31 August 2026, early morning
My friend Yochai invited me to play Big Walk with him and his wife yesterday. Big Walk is by the people who made the hilarious Untitled Goose Game. The game is both simple and hard to describe: you should watch the intro video for the game.
Big Walk is all about exploring an open world. There are puzzles scattered around, and you are meant to complete them to earn a weird little trophy, but it wasn’t obvious to my friend what the point of the trophy was just yet. You play as a weird looking stick figure of sorts, a fellow composed of some simple geometric shapes. You can host a game for two or more friends, or join a game your friend is hosting. There is no solo mode, though you can technically wander the shared world alone if so inclined. There is no match making or playing with strangers, the expectation is you’re playing with people you know and enjoy spending time with. The game has amazing sound design, which is very important, because it’s also a game all about communication: you and your friends are meant to only communicate via voice in the game, and your voice in the game is meant to feel like talking in the real world. As people move away from you they will get quieter and quieter till you can’t hear them. The sound design is top tier. There are little doodads in the game to help with all this exploration: walkie-talkies, flash lights, glowing balls, etc. There is probably more stuff we haven’t found yet. The game feels quite tactile.
In the game I played I got lost from Yochai and his wife Sarah. I climbed up a hill trying to spot them, and held a light up high hoping they would spot it. And they did! It was actually quite cute and joyful when they found me again, and we continued on our adventure. That whole experience is more or less plucked straight from the game’s trailer. We tried to complete puzzles, with mixed success. The first two we just couldn’t figure out at all, they were so weird. We thought we might need more people to see everything that was going on. The last was an odd one: one of us had to put a mask on our head and navigate a space directed by our friends as the person with the mask can’t see. Earlier we found a beach and so sat and relaxed, pictured above.
I’m curious to see how the game holds up. It feels quite minimal as games go. Apparently people call this genre of games friendslop. I wouldn’t disparage it so. This is game is thoroughly charming.
Anyone else playing?
Video Games
- The year is 2063 and you were never interesting.
The great love affair of your life is … this. Sitting in the dark, your nose 6 inches from the screen. You have never separated, never taken a break. It started slowly, rockily. But by 25, it had its claws in you. By 30, it fills the dead spaces in your life. And you’ve never relented. It has consumed you wholly and the math has compounded. By this age, at 7 hours a day, 15 years of your life has been a screen.
(via Kottke)
2 May 2026, mid-afternoon
I watched Moonlight with Shima last night. I’ve spent the morning watching clips from the film, interviews, listening to Hello Stranger again and again. I can’t stop thinking about the movie. Moonlight was directed by Barry Jenkins, based on an unrelased play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. The movie feels so authentic and true to life, I assume there is something autobiographical about it all. The lead character, Chiron, we follow through periods of his life—his childhood, being a teen, and finally a young adult. The film is all about love, loneliness, dealing with abusive people, hiding who you are, coming to terms with your sexuailty, and so much more. It’s a beautiful film. The acting is immuculate. I don’t know how everyone involved wasn’t nominated for more awards. You should watch this movie.
Watch the trailer for Moonlight.
[4] Movies
- Death of a Software Developer by Sarah Friend.
A software developer is an archetype. A subcultural figure. A type-of-guy. You may know him, though there are some variations. He got kicked out of high school for hacking the school, or maybe they offered him a job when he got caught. He had a childhood preference for vim or emacs, though he now uses vscode like everyone else. He has a copy of GEB and maybe SICP, but he’s definitely also read Cryptonomicon and Pattern Recognition. He had a phase of writing quines or learning Haskell. He talks about code smell. He can name several esolangs. When I became a software developer, I also became this guy too. The main difference between me and him is that I did it on purpose. In my early days of being a software developer, I was aware enough of this as a social process that I did a talk at Pycon explaining the Monty Python references to the other people (like me) who hadn’t encountered it in its natural habitat but still wanted to fit in.
- Trump, Lost in The Failure of His War, Blinks by Spencer Ackerman.
The United States of America lost one war to Iran, via proxies. That was the 2003-2011 occupation of Iraq. Now it has lost a war to Iran in the open field. Let that sink in. Do these losses feel like humiliation? If so, that’s residual American Exceptionalism nesting within your soul. After all, what about the U.S. experience in the Middle East for the last 25 years has given you reason to think that the U.S. would have prevailed in destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran? Doesn’t that history, when examined outside the funhouse of American Exception, instead tell an alternative story of the U.S. launching wars it doesn’t understand how to win? Especially since this war is on Iranian soil, launched by the Islamic Republic’s principal adversaries, with the stakes existential for the regime?
- Iran and the immorality of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Last week Amodei, in explaining Anthropic’s position on Pentagon contracts, emphasized the company’s overall commitment to national security. He wrote, “I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries.” If Amodei genuinely believes that the US military is devoted to addressing actual “existential” threats to the US, he’s too naive to be entrusted with anything as important as running a big AI company.
11 March 2026, early evening
It’s kind of crazy I haven’t commented on the war here. At a different point in time I would have probably written something long about the death of Khameni. I was sad my father-in-law didn’t live to see the day. The end of this regime was all consuming to him. He had dedicated his whole life to a free Iran. He wouldn’t love all the monarchists in the streets. I don’t either. We went to protest all the same. (I doubt he would have approved of that.)
I felt like the country was on the precipice of something with the recent protests that Iran had been opposing with much violence. With the fighting it feels like the regime is weirdly in a stronger position than they have been in recent years. They can once again point to their external enemies, when the mullahs themselves have been the greatest threat to the Iranian people. When they were attacked last year the response felt quite muted. This time around not so much. They are bombing all sorts of sites in the region.
We haven’t heard from Shima’s family since the fighting started. By weird coincidence we spoke to her uncle the day before the bombings and the internet being shut off again. Hopefully we speak to them again soon.
Politics
- In Praise of dhh.
The title is a bit of bait, this is hardly in praise of dhh. Or is better phrased as “in praise of dhh of yore.” This is a deeply personal reflection on Filipa’s journey with the Rails community, well worth reading. (And not just because I’ve basically always disliked the guy. There is something so aggravating about the 37signals posse, churning out cool software and books, while being so annoying while doing so. None of this current drama feels new. The way dhh talks about immigrants recently is no different than the way 37signals was talking about them 20 years ago now, and I doubt his opinions were any different from his colleagues.)
2 November 2025, evening time
I normally only watch the Jays when they are in the playoffs. My friends and old coworkers were telling me the team was good, but I find it hard to get invested in the preseason: there are so many games. But then one night I walked into a bar showing the game just in time to see our backup catcher, Tyler Heineman, make a base hit that won us the game. The team stormed the field. They ripped his shirt off. They dumped Gatorade on the guy. It was incredible.
When a shirtless Heineman walked back onto the field for an interview I knew then and there we would win the World Series.
We came pretty close.
It’s been a lot of fun watching the jays in the playoffs. They have been incredible. Such a solid team. My favourite player is probably Kirk, our rotund catcher. He has the body of a Sri Lankan uncle and belts out home runs. But there are no shortage of people that seemingly stepped up out of nowhere and just started crushing it. Yesavage pitched more in the post-season than the pre-season: he was playing in single-A at the start of the year! Barger was playing for Buffalo? Heineman was just a guy on the bench, but this was maybe his 3rd trip up to the big leagues from the minors. Varland, one of our relievers, somehow pitched every single game I watched? Clement was apparently just a regular-ass guy till the playoffs started, then he somehow became one of the best players in the league? Look at this guy!
I can go on and on down their roster. Everyone was incredible. I’m not even going to bother naming all the big names: we had those too.
We almost won the World Series. Not the result I wanted, but that’s sometimes how it goes with sports. Yamamoto was incredible. Maybe some of the best pitching I’ve ever seen. He won LA game 6, and then was back the next day to win them game 7. When does that ever happen? If you’re going to lose, may as well lose to who I assume will go down in history as one of the greatest pitchers ever.
When I watch these games I am all in. I have friends who stress about whether you’re jinxing the team with your confidence, but where is the fun in not fully committing. I loved watching this team play. I watched every game assuming we would win till we didn’t.
What a series.
Toronto | Life
- Selling Lemons
What makes the Market for Lemons concept so appealing (and what differentiates it in my mind from enshittification is that everyone can be acting reasonably, pursuing their own interests, and things still get worse for everyone. No one has to be evil or stupid: the platform does what’s profitable, sellers do what works, buyers try to make smart decisions, and yet the whole system degrades into something nobody actually wants.
