Aneesh Sathe

There is a shared soul shard between Dwarf Fortress, Emacs, and AI that lured me to them and has kept me engaged for over a decade. For a long time, I struggled to articulate the connection, managing only to describe Dwarf Fortress as the Emacs of games. But this analogy, while compelling, doesn’t fully capture the deeper resonance these systems share. They are not merely complicated; they are complex—tools for creativity that reward immersion and exploration.

Every few years decentralization and RSS feeds come back into the ligh. Usually this happens when one otherwise functional social media site dies in a real or practical way. Google Reader being my, and my generation’s, touchstone. During these times of turmoil, a beautiful soul puts together a guide for how to use RSS. This is a good guide for this iteration: Escape the walled garden and algorithm black boxes with RSS feeds

I’m taking part in the Contraptions Book Club where we are reading City of Fortune which is about Venice. I was struck by the character of Doge Dandolo. Dude was 80+ when we saw a trade opportunity in the 4th Crusades. In the book, the author, Roger Crowley describes a brief moment when Dandolo makes a heroic rush on the banks of Constantinople’s Golden Horn during the Sack of Constantinople. I found both the Doge and the imagery interesting so went looking for art depicting the art, there’s supposed to be lots. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any and nothing in the public domain. So I asked AI …

Came across a heartwarming fan-made comic of a collaborative story told on tumblr. A farmer makes a temple to see who shows up and it’s a self-doubting god of transient beauty. This immediately brought back the Small Gods from Discworld, but also the poem Worm by Gail Mcconnell. The comic and the story are beautiful. Perhaps there is some sense to shrines… The God of Arepo- PDF available via metafilter

Trying something different for a few days. Instead of spamming all the social media accounts with daily links, I will post links only on the blog everyday. Maybe even multiple times a day. Still thinking about doing a weekly digest or something. Let’s see.