Category Archives: Miscellaneous

When my 12-year old Toyota was in the shop, I drove a new loaner car for two days. I’ve driven newer model cars when renting a car while traveling but using a new car in a familiar environment—where I was not constantly worried about navigation—gave me a chance to dwell on the new features. First, I love having blind spot detectors in the mirrors. It’s a really great UI. You’re looking to see if you can switch lanes, and the warning light is where you are looking. But with cars […]

Email is a cruel master. When I first started working in an office, in the 1980s, we shared files via “sneaker net” – taking them back and forth on floppies. Very high tech. For customers and prospects, we sent and received documents overnight through FedEx, then we sent and received faxes. When we first got email, we could only email other people in our building. Then, of course, we could finally email through the Internet. Over time, my In Box became my master, often to the detriment of my true […]

A 2023 New Years’ Resolution that I’m not repeating was my resolution to read 52 books (a book a week). I had been an inveterate reader from a young age, often winning the summer book-reading challenges at our public library. But as an adult, as with many of you, I expect, smartphones in general and social media in particular cannibalized the time I’d spent reading books. In 2022, I realized that Twitter had so weakened my reading attention span that it was taking forever to read the nonfiction books I […]

Now that 2023 is in the books, I present the final stats on what your fellow readers found most interesting. The Top 10 most-viewed blog posts throughout the year: The Top 10 games by views: And here are the Top 10 blog posts that were written this year: I hadn’t intended to become a Star Trek blogger, but, hey, LLAP. And here are the bottom 10 (not counting December posts), if you want to show them some love: 39.  Tips for Using Mastodon 40.  A New Life in Auspele: A Choose-Your-Way Game […]

In 1985 or so, I logged on to my first online community, dialing into a local BBS (Bulletin Board System) using a 300-baud modem. Eventually I got on Compuserve, USENET, Brown University mailing lists, and AOL. Leaving dial-up behind, I joined LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. I have accounts for the last five, though I rarely ever use them. I still have a friend who I first met on the Compuserve marketing SIG. Online communities are often ephemeral, though for me Twitter had the longest heyday, as I used […]

Castle Conquests is a one-page print-and-play game where 2 to 4 players try to besiege and capture castles worth the most victory points. Players start by drawing roads between castles and adding symbols to castles to give each a special effect. After all the castles are connected in one road network, players take turns laying siege to roads. When all the roads around are a city are besieged, the player with the most roads claims the castle for its gold (points) and special effect. Acknowledgements: This game was inspired by Eric B. […]

If I’ve blocked you on Twitter, it’s not about you, but about Twitter’s UI. Maybe you’re a huge fan of Funko Pops and the people I follow like your tweets about those, so I keep seeing them. And keep seeing them. And keep seeing them. If I mute you, then you can talk to me and the people I follow without my being able to see those conversations. So I have to block you instead if I want to control my feed. And I believe I should be able to […]

My most popular tweet ever was in response to a comment on this tweet: Saw the perennial question of “why not use the Eagles to take the Ring to Mordor?” and there are lots of fine explanations, but my favorite has always been that b/c the Eagles are so powerful, they would’ve been corrupted by the Ring, eaten Frodo, and become Dark Bird Gods. — Austin Gilkeson (@osutein) January 4, 2021 According to Tolkien’s unpublished history of postal code notation in the Shire, this has 4 digits too many. — […]

Last updated 2020-08-02 I’m publishing a thing a week to my blog. Each is either an old project that I am publishing here for the first time or an unfinished project that I am finally returning to and completing. OSR Spell Preferences Survey – Which spells are most useful for each level cleric and magic-user? (20-06-07.) Castle Conquests – A one-page print-and-play where you race your opponent to surround and plunder castles. (20-06-13.) The Pearls and the Peril – A 9-card push-your-luck game played best with oyster crackers before dinner! […]

I discovered an interesting numerical sequence: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, 35, 39, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 34, 39, 44, 49, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 41, 47, 53, 59, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 55, 62, 69, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 71, 79, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, […]