Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

The Art of Obvious Clues
December 04, 2024

I’ve been thinking about game mastering lately, particularly about how we present clues and plot hooks to our players. A friend recently mentioned they were working on adding clues to guide their players toward a specific storyline, and it got me reflecting on the whole concept of “leading” players through our games.

Here’s the thing: I’m incredibly fortunate to have players who actively listen for and follow my plot hooks, even when they’re not particularly well-crafted. But should we really need to “bait” players into having fun? The whole process of deliberately planting multiple clues, creating diversionary scenery to hide them in, and hoping players pick up on the right threads seems unnecessarily complicated.

Books in 2024
November 23, 2024
books reading library

The year isn’t over, but I’ve been reflecting on books that I’ve read this year. I recently started in book two of the Hyllis Family series, Teleporter, after having finished the inaugural book, “Telekinetic”. It’s an odd little book with an interesting premise, about a family with subtle/small psychic talents in the midst of a post-apocalyptic return-to-pre-industry Earth setting. I enjoyed it and I’m anxious to see where the story that focuses on the main character’s sister goes.

I pulled together a list of books that I remember (whether vaguely or not) read this year, including some books that I’ve re-read, like Seveneves and The Three-Body Problem. There were a few in this list that I re-read because the kids were interested in something new and I was wondering if they’d be interested. There are also a handful of books in this list that I know I read but I have no memory of beyond the book flap. Pretty weird.

Importance and Urgency
November 17, 2024
management importance urgency work

One of the weird things about being an Engineering Director (ED) is that the stuff that lands on your plate is almost always very important but not urgent. This happens often and is a constant cycle of evaluation. Misjudging urgency or importance can cause a ton of problems for you and your team. Here’s how I think about navigating this.

The first big pitfall is treating non-urgent tasks as urgent. This feels good in the moment—it’s nice to check something off your list or swoop in to save the day—but it doesn’t take long before the cracks start to show. Constantly working in “everything’s on fire” mode will:

Earbuds Don't Fit Me
November 11, 2024
earbuds

I really dislike the shape of my ear. It makes it difficult for me to use earbuds like I assume normal people do. The cartilage in my ear doesn’t allow enough space for the earbud to sit properly. So, anytime I put an earbud in, it doesn’t seem to fit the way it’s supposed to. Apple AirPods, which have a large body and seem to shape the speaker to point a bit more forward, don’t sit very well in my ear at all. There’s nothing in my ear to hold them in place. The little bits of cartilage that it seems like normal people with normal ears have either don’t exist in my ear or are pointed in a different direction, making Apple EarPods not fit and sit properly.

Traditional earbuds, like the ones with tips you insert into your ear canal, also have difficulty fitting normally. My right ear has a smaller ear canal than my left ear, so I have to use totally different ear tip sizes, and they never fit quite right. The AirPod Pro earbuds that I have probably fit the best out of all the earbuds I own, but only because I use aftermarket foam inserts that conform to the shape of my ear. Each one is a different size, and even then there’s some kind of gap around the one for my left ear which messes with the noise cancellation and makes it less effective than it should be. I’m constantly having to adjust them because the cartilage in my ear does not hold the pods properly, and there’s always a drag pulling them down even though they’re more firmly affixed with the foam than with silicone tips.

Single-Issue Voter
November 11, 2024
voting,election

I think I’ve become a single-issue voter. This election has been very contentious, and there’s been a lot in the news about how it’s a very close race that the election is too close to call, particularly for the presidency, but also for the Senate. A lot of the issues they’re discussing are related to economics and the economy. The dollar that people bring home from their jobs isn’t stretching as far as it used to. People are talking about the border and immigration, and how there are people coming into this country who, some say, are taking away jobs. Certain candidates claim that these people coming in from outside the country, illegal immigrants, are a danger to us in some way.

There are also other issues like women’s rights, the right to choose what to do with one’s own body, or just plain old abortion issues related to Roe versus Wade and its overturning in recent years. But ultimately, the issue that I don’t hear anything about on the news, and the thing that concerns me most, is climate change.