I might have pre-ordered the largest ever Lego set. 21065 here I come!

I did a thing! And wrote a blog post about it :) https://noa.re/posts/zqlu/

If you have ever felt like there really isn't any good public key formats, this one is for you

For those that are into 1st/3rd person 3D puzzles, and/or metroidvania I can highly recommend "Talos Principle 2" from a studio in Croatia, and "MIO - Memories In Orbit" from France.

The former has incredibly clever puzzles coupled with a story and setting permeated by philosophy about what consciousness and being human really is.

The latter is on par with Silksong for me. Great story and atmosphere.

#gaming #videogames #mio #TalosPrinciple

It was all about the framing: I channeled my instinctively wanting to help them into the immediate (tied their shoes). That experience helped me expand the frame to the bigger picture (teaching them to tie their shoes). The two years I worked at Hyper Island let me put that into practice.

It was a really trippy school to work for, guiding students through a meta-process while undergoing that same meta-process yourself.

If you are equals, then everyone is responsible for their own experience and agency. Maybe it doesn't sound very profound to normies, but I was 31 years old when I had that realization.

It helped me to relax that part of my super-power that listens for needs of the other(s). There were so many ripple effects from that moment (and another, less flattering insight that I sometimes acted like a douche) - like that I could become more of my genuine self with others. And a better colleague.

The previous day, two in our group (of eleven total) had given me the feedback that I took up too much space in the group, so I spent Thursday in the back seat.

I didn't mind it, but it was frustrating to see the group start to frazzle and bicker.

He was right too. Everyone always had a chance to be heard, and I tended to use it, whereas they did not. It was a fundamental moment that helped tremendously in managing (then to me unknown but by my manager strongly suggested) super-power.

The two facilitators rarely give feedback or individual advice, based on awareness power dynamics, and not interfering in the group dynamics (trusting the process).

During Thursday dinner, one of them asked me about what I thought about that day. We had made good progress Monday through Wednesday, but Thursday had stalled and regressed.

In hindsight, in the following conversation he guided me to the insight, but I was being dense so he spelled it out: "You know, you can reject feedback too"

You solve increasingly complex tasks without one right answer, and get the theories about the stage you're in after the experience., and what is required from the group and the leader in order to progress.

(Ms. Wheelan has quantified the productivity of the stages, it's 20% in stage1, and 4x that in stage.)

You give each other honest feedback based on giraffe talk, which improves relationships and frees up subconscious processes even normies cannot turn off (sociality is deep in our genes).

I'm better at relationships than I would have been if I had been "normalstörd" (the Swedish colloquialism for "normie", lit. "normally disturbed").

I'm a better colleague. When I worked at Hyper Island with group dynamics based on Susan A Wheelan's research, everyone was required to take an UGL (Understading Group and Leaders - the Swedish Defense College's practical implementation of the research)

It's a five day residential course, with experience based learning always done with strangers.

When I think about it, I believe that me being good with kids, and animals, is because of it. I have developed a language with the dogs, where they use body language, signs or use low growls to tell me what they want (or if they want to be left alone).

It has also made me very aware of unfairness. I've learned to dull it over the years, but I still feel the same thing I did as a kid whenever I see or hear of unfairness. Yeah, the world is unfair, so we needn't add to it.

I'm going to get an "utredning" (the process of seeing if one is on the spectrum) - not really because I need help, but because then I can be open about it. We have kids with autism in school, and I know that role models and representation matter.

I have told the special ed teacher that I likely have autism with hyper-empathy, and she asked me a question I never thought about:

"In what ways has it been helpful or positive to be at your place on the spectrum?"

#Autism #hyperempathy

Life update: working in an elementary school is among the most meaningful jobs I've had.

It's also one of the most demanding and I'm just a substitute. There's a Swedish verb for a mass that has had soluble components removed through percolation: "urlakad". It's used metaphorically for humans, meaning "drained, exhausted" and that's exactly how I feel every evening.

Before this I knew teachers were under-appreciated even in Sweden. Now I know they're super-under-appreciated.

#DoesNotTranslate

@DHS Your fans do exist on here.
Harlem Unbound is one of my all-time fave #callofcthulhu supplements.

It’s 2003 and I’m getting hyped for the next gen Pokémon game while watching my country start a war in the Middle East.

Oops, wait...it’s 2026 and I’m getting hyped for the next gen Pokémon game while watching my country start a war in the Middle East.

Time is a circle.

Really excited and dare I say hopeful about uk politics for the first time in a long time after the Green Party win Manchester last night. It seems there is a chance we can wriggle out of the two party stranglehold

Not only does Butler tell a captivating story, she connects the dots between racism and poverty in the US. She deals with climate change and its effects on a USA under a fascist takeover (and the results in the second book) in a very visceral way.

It is also a deep reflection on the nature of God outside established religions.

If there ever is a hall of fame of sci-fi, this duology belongs there. It is at last on par with Asimov's "Foundation"

#scifi #OctaviaButler

It's rare that I read a book that stays with me for years after I've finished it. Octavia Butler's Parable duology is among the best books I've read.

Maybe it's because it's so prescient. Written in the 90s, it plays out in 2024, and has a fascist president candidate running with the slogan "Make America Great Again". We're only an el niño year with devastating forest fires (and empaths) away from her vision.

#Bookstodon #scifi

I'm substituting at the school tomorrow for the first time, and instead of going to bed I am searching "the brunt of it etymology"

The origins of brunt are unclear, but it could be related to the Old Norse word for sexual heat.

In case you wondered.

Today I learned that there are adoptions where the dog chooses their human. This is the stuff I need to see when the world is sliding into cruelty and insanity.

If you too need a good cry but for the right reasons, there's a lot of videos from the various places that have tried this.

EDIT: removing the link, because it turns out it's AI (thanks @IsobelLynn for the heads-up). I hate the times we live in and I'm going back to grinding in Diablo 4 and ignoring the world.

#DogsOfMastodon

I ran across a post in r/SciFiWriting: “Your Scariest Horror Tech?" asking for technology defying physics in truly terrifying ways.

I started writing my answer, but then I realized that I don't want to be training data for stochastic parrots, who get makeup and lipstick and are called AIs. In case someone needs ideas:

I think Roko’s Basilisk is up there. I could see a short story, or a gospel told from various perspectives and stages of the AI’s birth.

1/

#SciFi #Horror #WritingCommunity