Optional

I've spent literal YEARS trying to change the way Obsidian renders Emoji, from the hideous Windows Emoji to the beautiful Twemoji. But this isn't a recipe, so let's get right to it!

There's a new blog on this instance called OptionalBooks where I share reviews of the books I'm reading.

When playing Pen and Paper games I highly recommend the use of “Calibration Tools”. These are more commonly known under the name “Safety Tools”, but since they enable more than just “safe” play, I prefer “Calibration Tools”. These tools take the form of additional rules and/or processes that formalise the process of finding common ground on what stories we want to tell at the table.

This is to tell you that there'll only be bad blog posts from now on. “So nothing changes?“—Shut up! But… yeah.

You're learning to play darts. You don't care about the actual rules, but just want to consistently hit the bullseye. You do a couple of throws, all somewhere around “okay”. Finally, you hit the bullseye! You try to remember exactly what it was that enabled you to hit it… You had your right foot in front! You try again, right foot out front. You hit the edge of the board. Left foot, same result.

TL;DR: I used chatGPT in some form of Socratic dialogue to aid in understanding a text I was reading. Transcript

Yes, AI is over-hyped and not actually (yet) capable of what many people claim it can do—or what people are already using it for. The best advice I've heard goes “Treat it like a younger version of yourself or an assistant. Let it do busy-work which you could also do yourself and don't trust it blindly.”

This week I finished a 3-shot of the excellent one-page RPG Lasers & Feelings by John Harper. L&F is not exactly meant to tell a story that's longer than a one-shot, but I wanted to challenge myself and try something different.

The longer a website exists the less usernames are still available on it. Also, the internet population is growing and everyone's taking up some usernames here and there. Of course, having no usernames left is not a real threat, but not having the one you had on that other site available is quite possible.

So you've heard of Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) and wanted or even tried to get into it? But for some reason you couldn't? Too much math? Too many rule books? I'm here to help! But not by actually giving you a starting point with DnD. Actually, I want to tell you about all the other Pen and Paper (P&P) games that are out there that might be a better fit for you!

Boss Level, by Joe Carnahan, is not a good movie by a long shot. It's got bad CGI and the protagonist's – Roy's – narration runs completely counter to Show, Don't Tell. But it beautifully lays out the different ways we can learn and grow in life.