Spencer Beacock

I saw Conclave recently, and I think it would be funny and also kind of fitting for the arc of that story!

Hot chocolate time! Feet up! You've earned it!

At least, that's how I responded after shoveling out two cars and a sidewalk this morning

To sate others' curiosity: seems like this building was demolished in 2020, seemingly after being owned by the local council for a while. No clear indication of what it was, but Google Streetview from 2015 shows the side of the building, at 118 E Main St, Elysian MN

It is extremely rude of them! Winter still has many months!

(The good news I suppose is that making your own is easy and shelf-stable basically forever if you use enough booze)

Each system, of course, has its own frameworks for articulating risk of failure and how it advances the narrative

Position is how well-positioned you are in taking an action — are you hidden, do you have impt knowledge, equipment, etc. — in other words, how likely is it that you succeed?

Effect is essentially magnitude — if you succeed, what impact does it have on the world?

Then, you roll

I think one way of getting the practical education in risk that you’re imagining is to play TTRPGs

Blades in the Dark, for example, has a framework of “position vs effect” that kind of maps to your “probability vs magnitude”

Peak summer option here in ON.

How are you preparing God’s favourite squash?

In the summer I was doing butter, maple, and then whatever baking spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom etc. (then I tended to serve layered with stone fruit under a broken burrata)

I wonder about a honey + gochujang, though, for a hit of heat and maybe a bit acidity and brightness

There is something about eating both flesh and skin that is a textural delight! Especially if cooked in some kind of slightly-sweet glaze 🤩

holy moly!

Good to hear!

Is this still a maker space? I believe it was ~a decade ago. Such a neat, rare example of other economic uses tucked into alleys beyond “RESIDENTIAL GARAGE”

It’s a real special thing. It’s been fun, too, seeing them test and learn and iterate with bigger budgets and bolder bets. Not always successful but always fun to see creators creating

I mean I feel like it just underlines that grift, at any scale, is kind of a great gig!

The frame around “he’s selling a feeling” (to the rich, white, old, male audience) seems really true — the content of the book is secondary to the behavioural, political and emotional permission space it creates

listening now… the “declaration of independence” bit is 👀👀👀

It is night time. At the end of a long and narrow backyard, a small shed glows with light from inside. Beyond the shed is a two storey cinderblock wall. In the foreground is a large tree.

My big project over the last 14 months (!) has been building a shed from scratch. It’s been incredibly satisfying to make a little building from nothing. It’s not done, but it’s rigged for lighting now, and the glow is so cozy that I couldn’t keep it all for myself. Happy Friday.

Real Caves of Qud energy here!

hahaha their delight is infectious i love this

My PC is too old to play the remaster but new enough to run the OG very well so I (re)played it a bit when the remaster came out — it holds up! Although the original character build mechanics are pretty arcane and confusing; it sounds like they smoothed that over for the remaster. Enjoy!

Haha there’s a kind of carcinisation at play in those games where no matter what your initial build vision is, it’s hard not to wander back towards stealth archer

And yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever successfully applied a poison in a TES game

Sounds great though — loved Oblivion back in the day!

Priorities in order :) What’s your Oblivion build?

Haha that IS interesting. “Frankenstein was the poster, this is Frankenstein’s newsletter”-type energy there

(Also FWIW, your posts about the survey tickled my curiosity to finally get me to sign up after thinking about it for a while — good marketing ploy :) )

I think if you wanted to know if people are total newsletter infants, a more pointed question like “Is this your first newsletter?” with y/n inputs, or “How familiar are you with the newsletter medium?” with gradations might do the trick

A survey question which reads “Are you starting your newsletter from scratch?”, with two options: “Yes it’s new” and “No I already have a newsletter”

Are you concluding epiphany #3 based on this question? If so, I’m not sure it actually tells you whether users are total novices to the medium — I interpreted it as “are you planning to bring over a newsletter?” I’ve had newsletters in the past, on other platforms, that have withered

That sounds real smart to me! Lil risotto pancakes.

(TBH savoury rice pudding sounds great but I know that’s not the risottobjective typically)

I made a comically-large amount of rice and peas so by Sunday I will be 40% rice and peas

Heatwaves can be dry, or wet, or dry-then-wet, or wet-then-dry, or wet-then-dry-then-wet, or...

It all depends where you are and what season it is! Our new paper dives into the cool world of heatwaves and precipitation.

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I’m not sure there’s really a point here, haha, I’m posting while I cook 🤷‍♂️