2026-04-29 00:43:14
There’s something unsettling about being the new kid on the block, even as an adult.
It’s not super obvious, at least not like back then when you were a literal child. No one is pointing or whispering. There’s no cafeteria to navigate or classroom to choose a seat in. The feeling of being in those scenarios show up always, just in a different kind of way. It’s the hesitation before saying something out loud, the extra time spent double (and triple) checking something that would normally feel simple, and the awareness that everyone else seems to know what they’re doing.
I started somewhere new three weeks ago.
In the grand scheme of things, three weeks isn’t a long time. I get that. If anyone else said that to me, I’d tell them to give themselves more grace, to take their time, to settle in. As always, in my head, it sounds different. It’s more like: it’s already week three. You should have a better handle on things by now.
I really don’t though. Not fully.
There are still gaps here and there. I have moments where I’m trying to piece things together in real time, trying to understand not just what I’m supposed to do, but how everything fits, who to go to, and what hasn’t been said out loud but is somehow expected to be known.
Sometimes things are handed off without much context, or reference something that hasn’t clicked yet. Not in a bad way, but just in a way that assumed I’ve already connected all of the dots that I didn’t even know existed. So I nod, and figure it all out somehow.
I get it. I’m not supposed to know everything yet. That would be unreasonable (maybe?). But there’s still that perfectionist part of me that expects it anyway. Or at least expects me to anticipate it, to figure out how to read between the lines and keep up with things I haven’t been introduced to yet. Which, when I say out loud, doesn’t even make much sense. I don’t know how to read people’s minds. I don’t even think I’ve met everyone I’m supposed to meet yet. I still feel behind though.
I know that a lot of this comes from the version of myself I’m used to being. She’s the one who is steady, capable and already a few steps ahead. There’s a rhythm to that version of me, and right now, I’m all over the place. At this moment, I feel slightly disjointed, a little uncomfortable, full of questions that don’t have immediate answers I can get to just yet.
Just like with my making and breaking routines, I’m attempting to sit with it without rushing to just fix it. I’m trying to let myself be new without treating it like a problem. I understand that three weeks is still the beginning, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
I'm trying to be the new kid on the block that isn't just catching up as quickly as possible (my stress level would probably be lower). I'm hoping to learn to find my place while still figuring things out at the same time.
...and if you happen to read this, and you’re in that world of mine right now, no, you didn’t just read this.
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2026-04-28 08:15:00
I’ve been following Cal Newport for some time (known for his book Deep Work and Digital Minimalism). I’ve come to look forward to his weekly podcasts on attention, focus, and life without social media.
Today, he dropped a podcast titled “How Do I Build Cognitive Fitness?” (Alternatively, his YouTube video with the same content was titled “How Do I Reverse Brain Rot?”, so I’m curious which one got more clicks).
In it, he outlines five ways that we can improve our cognitive fitness and challenges us to be more intentional with our time. If you want to give it a listen he covers it in the first half of this episode.
Here are the five things he suggested, and my thoughts on each one.
He suggests that the more time you spend reading, the more you’re rewiring your brain. It gives you practice in “aiming your minds eye at a desired internal target,” such as a thought or idea. He recommends starting with books you’re excited to read, not books you feel you “should” read. Fun books, trashy books, romance books, they all count. Start with 15-20 pages a day. Read at lunch and before bed. After you’re doing that regularly, increase to 30-50 pages a day. As that gets easier, make 1 out of 3 books “hard” or more challenging.
I feel good about reading every day, though I can definitely improve on the number of pages. I’m likely still in the first category, reading 10-20 pages a day. Not quite to 50 pages a day. Though I do think I’m reading more challenging stuff sometimes. I’m currently reading Dune Messiah I’m definitely slowing down to digest the passages.
Cal states that many people are writing less than ever before due to generative AI, and that “to improve your cognitive fitness you should seek out as many opportunities to write as possible.” He goes on to say that "we feel naturally resistant to it because of how many moving pieces there are in our brains.” Writing is hard and we feel strain when we write, but it provides us with more “cognitive strength”. He recommends studying technique while you read, writing in a journal/newsletter/blog (ahem), and acclimating yourself to getting over the first 10 minutes of writing as they are the hardest to work through.
Why do you think I’m here? Ha! I’m trying to get better at constructing my thoughts into sentences and paragraphs. And yeah, it’s hard. But I figure the more I do it, the easier it will start to feel. I’m also trying to write by hand more, but I need to find better opportunities to write when I’m not getting interrupted.
Cal suggests that we take walks several times a week without our phone (and if we do bring our phones we should make them very inaccessible, like at the bottom of our bag). “Practice turning your attention inwards to make sense of some information.” Brainstorming or day dreaming counts here. Reflection is “where you develop your sense of self” and our best ideas come from it. He recommends journaling your insights after your walk, that it will help you clarify internal thinking.
I might have to take on this one. I’m not good at getting out of the house (I work remotely), and I need to be better about it. The weather is warming up though, which will make it easier. Plus it’ll get me away from my desk more often. Something semi-related is that our brains come up with some of our best ideas while we’re in the shower, and I think the two are related.
Cal recommends keeping your phone plugged in and not with you when you’re at home. “Spend hours in your house each day without your phone as your constant companion.” This will give you lots of practice doing things without that constant short term motivation to pick up the phone. Put your ringer on and let people know to call you. Make the phone “less desirable by taking off any apps that makes money from your engagement” - social media apps, for example.
Oooh this one is good. I can do this right now. I have a charger in the other room and can put my phone there. This would be a really good one to practice. I still need an alternative for having my phone next to my bed - I still use it as my alarm because last summer our phones woke us at midnight for a tornado warning that sent us grabbing the kids and flying to the basement. Maybe I can plug it in further away from the bed and still hear weather alerts. I’ll need to explore this further.
Cal’s last idea is to master a skill that requires you to focus and get better, but also gets you a clear reward. Take up tennis, playing the guitar, learning to knit, etc. He goes on to say that when you learn a hard skill, it “builds up a sense of discipline and helps train your long term motivation system that when we focus on something hard, over time we get meaningful rewards.” When you practice focusing, it becomes easier to sustain concentration. BUT, you need to do this on a regular schedule, not whenever you feel like it.
This is a great one. I’ll have to think about what I’d want to learn! The hard part for me will be sticking with it. I have a terrible habit of picking up new projects every couple of weeks and I need to get on top of that. I need to find something that will sustain me for at least a season or so.
Overall, some really good tips from Cal Newport. I really do think these could help someone step back and assess their cognitive fitness. I know I’ll be implementing some of these ideas.
Which of these 5 do you see yourself implementing? Which is the easiest? The most difficult? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
2026-04-28 01:18:00
I was sad today!
I love discovering, and reading new, personal blogs. I'm always interested in people and opinions.
Imagine my sadness when I stumbled onto a new (to me) blog, only to discover that the author had an AI Generated Summary at the top of each post.
In my opinion, this is devaluing the work. All that effort infused into researching, planning, writing, and editing. And then thrown through the sausage-machine for it to summarise the work in about three sentences.
It probably vacuumed up the discourse and threw it into the depths of its learning model, to later regurgitate as "AI content" to someone else.
Do you really think your own words are worthless?
For very long articles, it's nice to have a summary, but AI? Really?
Spend an extra two minutes and summarise your own content, please.
2026-04-27 21:49:00
I recently watched a video of a woman in Louisiana crying because she can no longer afford her insulin.
Between sobs, she blamed "handouts" to poor people and "crackheads" for her plight.
It was a tragic display of cognitive dissonance: a woman being fleeced by a system she continues to vote for, blaming the poorest in society while the Donald Trump and the party she supports protect Big Pharma’s profits at the cost of her life.
As a British expat living in Northern Italy, watching the American healthcare "debate" is like watching a different planet.
To help my American friends understand why we aren't "oppressed" by our social services, here is what life actually looks like under a functioning national health system in 2026.
Americans often claim we wait months just to see a GP. In my village, my Medico di Base (family doctor) is available Monday to Friday.
The Access: If I’m ill, I walk in and wait twenty or thirty minutes. If it’s not urgent, I can call, text or email her. I usually get an appointment the same or next day.
The Cost: €0.
The Quality: She is a brilliant Ukrainian doctor who knows my history. I don’t have to check if she’s "in-network," and she doesn't have to ask an insurance company for permission to treat me.
When I need a specialist or an ultrasound, I don't just sit on a list forever. Italy uses a very logical "Priority Code" system. My GP writes the prescription, and the wait depends entirely on how much trouble I’m in.
I contact a central booking system by phone, normally a 3 to 5 minute wait, and depending on the urgency the waiting time is from 3 to 120 days.
If I’m in a desperate hurry for a non-urgent issue, I can choose the "private" route and see the exact same specialist within 48 hours for a flat fee of €60 to €100. That’s often less than an American’s "co-pay" just to get in the door.
The Exemption: Because I have a chronic illness, I am exempt from almost all costs. Italy has a list of 59 chronic conditions, ranging from diabetes and asthma to heart disease, where the state covers 100% of the cost. I pay zero for my blood tests, my yearly check-ups, my insulin and my test strips etc.
The "Ticket": For unrelated issues, like having the skin lesion I had frozen off recently, I paid a "ticket" (participation fee) of just €27. No $5,000 deductible to meet first. No surprise bill for $400 because the lab was "out-of-network."
This is the part the Americans shout about: "You have to wait for surgery!"
Yes, we do. But context matters.
Emergency Surgery: If your appendix bursts or you have a heart attack, you are in the operating theatre within hours. It is immediate, world-class, and costs €0.
Elective Surgery: For a hip replacement, a hernia, or cataracts, you might wait 3 to 12 months.
The Trade-off: I would rather wait six months for a new hip than spend six years paying for one.
In Italy, less than 20% of cataract patients wait more than three months. In America, you might get it tomorrow, but you’ll be paying for it until you’re dead.
In Italy, we have a "mixed" system. You are never "trapped" in the public system; you always have the option to go private if you’re in a hurry or want to choose a specific "Star Surgeon."
The Price Tag: Because the private sector has to compete with a high-quality "free" public system, the prices are kept remarkably low compared to the US.
A private hip replacement in Italy might cost you €12,000 - €15,000. In the US, the same surgery without insurance often starts at $30,000 and can go much higher.
The Speed: If you go private, the wait time for "elective" surgery (like that hip or a hernia) drops from months to days or weeks.
The "Convenzionato" System: Many private hospitals are actually "accredited" by the state. This means you can sometimes go to a fancy private clinic but have the bill picked up by the government if the public hospital has a backlog.
The Professional: Most top-tier surgeons work in the public hospitals during the day and have private "extramural" hours in the evenings. You can pay to see them privately for a consultation, and they can often schedule your surgery in the public hospital much faster if it’s deemed medically necessary.
Whether you go 'private' or public for the surgery itself, you can return to the state system for your post-op care. This means your Physiotherapy, pain meds, and follow-ups are effectively free (or cost just a standard 'ticket'). You don't get trapped in a private billing cycle for rehab.
This is where the American system becomes truly ghoulish. I’ve read documented "horror stories" of American hospitals charging parents $39.35 for "Skin-to-Skin contact", literally charging a mother to hold her own newborn baby.
In Italy, we view that as a basic human right, not a billable service. Prenatal & Birth: All scans, blood tests, and the birth itself cost €0.
The Reality: You leave the hospital with a baby and a sense of joy, not a $30,000 invoice and a bill for a hug.
And the support doesn't stop at the hospital door. All post-natal care, including home visits from midwives, your chosen paediatrician, and the full schedule of childhood vaccinations, is 100% free. We don't charge parents to protect their children from disease.
I’m not pretending Italy’s system is flawless. Funding’s tight, staff are overworked, and plenty of hospitals are crumbling and held together with duct tape, especially in the south of the country. But even at its worst, it’s still built on the simple, humane principle that healthcare shouldn’t depend on how lucky you are with your employer, or how many zeros you’ve got in your bank account.
The American system isn't a "Free Market." It’s a protection racket where lobbyists write the laws to ensure their profits. You are paying the highest taxes in the developed world for healthcare, and then you’re paying the insurance companies on top of that just to be told "No."
I paid 18 cents for my medication last month.
I can call an ambulance (which is free) without a credit card in my hand.
You call it "Communism." I call it being a member of a civilised society.
I’ll keep my "socialised" 18-cent meds and my extra decade of life expectancy, thanks.
You keep your "freedom" to die in debt.
2026-04-27 21:00:00
Post is part of the blog bandwagon about maps.
You sit down ready to play some sicko dungeon ass dragons, all hyped up for the first session. The referee asks everyone to turn around while he preps the table. When you turn back, you see a map. At least, you think it's a map. A single hex is revealed, with a marker supposedly representing the party. Everything else is covered in black construction paper. With a wry smile, the referee asks, "Where do you want to go?"
After a brief pause, someone says, "Uhh... north, I guess?"
I love maps as much as the next cat, but I think a map has to serve a purpose in play. A map isn't automatically useful because it's beautiful or impressive. Those things can help, of course. But the maps I want at my table are the ones that help us understand the situation and make meaningful decisions.
A map can serve different purposes. It can support the backend, frontend, or runtime of your game. It can store the truth of locations for the referee, give visual clues about the world, or help the session run more smoothly in the moment.
So I keep wondering what use we have for a map. Can we point at it, plan with it, argue over it, mark it up, or ask better questions because of it? If not, maybe it's just decoration.
A regional map during play should give us a usable picture of the place we're moving through. No, it shouldn't reveal every location and secret. No, it doesn't have to be accurate. But it does need enough roads, landmarks, terrain, settlements, and rumors to make planning possible. It needs to make you look at the map and say, "We want to go there".
Blank space is good when it invites discovery. It's bad when it hides the choice. The old road, the forest, the lake, and the ruined tower gives us something to plan around. A hex, point, or path surrounded by featureless unknowns mostly asks you to guess.
The secrets can stay secret. That's why I like player-facing maps: they show what would be common knowledge, visible, rumored, or easily learned without handing over the complete backend map.
Procedure is the other half. A hexcrawl isn't just a hex map. The map shows options, and the travel procedure gives those options cost, risk, and consequence. Roads are faster but may be patrolled. Swamps are slower but may let you avoid taxation. Climbing a hill might reveal a landmark. Taking a detour might cost time and supplies.
The format should follow the decision. Whether the map uses hexes, points, routes, or blank space depends on what the game needs us to notice or interact with. Mythic Bastionland's hex maps work because they're part of the game's core loop, not just a pretty overview.
When in doubt, use more than one map. A beautiful in-world map can make the place feel real, while a table map helps track routes, distance, and position. The first gives texture. The second supports procedure.
A map should show more than what we already know. It should suggest what might be worth investigating. Secret locations are interesting not because they're absent, but because they leave hints or traces for us to discover.
That doesn't mean the map needs to show every road, ruin, lair, or danger. But we need something to lean on. A rumor. A landmark. Smoke on the horizon. A place the locals avoid. "The road north goes into pine woods where hunters avoid the old stones" gives us a choice. "North is blank" mostly asks us to guess.
This is where fog of war often fails me. It tries to feel like mystery, but if nothing is visible except the places already visited, the map stops pointing forward. It becomes a record of where you have been. Useful as a travel log, maybe, but not as a way to choose where to go next.
A better approach is to reveal the obvious, hint at the hidden, and reserve the secret. Show the mountain, not the dragon under it. Show the road, not every ambush along it. Show the ruined tower, not the tunnel beneath its cellar. The map keeps its mysteries by giving them edges.
A world map is usually not an exploration map. It's a context map.
A world map matters when faraway places start pushing on where we are now. The empire over the mountains matters when its war closes the north road, its coins change prices in the market, or its refugees bring rumors of what is coming next.
Otherwise the world map is mostly backdrop, or a menu of labels where we point at one and say, "Let's go there". That can be fun, but it's a different mode of play, one more interested in jumping from setpiece to setpiece than slowly learning a place through travel, danger, and consequence.
Sometimes a world map can help the referee stay coherent when the players suddenly decide to head for the horizon. On the other hand, there is real value in not even creating a world map when the campaign is focused on local regions. That preserves flexibility for later.
When the game starts operating at grander scales, the world map becomes more relevant. Presiding over a domain makes you care about your neighbors. Planning a long expedition makes distance, access, and conflict matter directly. The world map is now the board your campaign moves across.
When spatial navigation becomes the point, as it does when you zoom in on a dungeon or location, some kind of map is often necessary. Without a way to track space, locations have to be very small or very simple to follow.
But a common misconception is that the map has to be detailed, pretty, or gridded. Often a rough sketch, flowchart, or node map can do the job more effectively. What's important is how the spaces connect. I want to know where the exits are, what route loops back, what's above or below the room, where I have already been, and what I haven't explored.
Rise Up Comus suggests handing out partial dungeon maps, or even a simple copy of the map itself with secrets removed and rooms clearly numbered. A floorplan doesn't solve the dungeon but it removes boring ambiguity. We still have to discover what's in the rooms, find the secrets the map doesn't show, and learn about the inhabitants and factions. But now we can ask better questions. Which route? Which door? Which shortcut? Which risk?
Of course, player mapping is another way to engage with maps. A map given to you is information. A map you make yourself is play.
This was the missing piece that made dungeons click for me. When we map, we build a better understanding of the place itself. We engage with the fictional space, and that makes it easier to notice loops, shortcuts, dead ends, and suspicious gaps. It helps us ask questions, not just of the referee, but of each other. The dungeon starts to become a place instead of a sequence of scenes.
But mapping only works when navigational knowledge has value. If the layout never creates choices, reveals patterns, or rewards memory, mapping just becomes homework. The goal isn't to make mapping difficult. It's to communicate a shared understanding of a space.
A good player map, whether drawn from scratch or annotated on a partial map, becomes a memory aid and a log. It tells us how to get out, where to return to, and which routes are safe enough to move through quickly.
Tactical maps are where maps often fail me. A detailed battlemap can be marvelous, but it can also do too much imagining for us. The room is already dressed. The furniture is fixed. The terrain is settled. Before anyone asks a question, the image has answered.
In my experience, this often means we either ignore most of the visual clutter because it's just background dressing, or we treat the image as complete truth. I prefer a rough map that gives us enough shared space to orient ourselves, but leaves enough blank space for questions. Can the statue be climbed? If we're in a kitchen, is there grease handy to throw at our pursuers?
These questions matter. They aren't a disruption of play. They're play.
In very tactical games, the battlemap may be less illustration than rules interface. It can make distance, cover, and positioning feel fair. But there's a difference between a technical and a conceptual map, and not every situation needs the same kind.
I love looking at city maps, but I've to admit they're often the least useful maps for me. More often than not, they become address books, with numbered shops, inns, and landmarks. Most of these places wouldn't change much if they swapped locations.
Adding more detail doesn't fix this. Every building, alley, and shop you define becomes debt. It's one more thing for us to remember and reference. A more abstract map of neighborhoods, routes, pressures, and boundaries can be much more gameable than a complete street plan.
Why is that? Because crawling through cities isn't always the answer. Moving room to room, or street to street, becomes tedious fast. When the city becomes an adventure site, it's usually more interesting to think in neighborhoods, transit points, factions, and people. Social and spatial structures begin to merge.
The best town maps give some form of actionable insight. They show us what we can do here, who we might offend, and what boundaries are drawn into the streets. Buildings start to matter when their location changes consequence. If the poorer districts are outside the walls, the map says who is protected. If the watch houses sit beside the bridge, it tells us who controls passage.
A city map is weak when it only tells us where things are. It gets useful when it shows where we can go, who controls what, and what we risk by crossing a boundary.
So no, the problem isn't maps. The problem is when we treat maps as automatically useful.
Different maps have different jobs. A regional map should make movement legible. A dungeon map should make space navigable. A battlemap should clarify action. A city map should show access, pressure, and consequence. What matters isn't having a map for the sake of having a map, but knowing what need the map is answering.
A good map earns its place at the table. It gives us something to point at, mark up, doubt, plan around, or argue over.
A bad map may still be beautiful. It may still be worth having. But if it doesn't help play, it probably needs to be supplemented with one that does.
The best maps don't end the conversation. They start it.
2026-04-27 15:39:00
I never downloaded TikTok and never will.
I blocked all YouTube Shorts from my desktop homepage, recommendations, and search. I do not use Youtube on my phone (where it's difficult to block Shorts.) If someone is playing Shorts on a TV I will physically leave the room.
When I noticed I was opening Reels when I went on Instagram, I deleted the app, then my account. Same with Snapchat; when I kept opening their short video section, I knew it was time for my account to go.
I know short form video is just another media format, but in these cases it's paired with a personalized algorithm on a service that prioritizes engagement. I've seen what consuming short form video on these platforms has done to my friends and even my parents. I've tried and failed to convince them to quit.
Self control isn't my strong suit, I know that already. The best thing I can do is stay as far away as I can.