, he will make it solid and of lasting value, is so encouraging, even when it doesn’t feel significant.

    CS Lewis captured an aspect of this idea well in The Great Divorce, when he pictured the good work we do here on earth reflecting the heavenly truth that is so much better. So yes, our work here is just a reflection, but when done well, it reflects heaven to those around us.

    When you painted on earth – at least in your earlier days – it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too. But here you are having the thing itself.

    CS Lewis, The Great Divorce

  • Computers

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    Let’s think critically about new technologies.

    Although I believe the computer to be a vastly overrated technology, I mention it here because, clearly, American have accorded it their customary mindless inattention; which means they will use it as they are told, without a whimper. Thus, a central thesis of computer technology – that the principal difficulty we have in solving problems stems from insufficient data – will go unexamined. Until, years from now, when it will be noticed that the massive collection of data have been of great value to large-scale organizations but have solved very little of importance to most people and have created at least as many problems for them as they may have solved.

    Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

    This quote is from Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, a prescient look at technology (mostly TV at that point) – and how the form or medium of a technology significantly impacts how it is used. As a whole, our culture sees technology as a good thing and we adopt it without enough critical thought as to the dangers or downsides.

    Reading this today in light of the massive data collection by tech platforms, and the use of this data to monetize and manipulate, should cause us to seriously consider when a technology has greater downsides than upsides, and how to prevent misuse at the hands of bad actors or powerful entities.

  • Composted

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    But it’s great for the flowers!

    I spotted this sign in Seattle and appreciated the dark humor (and perhaps the subtle threat).

  • Saxbounce

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    Some saxxy riffs!

    Saxbounce is a super upbeat album with amazing sax riffs and fun beats featuring the talented Israeli musician Eyal Talmudi. It’s so cool hearing “classical” instruments in different styles of music.

  • Kangaroo Chillin

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    We went to a Kangaroo farm recently as a family, and they love to recline in an oddly human-like manner that is a mix of seductive/chill. It’s hilarious to see them lying around like “Hey there, what’s going on. Come over and say hi” 🤣