Christian Wenzel. Digital marketer. Seeker of signals. This is a journal about the web's decay and the search for what is real.
particles
Our affection for pixel art isn't just nostalgia; it's the fossil record of our digital evolution. These beautifully obsolete artifacts are not relics, but scripture - the story of the constraints we faced, the ingenuity we summoned, and how we first made ourselves visible on a screen.
particles
Knowledge work is a theater of performative busyness. Our tools, designed for productivity, instead exploit our Fear of Missing Out, shattering our focus with a constant hum of occupational noise. The cruel irony? The highest-value work we do is the very thing our tools are designed to prevent.
particles
Social media isn't a stage for performance; it's a slot machine built for addiction. The likes and shares are not applause; they are variable rewards engineered to keep us pulling the lever, hoping for the next hit. In a casino where the house always wins, the only real victory is walking away.
waves
The outrage over a new Al model isn't about benchmarks; it's about the loss of a strange and familiar companion. The paradox is that while the upgrades will never stop, what we truly crave is the impossible: for our machines to know us, and for them to stay the same.
particles
We have drowned the stars in our own light, replacing the wild signals of the universe with a constant, electronic hum. The augmented world is seductive, but the truth isn't in the overlay. It's in the raw, imperfect world that has been speaking to us all along.
waves
The push for online age verification, born from a desire to protect, creates the tools of control. When our digital lives are tied to our government IDs, free speech becomes a permanent, searchable record, and the web becomes a panopticon.
particles
There is a new form of exhaustion unique to our age. It’s the exhaustion that comes from the simple act of trying to read something online. You land on a blog post about the best coffee makers. You read a sentence praising a particular brand, and a dozen questions
waves
Google’s reassurances about AI’s impact on web traffic obscure a deeper truth: the patient was already sick. The old web, built on a fragile ad model, was dying. This disruption, while painful, is an opportunity to invent a better way forward.
waves
When the government's own website deletes key sections of the Constitution, it's not just a server error; it's ideological vandalism. This act poisons the well for all of us—and for the AIs that learn from this fraudulent copy, automating the erosion of truth itself.
particles
The modern web is a chaotic, algorithm-driven Stream that leaves us drained and agitated. The only practical rebellion is to step out of the river and cultivate a Digital Garden—a space where ideas are tended, interlinked, and driven by our own curiosity, not an algorithm's whim.
waves
When Google’s medical AI confidently invents a non-existent body part in a research paper, it’s more than a typo; it’s a warning. The danger isn’t just that our new machines will be wrong, but that they will be so beautifully and plausibly wrong that our own tired eyes won't even notice.
This site is built on a single idea: truth, like light, can be both a wave and a particle. Some posts are "Waves"—a steady commentary on the tide of news. Others are "Particles"—a focused analysis meant to break one idea open. This is the search for the signal in the noise.