Caffeine Interlude
I’m taking a break from caffeine. I end up having to do this every 6-12 months as it gradually loses all effectiveness and I start having to drink unhealthy amounts of it just to get through an average day. At…
Category Essays
Authority
There are a lot of things I don’t feel qualified to talk about. I don’t have a graduate degree, so what insight do I really have into any issues of mathematics or engineering? I haven’t worked as a game designer…
Resistance
For the last few days I’ve been trying to write the first Problem Machine post of 2014, and I’ve been running into a lot of internal resistance. I keep dodging, making excuses, procrastinating, and generally doing anything I can to…
Success
Let’s talk about success. I’d like to say that everyone has their own definition, that each individual has their own set of standards by which they declare a pursuit a success or a failure – but, by and large, that is…
Starbound
I’m dropped on a planet with nothing but a few simple imperatives to point the way. The sensation is familiar, but the world is a stranger. Mushrooms grow maybe 30 feet tall here. Strange creatures wander around, and some of…
The Dark
I would almost say that fear of the unknown is the only real kind, but that seems difficult to defend. Certainly, the fear that the guy who told you he would cut your arm off at 3:15pm next Tuesday will…
An Untitled Person
I’m not sure what to say any more. I want to say something new and insightful, something beautiful and deep. I want to riff on an idea, to take it and transform it and expound upon it, want to pounce…
The Love of Money
The problem with money is everything starts being about money. A common unit of exchange becomes more common, and its meaning begins to supersede all other meanings, conflates to a number that tells you everything you need to know about…
Line Disconnected
When we control something we become it. When we steer the car we feel the texture of the road and adopt its dimensions as our own, and feel the tiny scrapes and impacts that scar her surface in our teeth…
Change
Autumn is a time of change. There’s something missing, something which I’m just noticing, and I’m not sure whether this absence of sensation is an awakened perception of absence or is a new and creeping numbness of the senses. I…