Chalk strata.
Empires collapse inward.
An ancient gate
without arrival.
A green glow beckons.
Hands lift together.
Family heat means ambient care.
Easter 26
The Chalk
I hope everybody had a lovely Easter weekend. I went back to the chalk and spent some time with my parents. We did some blustery walks along the coast, and also did an enjoyable, albeit bleak, visit to Richborough Castle. A Roman Fort that at one point, was the site of the biggest triumphal arch in the Roman Empire outside of Rome itself. I haven’t been up there since I was in primary school, so it was a very enjoyable visit and a good use of my freshly renewed English Heritage membership. The visitors centre there is full of cool stuff, and features a curated collection of finds from excavations at the site.
I did open my laptop while I was at home, as I had some computational tasks using my daily AI API credit allowance, I didn’t actually spend all that much time at my computer. As I just wanted to spend time hanging out with my parents: going for walks, participating in chaotic church raffles after the Easter service, going to the food fair, and doing odd jobs around the house involving lifting as my Dad’s recent hernia operation is still heals up.
Doom Eternal
The one thing I did do however, was play a lot of Doom Eternal on my Switch 2 whilst I was at home. I’ve owned it for years, but it was basically unplayable and extremely crashy. But it now runs like a dream on the new hardware. I dread to think how many hours I put into the game over the last five days, in the evenings and during the day, drinking cups of tea while mum and dad had the TV on. I’m nearly nearly done with it. I’m just working my way through the last level.
I have decided that Doom Eternal is a ‘good game’, it’s not quite as fun or innovative as Doom 2016. And I don’t find the gameplay loop as satisfying as the original reboot. Initially, I found the increased agility, double jumps, and rushing elements in the movement annoying, as it didn’t ‘feel’ like a Doom game to me. But now I’m however many hours in, I’ve accepted it as part of the affordances provided by the game world..
The game is also far less confusing in terms of wayfinding than the 2016 predecessor. I don’t find myself getting lost as essay. It’s not quite “yellow paint” guidance, but the green light storytelling is very useful for intuiting where you’re supposed to go. I also enjoy the interplay between the first lines of sight and the locations of the hidden secrets satisfying in terms of exploration. Anyway, I didn’t expect to write about my Easter weekend, and end up with a review of Doom Eternal, a six-year old game.
Yes, I spent a lot of time with Doom on my Switch at home, but it was the time I spent with my parents was the best bit of being home. It’s so nice to see them, hang out, and be a part of their world for a couple of days.
Slop Machines
I used both my train journeys from and back to London to work work on Slop Machines and more or less finished the first draft finished; excluding the final chapter. The last chapter on the Slop Machine itself will probably be another 10,000 words of so. But I want to do an editing pass first. I plan to go though the chapters sequentially from start to finish, and make notes as I go about what I’m going to say in the final chapter based on the preceding arguments that make up the bulk of the book.
It’s funny, even though I’ve just got to where I am with the first draft, at its peak, the document was about 75k words. Even before the edit i’ve cut so much stuff out of it already; multiple side quests that interest me, but aren’t necessarily relevant to the argument that I’m trying to build throughout the book. Anyway, I’m extremely pleased.
I’m only three months late with it than I had initially planned. But it is what it is. The original Points and Gestures talk with the same name was given back in December of 2024! And as a result I feel like the ground I’m covering in the text is already out of date. Well after I had initially had these thoughts.
Monsters in the Mirror is, in fact, a prelude or prequel to Slop Machines. Covering a much wider span of time and history than the book does, which allowed me to get the wider frame of my thoughts in order, and that really helped and benefited the book itself.
Speaking of Monsters in the Mirror, because of the bank holidays, getting the zine issues back from the printer has been slightly delayed. But as soon as they arrive, I’ll be shipping them, hopefully this coming weekend.
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Photo 365
The Ministry Of My Own Labour
- Finished the first draft of Slop Machines!
- did a great deal of personal and life admin, prepared for my tax return, and generally got my affairs in order.
- I had an interesting conversation over email about my “Hard Worlds For Little Guys” series.
- I also have several other outstanding emails and correspondence I need to respond to.
- In my capacity as an advisor, I worked half a day alongside someone to get to to the bottom of some weirdness between subscriber recurring revenue and the reconciliation between different data sources.
Terminal Access
IYB Robotson Is back in the host chair of his podcast, Neomania.
The newest episode is about DIY Food Futures and Synthetic Ecology with @cyber_plantae from Futurespore. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you haven’t done so already, you can check out my appearance on show here!
Dipping the Stacks
Why Smart People Can’t Agree on Whether AI Is a Revolution or a Toy
I’ve been thinking about why the AI debate is so broken—why some people are convinced that AI is the next revolution, whereas others consider it a fun toy at best—despite everyone involved being so damn smart. I refuse to accept the easy way out of assuming the other side is full of idiots. And although there are hidden motivations and whatnot on both sides, that’s not the case for a friend telling a friend that AI is cool. So, yes, dishonesty is not absent but also not rampant.
‘Tinderbox’ UK may be one shock away from food riots, experts say
A large majority of the experts – 80% – said large-scale violence caused by a food crisis was possible in the next 50 years, with 40% saying it could occur within the next decade, according to a related analysis published in 2023. The scenario considered was more than 30,000 people suffering violent injury over the course of a year owing to food protests or riots.
How Chinese Students Transformed British Chinatowns
the outlook from Martin’s vantage point is not good. ‘I want people to understand exactly what we’re going through at the moment,’ he tells me. He is frank about the challenges his restaurants face: ‘Brexit, the war in Ukraine, price shocks from all kinds of geopolitical instability,’ he says, rattling off a litany of recent bad-news headlines. But there’s a bigger problem. ‘We’re caught in the middle of two bad economies,’ he says. Britain’s economy is stagnant.
I’ll be back in front of the machine tomorrow. You probably will too. The loop is too good. The acceleration is too real. Even knowing the zone is a kind of disappearance.
Culture War has made you a pathetic loser
If you’re out there posting about Clavicular, you’re a fucking loser. If you’re worked up over something he did or said, you’re a fucking loser or your friends are fucking losers, but probably both.
If you have an opinion about Sydney Sweeney’s politics, you’re a fucking loser.
If you hop from being mad about Eileen Gu to Clavicular to Jerry Seinfeld to AOC to the men’s hockey team to something Stephen Colbert or Ben Shapiro said on their shows, you’re a fucking loser.
Reading
I finished the audiobook of Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky on the tube. It’s Book #4 in the Children of Strife series. It’s fantastic. I think this whole series is some of the best of contemporary sci-fi. Really enjoyed it.
Last night I finished The Heart of Prayer by Rupert Spira. Another great entry in his The Essence of Meditation series.
Music
Rounds – Four Tet
For some reasons, perhaps stuck down with the affliction or disease known as nostalgia I’ve ben listening to Rounds by Four Tet. It’s really hard to belive that it came out 23 years ago.
Remember Kids:
Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it—which comes to the same thing—is by writing in it.
Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren – How to Read a Book
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