Noisy Deadlines

noisymusings

I’ve been thinking about AI for a while now, since I am increasingly being surrounded by AI tools at work, with Microsoft adding a Copilot button everywhere I look. But that’s a topic for another time.

What inspired me to write here was the recent controversy within the Blaugust community about the use of AI-generated images and text. And I knew about this controversy after reading Andreas’ post: Are we becoming too paranoid about AI slop? And then the contribution to the topic by Joel: Not paranoid, but respectful.

I read the Blaugust Statement “Use of AI as a Blaugust Participant” and I found it made total sense, allowing AI assistance but not using it to substantially generate text. I believe most bloggers cherish the writing craft: having an idea, a thought, an emotion and putting it all into words for other human beings to read.

I occasionally will use AI to “proofread” a text that I wrote to catch grammar and vocabulary mistakes, since English is not my native language. Other than that, I avoid using AI chatbots. I don’t like chatting with them. And that’s just me, I think the systemic harms these tools are causing to our society greatly outweigh the benefits right now.

It seems the real Blaugust controversy was about the use of generative AI images. The Blaugust Statement actually accepts the use of some AI-generated images:

An AI-generated image accompanying a human-written article is acceptable; a post whose only substantive creative element is an AI-generated image would not meet the spirit of the event.

And that’s okay, since the main work is focused on the text, not on the image itself.

Now some strong opinions.

As of today, I don’t consider that AI-generated images with the use of prompts are human art. Or craftsmanship. Or anything that can be considered art by human standards. There is no soul behind it; there is no human brain that made big or small deliberate choices to craft that image. It’s like using a slot machine to randomly generate something. Can that be considered an artistic choice?

Maybe these artifacts will become something different in the future, but today I feel that AI-generated content, be it image or text, is slop. I don’t like it when I see it; I can recognize this uncanny feel to it, and I basically avoid it at all costs.

And that’s just my personal stand at the moment. I have the power to choose what I consume online, and I just stay away from places or services that “serve” this type of content.

—

Note: I didn’t have time to proofread this with an AI tool before posting, so all mistakes are my own.

Post 03 of #Blaugust #NoisyMusings #AI

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Introduce yourself with five albums that have shaped you:

  1. Pink Floyd – The Wall (1979)

  2. Metallica – Master of Puppets (1986)

  3. Iron Maiden – Powerslave (1984)

  4. Rhapsody of Fire – Symphony of Enchanted Lands (1998)

  5. Angra – Angels Cry (1993)

I read this on Cafélog from Thomas, who read it from Martin and I immediately started thinking about which albums I would choose.

It was tough to narrow it down to five, but I went with my first instinct. These are all albums I listened to countless times, from start to finish, during my most formative years.

#music #heavymetal #NoisyMusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I love space photos!

I have a folder where I’ve been saving NASA’s missions for years: from the moon landing, the Curiosity Rover, the Cassini and New Horizons spacecrafts, the Hubble telescope, etc.

And now it’s time for an update from the Artemis II mission!

I love this view of the Moon with the eclipsed Earth on the background, it’s on my desktop now:

There are more stunning images available at the NASA’s website here.

#NoisyMusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

As I worked through my New Year planning and reflected on the past year, revisiting my private journal entries, these lessons stood out to me:

  • Listen to my body; adjust instead of pushing.
  • Consistency matters more than intensity or perfection.
  • Routines beat tools; resetting beats reinventing.
  • The tools I already enjoy are enough (yes, Nirvana, I’m looking at you!).
  • Daily journaling brings me emotional stability. Typing works for me.
  • Joy (music, reading, movement) is restorative, not optional.
  • Movement should support me, not punish me.
  • I don’t need to optimize everything to live well.
  • Letting go is healthy and allowed.
  • Experiences matter more than systems.
  • Steadiness and simplicity win in the long run.

🎉 Happy 2026 !!! 🤗

#NoisyMusings #notes #lessons

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I saw this going around the web a while ago and I saved it for later so that I could write one as well. So here it goes!

Do you floss your teeth?

Yes, every single day, without fail.

Tea, coffee or water?

Mostly water, but I love a mid-day cup of tea, especially in the winter. Lately, I’ve been sneaking in a shot of espresso after lunch when I feel my energy drops too much. I avoided coffee for years because of stomach issues, but now I can handle it in very small doses. I've always enjoyed the aroma.

Footwear Preference?

Comfort above all. Indoors, it’s Crocs in the colder months and slippers in the summer. I can’t stand walking barefoot or just in socks, I have to have something on my feet even inside the house. For outdoors, I love my hiking boots, running shoes or my winter boots in the winter.

Favourite Desert?

Dark chocolate! Lindt’s Caramel and Sea Salt is my weakness.

The first thing you do when you wake up?

I hug my knees in bed to loosen my low back, then I go to the bathroom to remove my nightguard and splash some water on my face. Then I sit down at my yoga mat to do yoga/bodyweight exercises and then meditation. If I skip this routine, my whole day feels off.

Age you'd like to stick at?

Around 35. I was in peak physical shape then, with enough maturity to know what makes me happy. Ideally, I’d keep the body of 35 and combine it with the wisdom I have now.

How many hats do you own?

Two running caps (one regular, one visor), three warm beanies for winter, and a summer hiking hat.

Describe the last photo you took

A photo of my workplace new office renovation showing the new kitchen area: a modern look area with exposed ceilings (apparently trendy), a blue island in the middle, two frigdes, two microwaves, beige cabinets all around with wood-look laminate tiles on the floor.

Worst TV Show?

I have not been watching too much TV lately, but I can't stand reality TV shows. They feel like manufactured drama with no substance, and I’d rather spend my time elsewhere.

As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?

I was fascinated by how things worked and how they were built. My wildest dream was to be an astronaut. I ended up studying Engineering, more specifically, construction.

—

🙌 Thanks for the inspiration:

#NoisyMusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I just realized it's been seven years since I got my current wristwatch. I was chatting with a colleague at work, and he mentioned that he got tired of replacing his smartwatch every year, so he switched to a mechanical one.

I've never owned a smartwatch because I've never felt the need for one. I considered getting one when Fitbits first came out to track exercise, but then they evolved into Google devices doing all sorts of things, and that changed my mind.

My wristwatch needs are very basic:

  • Show me the time
  • Show me the day of the week/month
  • Timer/Stopwatch to time runs and rest periods

And that's it. I don’t want to receive notifications, read emails, or respond to messages. I just want a watch that tells me the time.

I bought my IronMan Classic Timex in 2018 for $50. It was a quick purchase. I just wanted to try out a Timex. Before that, I had a Casio Baby-G for years. I still have it; it needs a new battery and a good cleaning. It’s one of those with a transparent case, and since I wore it 24/7, even while swimming, it ended up looking a bit grimy. But I suspect it still works. I will try to find it, I think I had an issue with the strap as well.

My Timex is surprisingly still going strong. I’ve only changed the battery once in the seven years I’ve had it. The only downside now is that it’s no longer waterproof because I didn’t replace the seal after the battery change. So, I don’t wear it in the pool anymore and take it off before showering. I forgot to remove it a couple of weeks ago before my aquafitness class, and it died temporarily. Luckily, my partner helped me open it up, let it dry, and it came back to life.

I’ve never felt the urge to replace it. My Timex still works, does exactly what I need, and fits my minimalist approach to everyday tools.

I think mechanical watches are super cool, but the one I have still fills my needs. I’m not searching for upgrades or features I won’t use. It's reliable and simple. It tells the time and doesn’t try to be anything more. That’s all I want from a watch.

#NoisyMusings #tech

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

🎧 This year I realized that I had stopped listening to full albums. I have been using Deezer for 11 years now (yes, I checked). Deezer is a music streaming service, not as famous as Spotify, I guess. One of the main reasons I subscribed was its great selection of Francophone artists. I was learning French at the time, and music has always been one of my favorite ways to learn a language. It also had albums from all my favorite bands, including many that were hard to find back home in Brazil.

Before that, I also went through the mp3 phase: Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa. I burned my own CDs, made personalized covers, and curated playlists long before streaming platforms existed.

I also had physical albums from my favorite bands such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Queen, Pink Floyd, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Angra, to name a few. Finding CDs from European metal bands like Stratovarius, Blind Guardian, Grave Digger, or Nightwish in Brazil was not easy. So (ahem, illegally, I know) downloading mp3s was the only way to listen to some of them.

After the mp3 boom and the rise of streaming, something changed. I almost stopped listening to albums as complete works. I was missing that feeling of sitting down with a cohesive experience, where each song connects to the next and the order matters.

I have been listening to the same playlists on Deezer for years, with almost no changes. So, this year I decided to return to full albums. I started manually choosing what to play and listening in the order the artist intended, without shuffling or letting algorithms take over.

Streaming services do not make this easy anymore. Albums tend to be buried under playlists, mixes, and endless recommendations. It requires a bit more effort, that's for sure. But it's still possible!

I also use Deezer's option of showing the lyrics while I listen, which is cool.

🤘 And since rediscovering Nightwish, this experience has become even more enjoyable. Listening to their full albums from start to finish has made me genuinely happy. Their music reminds me of why I fell in love with albums in the first place: the storytelling, the emotion, and the sense of being transported somewhere else entirely.

Listening to an album from beginning to end feels like reconnecting with the artist, and also with the version of myself who used to sit with the CD booklet, reading lyrics and discovering hidden tracks.

Maybe that is what I was missing all along: the feeling that music is not just background noise or mood filler, but a complete experience meant to be lived from beginning to end. 😊

I found some pictures of my old CD’s. I don’t have them anymore; I sold them all before my move to Canada. I don’t regret not having them anymore, since I can still listen to them via streaming services.

#NoisyMusings #music #heavymetal

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I was listening to the radio this morning and the song playing was “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits. I’ve listened to this song hundreds of times before, but something struck me today that made me curious about its origins. It’s one of the band’s most iconic tracks and the 1985 video clip is groundbreaking with its computer-animated characters.

Anyway, I knew the lyrics were a criticism of rock stars “easy” fame and luxurious lifestyles. What I didn’t know is that Mark Knopfler actually wrote the song while he was in an appliance store in New York, standing in front of a wall of TVs tunned to MTV. A delivery guy at the back of the store was making sarcastic comments about what he was seeing on the channel. It turns out the narrator of the song is this man who works in the store, and I had never noticed that!

I read that the album in which this song was released is one of the best-selling albums of all times, and that led me to browse the list of top albums. That search brought me to another classic: “Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that song. Released in 1977, it has such a wild, theatrical energy, even though the lyrics are about a guy who dies in a motorcycle accident.

That led me to a video clip of “Bat Out of Hell” and then to a YouTube channel by a classical musician analyzing rock songs. The channel is called Virgin Rock by Amy Shafer. She started the channel in 2022 and it is her personal journey into rock music, a genre she wasn’t familiar with. I watched two videos in a row:

And I just loved her videos! I looked at her back catalog and now I want to watch most of them.

And that’s what I really wanted to mention in this post: I love this kind of serendipitous discovery—how one song on the radio can lead me down a rabbit hole of music history, unexpected connections, and interesting perspectives.

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Post 94/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #NoisyMusings #music

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I am still thinking about focus and attention spans and boredom. I read Joel’s post: The constant need for a source of entertainment and that got me thinking even more. I loved that he starts talking about this time in his childhood with no technology around, and he wandered around the fields, playing with bottle caps and imagining they were spaceships (I also loved The Jetsons! 🙌).

He asks himself these questions:

Why would I wash the dishes without watching a video at the same time? Why would I fold my clothes without listening to a podcast too? Why would I have lunch without scrolling away on social media? Why would I go outside without carrying my phone at all times?

And then he asks:

Why would I not try, though?

To me, there are different layers to these questions:

  • True multitasking (doing two cognitively demanding tasks at once) isn’t something we can actually do. We can’t read a text and listen to a podcast at the same time, these are conflicting cognitive efforts. Even when we think we are multitasking, we are not effectively processing information.
  • Multitasking without cognitive conflicts: we can, however, combine two tasks that use different cognitive resources and don’t compete for the same type of attention. For example: listening to a podcast (passive audio input) while folding laundry or doing dishes.

This reminds me of the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport, where he argues that the ability to focus intensely is a skill that must be trained. His advocates on training ourselves to be able to focus so we can better perform cognitively demanding tasks. But even if we start having distraction-free “focus” sessions every day to train ourselves, we will struggle if we can’t free our minds from a dependence on distractions.

Cal recommends training our brains to tolerate boredom. Habits like constantly checking our phones or jumping between tabs, condition us to avoid boredom and seek novelty. This damages our capacity for deep, focused work.

My concern when I see younger people constantly seeking distractions is that they completely lost their ability to have one moment, any moment in a quiet state without looking at a screen or having something in their ears. And I guess I wouldn’t be too surprised if all this multitasking were done exclusively in their leisure times. But seeing them doing that while they work, for 8 hours a day, that’s concerning.

Personally, I do listen to podcasts while doing dishes or cleaning the house. I even save favorite episodes to listen to at the gym, as an incentive to go. But I don’t listen to 8 hours of podcasts or watch videos on the background while I’m at work, doing cognitive efforts.

So, it’s NOT about ALWAYS doing ONE thing at a time. If we avoid pairing tasks that interfere with each other, like reading emails (language processing) with listening to a podcast (also language-heavy), we should be okay.

That said, I think Cal Newport is right: if we are constantly in this distracted fully excited state all the time, we can’t slow down anymore, even if we want to.

I think that with the amount of instant stimulation we carry in our pockets today, it’s way harder to even realize that we are in that state. Some people might not even remember (or know) what it feels like to be calm, quiet, and simply present—just observing the world or listening to their own thoughts.

And it’s a challenge for all of us; we are all being bombarded with an excess of information and entertainment. I noticed a shift in my ability to sit down and focus on reading a book a couple of years ago when I was still using the main social media apps (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). I believe that deleting all those accounts four years ago helped me get back to enjoy reading again and embracing boredom sometimes.

I have been curating my online consumption patterns for quite a while now, and this post summarizes a bit my feelings about feeling hacked by the online world.

Anyway, thanks Joel for sharing your thoughts!

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Post 86/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #NoisyMusings #internet #attentionresistance

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I currently work with four colleagues who are between 15 to 20 years younger than me. They're great people, and I get along well with all of them. But recently, I’ve started to notice a clear generation gap. When they talk about things they see online—like YouTube trends, Instagram memes, or TikTok videos—I often find myself completely lost. I don’t recognize the references, and while they laugh, I realize I’m missing the context.

It’s funny, because when I was their age, I was the tech-savvy one. I was way more into computers and the internet than most of my peers.

The other day, we were chatting at lunch, and they mentioned that they CAN’T sit through a full-length movie without also using their phones, tablets, or even playing a game at the same time. They told me they just can’t focus on a single activity. There always has to be something else happening in the background, or they get bored. That completely blew my mind.

I asked them if it’s the same when they’re working, and they said yes. They often need extra stimulation while they work—whether it’s a podcast, a video, a TV show, or a documentary playing in the background. 😱 It reminded me of something I heard on Cal Newport’s Deep Questions podcast, where he described this behavior as “stimuli stacking.” That seems to describe exactly what they’re doing.

I told them I’m the opposite. I need quiet and focus to be productive. The only thing I can handle while working is music, and even then, it has to be a playlist I know well. Familiar songs become a kind of soothing background noise. Instrumental music works too, but anything with new lyrics or surprises will throw me off, especially if I’m doing mentally demanding work. Only during repetitive or mechanical tasks can I manage listening to a podcast, and even then, it has to be one I’m used to.

So, I noticed that this need for multiple sources of stimulation seems most common among people in their 20’s. I have other team members who are in their mid 30’s, and they’re more like me. They say they struggle to concentrate if something like a YouTube video is playing in the background. And they can watch a full-length movie without distractions.

Another thing I notice is that my younger colleagues will complete a task super-fast, they just want to get it done. And then I revise their work and point out things that they’ve missed or mistakes they’ve made. To me all these little errors are because they don’t take the time to reflect on what they’re doing, they don’t slow down, they don’t plan ahead. It could be just because they are young in the field, and they are still learning. But when I think about myself early in my career, I always took the time to read everything and plan how I would approach that task. I always take my time and focus on the details to understand the best way to complete an interior partitions take-off, for example.

It seems like this shift is generational. People who grew up in the 2000s were deeply shaped by the infinite amount of content and stimulation. Our patterns of attention and focus have really changed in the past few years, and now I’m really starting to see how those changes are showing up in my everyday work life.

I wonder if that’s happening everywhere, and if people in their 40’s like me are noticing the change.

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Post 84/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #NoisyMusings #internet #attentionresistance

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.