I know you mentioned it, but I'm going to mention it anyway...
One notable exception to this is the person's work. Which I, personally, am not super inclined to talk about with people even though it comprises the vast majority of my knowledgebase. Maybe I'm projecting, but my guess is that Joe Schmoe isn't going to want to talk about his profession after coming home exhausted. That is, unless he's truly found his calling.
I agree that it's unfalsifiable - necessarily all discussions to do with interpretation of qualia are.
I think, however, that your reasoning is backwards. Language such as "picture this," "envision yourself on a beach," the concept of the "mind's eye," or especially the word "imagination" from "image" is much more likely to exist as a result of the actual process than to be its cause. Parsimony favors assuming that the description evolved from the experience - if nobody "saw" mental imagery, we would more readily describe the thought process as "thinking about," "reasoning around," that sort of thing.
The language used cannot be used as proof on its own. What makes me think this is more than a description problem is that reported vividness of imagery correlates to unconscious effects: pupils constrict to imagined bright shapes and dilate to imagined dark ones, scaled to how vivid the person says the image was[0]. People reporting aphantasia don't show those effects. Despite this not constituting "proof," I cannot rationalize it being a coincidence.
If it matters, I call myself aphantasic, though I cannot prove it to you. You may relate to my initial thought - "surely all this language is metaphor, and people don't really walk around hallucinating on command." Taking (the vast majority of) people at their word, however, indicates that they really do see things when they think about them - though visual mental imagery is meaningfully different from actually seeing (but is more like seeing than aphantasics assume). Refer to Galton's original 1880 study[1] for 150-year-old rationalizations that are the same as mine.
Does anyone know what the roughly square-aspect monitor in the middle of his 3-monitor setup is? Looks interesting but I can't zoom in far enough to see a logo, and the Upgrading the Gaming PC[0] post. Thanks
Indeed, it is a DualUp -- the best display I have ever owned. I love it so very much, I planned to get a spare for when it dies, before they EOL'ed it. (I assumed it would not last long, as there can't be widespread appeal for such a display.) I missed that chance - but after months of setting eBay alerts, I found a local teacher that had a used one with just 400 hours on it (I have 17,000 hours on mine), and I bought it ($50 above retail price) and have it cleaned and waiting in a cloth sleeve for its time to shine, one day.
I talk about it and using it on a Mac with HiDPI display modes in this blog post from several years back:
I'm not sure what authority you have on this subject, but anecdotally speaking as a non-software engineer who would lump himself with "most people," when it comes to white-collar work, I have noticed that all of my colleagues are, at the very least, expected to read email during time off (weekend or PTO) if not respond.
This applies to adjacent industries as well. I semi-regularly get email from firms (in the same time zone as mine) in the 11PM–2AM range.
Again, I'm not purporting to have any more experience than you do, but you can't assert that this is a tech-industry-only phenomenon when I am sure applicable examples other than my own could be found. I wish I could go without, but spending the first billable hour catching up on email is not really acceptable.
I appreciate all that Gavin Norman and Necrotic Gnome have done for the OSR TTRPG scene over the past few years, but I have to say each time I see a D&D-derivative system it makes me wish that other systems of the time—like Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls, or West End Games' d6 system beneath Ghostbusters (1985) and Star Wars (1987)—got even half the attention. Tom Moldvay and Dave Cook's Basic/Expert (1981) has been done to death at this point. For a nice historical lesson, look to Moldvay's later work on the Challenges Game System[0], which pares down the AD&D 1E Players Handbook (1978) into 8 pages suitable for running the game at the table.
I could rant for hours about the sacred cows of D&D deserving slaughter, but I'll refrain.
All this is to say, the Dolmenwood campaign book is great and I own it. It was originally a setting for Old-School Essentials published through a zine[1], and I think they could have stopped at just a campaign book, the one that the OP links to. I just don't think we need any more flavors of B/X!
Whatever the merits of the rules themselves (which I think are estimable), the OSR "ecosystem" is buoyed up by a huge network effect. I would wager that just the list of official D&D modules from the 80s, all of which are easily playable in something like OSE, dwarfs the amount of support that's available for all of those other games combined. That's not counting the many many additional adventures, settings, rules addons, megadungeons, GM aids, etc. that have been created in the last 20 years for various OSR games, which are mostly cross-compatible. It's very hard to come in fresh and compete with that.
At least BRP (the system behind Runequest) and d6 are actively developed and there are games, new and old, using them. They are also rather popular, at least if one browses rpg.net.
T&T I don't know. I think there is a new edition coming along?
This is true. Though I will say that modern iterations of Runequest and d6 (namely OpenD6 and its derivatives) resemble the original systems only barely. Same is true for T&T, which after its 5th Edition became likewise unrecognizable.
My point isn't necessarily that there shouldn't be modern versions of these games—obviously, D&D is the most popular TTRPG (at least in the US), and itself barely resembles the three brown booklets of '74. It's that by going back and discovering what made the originals so great, we can carry these lessons forward and make loving modern interpretations like Old School Essentials/Dolmenwood.
I am sure those systems deserve a modern renovation, but as a general matter, I think the particulars of game systems matter less, overall, when it is not a mechanics heavy system like Pathfinder and DnD 5e...or Rolemaster. It mostly comes down to rulings over rules...which is why rules lite systems, e.g. Mausritter, Knave, Into the Odd, have play in the OSR/NSR scene.
I do not know where on the crunch spectrum the systems you mentioned fall,
There are two things that really scratch the dopamine itch at the table that I think plays well to DnD - 1) the d20. 5% of something amazing or terrible happening is just the right amount of chance for things being regular but not expected. And it being a single lotto ticket somehow makes it better.
2) fistful of dice - eventually you get to toss a fistful of dice and its very satisfying to climb that ladder.
DnD has both and that combined with ability progression I think really locks people in to the system, even outside of the network effect of it. GURPS for instance is great but 3d6 and getting an 18 just isn’t the same, for instance.
I think one of the impetuses to not using the Old School Essentials rules was the Hasbro DnD debacle where they started making moves to undo the Open Gaming License (OGL) in 2023. The resulting Dolmenwood system cleanly removed the last vestiges of anything that might be subject to the OGL...e.g. certain spell names, monster names, etc.
I agree, and it's certainly a good idea; OGL fears are still valid to this day. I think a much cleaner route, however, would be to abandon the chassis entirely. It protects one's long-term IP through unique game mechanics or by using an open system as a base.
A lot of how a game encourages play is based upon the small details that designers choose to include. In 1974, looking at OD&D for the first time, players probably wouldn't think to tap the floor for traps, but a 10' pole is curiously listed on the equipment table. Same with listening at doors, or things like that.
So instead of coming up with something entirely bespoke, companies seem to use D&D as a base not because it serves the game, but because it has lower "buy-in" for customers. Which I think is a shame.
I agree that this would be fair, but it seemingly not true. "SEA" disallows "SEAL" on the next turn (correct answer ALES,) but then you are suddenly allowed to use "SEALED" later - because of my assumption of the rule, I didn't get this stage until the clue. Same with "LEASE" and "LEADERS," which are both allowed to use "LEA."
So it seems as though the rule is, you must mix up the letters for the following answer, but further answers are fair game to reuse letter combinations (or, it is applied arbitrarily.) Neither are very intuitive IMO.
People interested in jumping ship should consider a Google TV box (I have the onn. 4K from Walmart, I think I paid $40). In app-only mode (accessible deep in the settings,) there is only one advertisement on the homescreen, and it's quite responsive. Install apps such as Plex, Stremio, etc. without hassle. Programmable buttons on the remote, controls my Denon receiver just fine, very few complaints. Just my 2c.
It is so well-hidden, in fact, that there is no visual indicator that it exists at all, so you cannot be blamed for thinking it is gone. On the homepage (house icon) tap the Instagram logo and select "Following." It will present you with a chronological feed of posts from only those you follow.
Again, there is NO ARROW or any UI to indicate this is possible. You used to be able to set it as the default view, but that has been eradicated it seems.
Wow, I've been using instagram for 5 years and I just learned that there's a following-only feed. I had always just assumed that Instagram was designed in bad faith to always interleave posts from people you didn't follow to try to capture your attention. It's incredibly annoying that I can't set this as my default.
You just discovered OG Instagram. The feed used to be just your friend's posts and nothing else. Maybe an occasional ad, but the first few years it was mostly ad free if I remember correctly.
I've found it. I'm quite sure the drop down wasn't there a few months ago.
But the sad reality: nobody is posting anything anymore. I follow around 500 real people I know in person, and in the last 30 days they published only a few posts. Very short feed.
So instagram became something completely different over time, and I still opened it occasionally, because I associate it with old memories. To feel closer to people I lost touch with, or didn't see for a while. But instead I get bombarded with BS and ads (and the occasional "real" social media post), without me consciously noticing the change for years.
One notable exception to this is the person's work. Which I, personally, am not super inclined to talk about with people even though it comprises the vast majority of my knowledgebase. Maybe I'm projecting, but my guess is that Joe Schmoe isn't going to want to talk about his profession after coming home exhausted. That is, unless he's truly found his calling.
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