Finished reading: The Box by Marc Levinson 📚

Good read if you’re curious about the global shipping economy and how global commerce got started. Great primer for the book How the World Ran Out of Everything too. Events from The Box have a direct impact on shipping during the pandemic.

I’m always torn between PC gaming and couch gaming in the living room. (Sometimes with a PC hooked up to the TV) The biggest difference is Dolby Atmos. Headphones just can’t compete with a true Atmos setup IMO. The sound difference is insane.

Man, these Cubs are swinging the bats something fierce. They never seem out of a game.

I’ve heard of weird things with identical twins…but this is just…odd.

This story about a kid in Florida who fell in love with a Character.ai chatbot is horrifying. I have more thoughts on this for later. Ella wanted to use this a couple years ago and was annoyed when we said no.

A Deadly Love Affair with a Chatbot

Finished reading: The Dream Hotel: A Read with Jenna Pick by Laila Lalami 📚

3.5 stars, rounded up

I discovered this book via the Writer’s on Writing podcast. The author, Laila Lalami, was a guest on the show. I was surprised at how her ideas about the future mirrored my own manuscript that I’m working on. Part of me wanted to skip the book to avoid any creative cross-contamination. But the structure of her story was very different than my own so I gave it a spin.

The book is set in the near future where people are given risk scores based on algorithms that analyze all aspects of their lives through data points. One of those data points are your dreams. If your risk score exceeds a certain threshold, you’re eligible for “retention”, a cooling off period of sorts to keep you from causing harm to people. Think Minority Report. The story follows Sara Hussein who is detained after an encounter with authorities following a business trip. Her behaviors combined with her risk score flags her as a potential danger to her husband. She’s detained in a facility and struggles to follow the rules while standing up to the injustices of the facility and its operator.

I was coming off a dismal reading experience with the previous book in my list, so this was a breath of fresh air. The story started strong, the world building solid and I was generally vested in the character’s plight. There’s a strong sense of injustice, profiling, and abuse of power that is done so well I found my blood pressure rising throughout the story.

About 2/3rds of the way through the book, things start to slow down. The main character has an overall goal but it never feels like you’re making progress towards that goal. The story seemed to transform into more of a character study which isn’t really my jam. Then the end comes hurtling at you at 200 mph, leaving you a little unsatisfied.

I’m still glad I read it but just wish my excitement was maintained through the entire read.

With my mother’s passing, I’ve been compelled to share my grief publicly. I’ve been struggling to understand where this drive is coming from and have spent a lot of time thinking about it. At last, I have an answer.

The thought of sharing more personal things on my blog started before Mom’s passing. It started when I began accepting friend requests on Facebook from people I work with. That’s historically been a no-no for me. I’ve habitually drawn these lines in my life across persona boundaries. Who I am at work would be different from who I am at church, which might be different from who I am at home. All of these personas are truthful but with an emphasis and focus on different aspects of my life.

My online persona followed suit. What I post on LinkedIn differs from what I post on Medium, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. When I started accepting friend requests from people at work on Facebook, there was a moment of catharsis in knowing that some people were getting to know more of me. I had similar feelings when people from church stopped being “people from my church” and started being people I call friends.

That’s when I recognized my desire to be known. Don’t confuse being known with being famous. I don’t want to be recognized in the streets. I want people who are in my life to know me at a deeper level. When I journaled, I realized that I was journaling with the perspective that my children and other family members would read them and get to understand me more completely. I wanted them to know me, even in death.

My online writing has always been segmented based on my audience. My Medium articles have a technical bent. This blog often served as a catch-all for my entertainment hobbies (Movies, comics, role-playing games), but I never had a home for all the facets of who I am. That’s my new goal.

This space will be for all of the aspects of my life. One day, I might write deep thoughts about productivity. Another day, it might be a rant on parenting or combat systems in D&D. The content won’t be curated other than the fact that it’s about me, my life, and my perspective on things.

I’m not writing it for clicks or an audience. I don’t even track readership, and I have no desire to implement a comment system. It’ll just be me, sharing my life and my thoughts.

It’s possible no one ever reads it, but that’s alright. Nobody reads my hand-written journals, yet they’re still helpful for me as an exercise. I think this will be the same.

This year’s in-house Easter Egg Hunt is gonna bring tears. Ella is at a sleep over. Xander struggled to find his. I hid Ella’s this year and I got DIABOLICAL with my hiding spots. MWHAHAHAHAHA!!

This series was recommended to me quite some time ago. It’s hard for me to find time to watch something my wife isn’t interested in but this was worth the wait. The animation is amazing, the performances fantastic, and the story is solid. Classic revenge/outcast story with a minor twist. Not incredibly original but still done very well.

It’s worth checking out for sure.

Living that girl Dad life.

Going through my Weekly Review and came across a project that I’d been putting off for a long time. Now it’s too late. Don’t wait for tomorrow.

I remember way back when I actually wanted a Tesla. Seems like another life.

A lawsuit filed in February accuses Tesla of remotely altering odometer values on failure-prone cars, in a bid to push these lemons beyond the 50,000 mile warranty limit:

Full article

Basis is looking for a Senior UI Software Engineer. Are you looking for a new opportunity? Job Posting Here

Finished reading: The Kubernetes Book by Nigel Poulton (@nigelpoulton.com) 📚

I listened to this book on Audible during my long drive. I’ve never listened to a technical audiobook (not even my own) and was curious how it would translate. I opted for a Kubernetes book since I’m reasonably well-versed in the technology and could evaluate it from an already knowledgeable perspective.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. I think part of it is that @nigelpoulton.com has a keen sense of what works in an audio format and what doesn’t, so he didn’t hesitate to modify the content to suit the medium. The key points came across well. Some of the examples were hindered by the format, but you were still capable of following. (And if you were at a computer with the example code, I’m sure it would be even easier)

If you’re new to Kubernetes, I’d highly recommend this book in any format.

Hunting Warhead is a podcast about some very difficult subject matter. The podcast follows the hunt for the moderator of one of the biggest child pornography/abuse websites on the dark web. The story explores the underbelly of the web and the horrific subculture. I was hesitant to listen to it at first, but the host did as well as any navigating the topic, avoiding unnecessary graphic detail.

It’s a difficult topic, but as a society, we can’t bury our heads in the sand about it. It’s more prevalent than we think.

Hunting Warhead on Apple Podcasts

Decided to break the drive back to Chicago up. Grabbed a hotel and relaxing, watching Blue Eyed Samurai. Will finish up the drive in the morning.

It’s done. Mom, Grandma, Granny, Auntie El, Goosey Maye. So many names, titles of affection and love. You’ll be missed. Your family celebrated you hard today.

I recorded a conversation with my Mom a couple years ago where we discussed family history and events. Starting to go through it now and make smaller clips of it. Here’s the first one talking about the origins of our family reunion.

Screenrant published an article about the departure of two key figures on the D&D design team, Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins. They’ve been helming the creative side of the franchise for over a decade and have overseen the development of 5E and what I guess we’re calling 5.5E.

The latest versions of D&D have brought in an avalanche of new players. (It might also have to do with the rising popularity of actual-play streams as well) More people playing TTRPGs is good for the hobby, no matter their entry vehicle. But I can’t say that I’m happy with the overall trajectory of D&D specifically. I’ve been trying to put my finger on precisely what bothers me about the direction of the franchise.

At the heart of my issue is the ever-increasing power levels of characters and the lengths a DM has to go through to challenge players. That sounds like a simple problem as a DM since you have control over the force you apply to the party. But it can get tricky very quickly.

Encounter levels

For starters, I never want to create an overwhelming encounter. That’s as much fun as having players annihilate their opposition in every battle. I want there to be an opportunity for the players to win, but with heavy costs. That balance seems very difficult to strike in 5E. (I’m including 5.5E in my references to 5E. I hate writing 5.5E) Either you’re coming on too strong, and you wipe the party or find some unsatisfying excuse to keep them from dying, or the encounter is an exercise in hit-point bookkeeping. The challenge rating system is broken, but many people in the community have devised ways to try and correct it. But even with those tips, it’s hard to nail down consistently.

Another wrinkle for balanced encounters are the different power levels of characters when playing with min/maxers or broken builds of characters. (The Monk class is ripe for exploitation) Now, you have a character that requires more of a challenge, sandwiched amongst squishier characters who can’t handle the increased intensity of the confrontation. Do you make it challenging for one at the expense of the others? Or do you make the encounter level with the rest of the party and let the min/maxer have a field day? The other option is limiting people’s ability to min/max, but now you’re applying a subjective set of rules and possibly preventing a player from playing the character they want. You have to pick one thing to optimize for and go for it. It’s all about trade-offs. There are no free lunches here.

Character Death

This extends my encounter problem, but killing characters is hard. I’m not the DM who wants to murder characters regularly. I think character death should be rare but still a possibility. In 5E, it’s arduous to have a character die as part of the natural flow of a battle. Sure, I can kill a character intentionally, but that doesn’t seem fun or fair. The specter of death always increases the tension and the stakes of a battle. (Yes, I know, there are other ways to create that as well) But it often doesn’t feel that death is an actual risk during an encounter.

An aside on this. If you look at the roots of D&D, you don’t want to go back to that, where characters were a collection of stats with a name. Character death was frequent and a non-event. It wasn’t until The Hickman Revolution that we started to get stories with overarching plots and player character motivations taken into account. But you can’t have a cohesive narrative if the characters die every third or fourth session. You’re stuck. You’ve got to find a middle ground of some sort. There are no free lunches.

Simulation vs Abstraction

The D&D game has become (again) highly tactical. The game transforms as you transition from roleplaying to combat in what feels like a different game. (This feeling has steadily increased since 3rd edition and the move away from theater of the mind combat.) I’ve become keenly aware that D&D is not a simulation of the real world in any facet.

This isn’t a knock on the system at all. It’s a deliberate design choice you either like or don’t. But I’ve spent countless hours at tables debating the “real world” impact of spells like Darkness where you’re effectively blind. You’d think you couldn’t attack a target you can’t see. But in the game, you can attack but with disadvantage. Some people take issue with that. Let’s say they’re hiding from the blinded attacker or they’re not making any sound. “How can they attack me? They’re blind!” The game rules don’t handle that real-world logic leap. Because it’s not a simulation. Realism gives way to the mechanics of the system. You can house-rule it, but then you might find yourself in an endless loop of exceptions and “whatabout” type of arguments. Narrative-based games like those inspired by the Powered by the Apocalypse system have an advantage here but come with their own problems. There are no free lunches.

Wilderness Adventuring Takes a Back Seat

Exploring the wilderness has taken a back seat in 5E. I started to put together a hex crawl adventure for my table and quickly realized how 5E has dismantled a lot of the challenges of surviving in the wilderness. An argument can be made that players don’t find those types of survival adventures enjoyable, which is fair. But I miss that aspect of the game. Getting to the location was just as dangerous as exploring it. It created a need for a diverse set of skills and abilities. Now Create food and water generates 45 pounds of food. The Natural Explorer class feature eliminates a lot of the troubles of exploration. And these are just items in the Players Handbook! Again, wilderness exploration might not be your thing, so I recognize that I could be in the minority here.

What to do?

All this rambling is to say that some of the core aspects I remember of the game growing up have slowly changed to a point where D&D isn’t the first place I want to go regarding TTRPGs. The franchise still has a special place in my heart and should continue on its current path because it’s bringing a massive new audience to the hobby. And when new people enter the hobby, we all win. But it might be time for me to get off the D&D train and start exploring other systems. I’ve already mentioned the PbtA system of games. A few others that I’m interested in.

• Blades in the Dark
• Shadowdark
• Scum and Villainy
• Dungeon Crawl Classics (Although this might have too much lethality)

There are a ton of options out there. I’m looking forward to exploring them!

Looong drive to Georgia. Binged a podcast called Scamanda. Woman faked a Cancer diagnosis and scammed her followers and her church out of thousands in donations. Wild. Definitely worth listening to, but it it’s one of those podcasts that didn’t need to be that long.

Scamanda Podcast