The Tao of Gaming

Actual Gaming Link — Essen Report w/ pics from Kulkmann (one of the OG bloggers).

All these worlds are yours … except Encelades? (Complex Organic Molecules found).

Conversations with Tyler talks to John Amaechi — the (first?) openly gay NBA player on leadership, science, science fiction, being a professor, and consulting. “An overrated idea in current psychology?…. So personality testing, it’s absolute bollocks.”

I thought I had seen all the Far Side comics, but apparently I missed the one that name-checked Jane Goodall (that she loved).

We have invented mithril?

RIP Paul Chemla (Bridge World Champion) has the great quote — “SEPT CONTRE UN !!  SEPT CONTRE UN !! SEPT CONTRE UN !! CHAQUE EPREUVE, CHAQUE MATCH, C’EST SEPT CONTRE UN !!!” (Seven against one, seven against one, seven against one — Every event, every match, it is seven against one!)

Systems fight back and the MIT Beer Game.

I think I’ve mentioned the Peter Principle Game now and then (for some reason the CMU game club had a copy and we played it … once). Marginal Revolution sees a paper that provides a formal foundation.

John Oliver has thoughts on Air Bud 2.0. (Sequel to John Oliver’s thoughts on Air Bud).

I watch Anton Petrov’s science videos on youtube from time to time (and have mentioned him, I think) but last week I turned one off due to flickering that I had assumed was just a bad upload. But then he posted “Youtube AI filter is making my videos dangerous to watch.” So, uh, yeah, I guess I’ll point to his Patreon.

I’ve been watching Feral Historian’s video takes on classic SF. I remember Footfall coming out (remember when books had marketing campaigns?), and remembered almost nothing of the story (except the ending, and that it was the SF equivalent of a big network miniseries — too many characters, too long). I don’t agree throughout. but its interesting. “Footfall and Cultural Blindspots.” Also interesting was video opening with a quote from Isaac Asimov “They asked me to do a screen adaptation (of I, Robot) and, of course, I refused. So they did an extraordinarily intelligent thing. They got Harlan Ellison to do it.”

D&D For retirees.

My first run of Factorio Space Age took 130 hours. One speedrunner decided to beat Space game 60 times in a September (twice a day) and, lowered the world record from 4h20m min to 4h03m and then kept lowering it in the next month, eventually breaking four hours. Even with pre-loaded blueprints, that’s insane.

I mentioned House of Dynamite in my media links this month, but was annoyed at some aspects of the plot. Marginal Revolution discusses the game theory of HoD (and a comment links to this much more detailed takedown/discussion which links to many more discussions).

Sumo: The Sumo Food channel demonstrates the ten most common winning techniques (for ~10 minutes, then onto watching them make lunch).