Beyond Mindless
Notes, experiments and questions across four subjects.
No tracking, no cookie banner, no newsletter popup. Just pages.
Subjects
AI, Software & Emerging TechnologyArtificial intelligence, software development, 3D printing, hardware, new technology, and interesting technical experiments.
Science, Engineering & Thought ExperimentsPhysics, biology, space, engineering, evolution, energy, and “what would happen if…” questions.
Food Science & CookingCooking techniques, ingredient experiments, nutrition, why recipes work, and the science behind everyday food.
Tabletop GamesCard games, board games and roleplaying at a real table. How a game actually plays, what it asks of the people sitting there, and how to get one going with players who are not hobbyists.
Latest
Fluxx is a card game about the rules changingThe whole game starts as two lines on one card, and everything after that is the players rewriting it. Here is how it plays, and which of the many themed versions is worth buying.
Running D&D in two hours a month for people who are not into D&DThe standard campaign needs weekly play and players who think about it in between. Neither is available here, so the format has to change rather than the players.
Zombicide is built so that winning makes it worseKilling zombies earns experience, and experience spawns more zombies. That single loop is the whole design, and it is why the strongest player is usually the problem.
Salting the pasta water barely changes the temperatureSalt does raise the boiling point of water. Run the numbers and it comes to roughly a fifth of a degree, which cooks nothing faster.
Why the night sky is darkIn an infinite, eternal universe every line of sight would end on a star, and the night sky would blaze. It does not, and the reason is not what most people guess.
Context windows are not memoryA language model does not remember your last message. It re-reads it, along with everything else, every single turn.