![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
opinionatedgamers_feeddarths_and_droids_feed
Sometimes temptation needs a helping hand. Adventurers can be reckless at times, but sometimes they can also be too cautious. This is a real issue when designing and running adventures. You never know how players are going to react to something.
If there's a lever you really want them to pull or a room you really want them to go into, they can be so suspicious that they don't want to go near it. There are a couple of ways around this.
1. You could write your adventure to be robust to this. It's not crucial that they pull the lever. All they do is miss out on some treasure or something, and that's on them. This is a good general principle. Never have something that the PCs have to do to complete the adventure successfully. Make multiple options and paths through the adventure that can all lead to various forms of success if they're clever.
2. Screw it. Just ramp up the temptation. Dangle extra riches or subject them to extra taunts until they just do what you want.
aurilee writes:
If Palpatine hadn't shown up here, I'd have guessed that this might be all a Force Illusion. It could still be a a bunch of holograms; the cyan and black is reminding me of holographic Snoke from the other Episode, and the fog isn't helping there either. Why there's a crowd watching this..... not a clue. Even as a comic item, I don't know why AnaZone would want to have a bunch of spectators watching someone sit on a fancy chair.
Palpatine looks even worse here I have to say. Is clone degeneration setting in? That wouldn't surprise me given that he'd have exploded with the second Death Star if the fall didn't get him first. And the machinery behind him looking like a badly put together medical rack of some kind doesn't help either. Which would fit with the whole Star Wars Sith aesthetic of badly made, but I'd have thought Palpatine would try to get something better for himself. There's no need to try and control a rising apprentice when he's the one in need of unspecified medical help! I bet that's something not explained in the movie though; most Star Wars video doesn't try and explain random bits like that from what I can tell anyway.
walterjonwilliams_feedA complete stranger bought me lunch the other day. I never met her, and never spoke to her, and she’d left the restaurant before the waiter told me what she’d done.
I guess she saw this geezer limping to the table with his cane, then dining by himself, possibly a lonely old pensioner with mobility issues and a limited income, and so she was moved to an act of kindness.
I’m not lonely and I don’t live on a budget, and i’m a pensioner only in a limited technical sense; but maybe I looked sad or something. The lady’s kindness was misplaced but it was still kindness, Anyway, I’m appreciative and stand firmly by the conviction that we could use more people like her.
To rectify the karmic balance, I’m going to buy someone lunch sometime soon.
In the meantime, I’m still recovering from my knee replacement, and I’ve just had a two-month assessment. My physical therapist tells me that, at eight weeks, I’m performing like a twelve-week veteran. (Diligence pays off.) Knee pain is reduced, though I wish I could say the same for my other bodily aches. I limp, but the limp began with my 2019 hip replacement, so I’m fairly used to it.
My chief problem right now is that I could, quite suddenly, die.
A couple days after the surgery my right foot swelled into a sort of Godzilla foot, a big lump of flesh with little toenails sticking out. A doppler test showed that this was caused by a large blood clot in my ankle region, otherwise known as deep vein thrombosis. I am now on a blood thinner in hopes of getting the thing to dissolve, but it will (and already has) taken months. At least my foot now more closely resembled a human foot rather than that of an elephant.
The clot can at any time throw off a mini-clot which could end up in my lungs, causing pulmonary embolism and possibly death. Other complications can include stroke and gangrene. The DVT page on Web MD is a jolly fun read, let me tell you.
I am now in the process of reassessing my relationship with my mortality. I used to joke that while I have a number of medical issues, none of them are going to kill me. This is no longer true.
I’m used to being proactive with my life and health, but there are no real proactive options. There is nothing I can do other than update my will, take my blood thinners, and otherwise try to get on with my life.
And I will buy someone lunch. It’s the least I can do.
dumbing_of_age_feed
The Dumbing of Age Book 15 Kickstarter continues! With Amazi-Girl, whose magnet was here the whole time!
askamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I don’t want employees to give me gifts
I’ve just switched employers and am now heading up a company’s legal division. I value your advice to gift down, not up, but do you have any scripts on how and when to communicate this expectation to subordinates? I don’t want to sound like, “Listen up, peons! Spare me your humble offerings.” Nor do I want to say it so early that it feels like I was expecting them to shower gifts at my feet if I didn’t say something. And if someone ignores me and gives me a gift anyway, how should I handle that? I’m working remotely for a region of the country that’s very different culturally from my own, and I don’t want to inadvertently insult people or harm relationships with my excellent team in a place where gifting seems to be a part of the culture. For what it’s worth, I’m coming from government, where no-gifting-up expectations are clearly set in policy.
Are you mostly worried about this happening with year-end holiday gifts? If so, speak up in late November or early December and say something like, “This is the time of year when people think about holiday gifts, so I want to say up-front that just doing your jobs well is enough of a gift for me. Please spend your money on your family or yourself, and know that I’m grateful to have each of you on our team.” (It’s less weird if you can say this in the context of some other holiday-related announcement, so that it’s not its own stand-alone declaration.)
If you’re seeing a culture around things like birthday gifts, talk to whoever seems to organize them and explain that you don’t want them to organize something for you — and it’s okay to explicitly say, “I feel strongly that no one should feel even minor pressure to buy a gift for anyone in their chain of command.”
But if you do receive a gift from an employee despite this, it’s okay to accept it graciously as long as it’s not extravagantly expensive. You don’t want to make anyone feel bad (which will happen if you refuse to accept a gift); you just want to ensure no one feels obligated to buy you presents. If it is extravagant, you can say, “This was very kind of you! I feel really strongly that managers shouldn’t accept gifts because it can lead to people feeling pressured to provide them — I know you didn’t, but I worry about creating that culture. So I’m going to give this back to you so you can give it a loved one or use it yourself. The only gift I need from you is your good work, and I already have that!”
Also, aside from gifts to you, be alert for signs that anyone might feel pressured to contribute to gifts for others. If gifting is a big part of this office’s culture, I can almost guarantee that there are people who would prefer to keep their money — and that they’d be grateful if you worked to shift that piece of the culture once you’re more settled in.
2. My employee doesn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom
I am the head of a small organization. I have two-in office employees. We do work in-office most days, and our office space has a bathroom. All of us can hear when the toilet flushes, sink is running, etc. One of my employees clearly does not wash his hands after using the restroom — he’s in there only briefly, and the toilet flushes mere seconds before he emerges from the bathroom. This is gross.
If I put up a “wash your hands” sign, it will be awkward, given there are only three of us here and we work closely together and a new sign would be very pointed and unusual. I’m not sure a sign would change the behavior anyway. Do I need to have a personal conversation with the employee about this (also awkward)? Do I need to resign myself to vigorous hand sanitizing and Lysol spraying? How do I get over the thought of touching the copier, the stapler, the doorknobs, after my employee has, while knowing what he previously touched?
I am sorry to deliver this news because it is gross, but a significant portion of the people walking in around in the world don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, and you are touching things they have touched all the time when you’re out in public. Signs won’t stop it. You just need to know that’s how people are, and adjust your own behavior accordingly.
(It would be different if you were in food service; then you’d have an obligation to talk to him.)
3. Resumes that include info about gender identity or sexual orientation
This is admittedly, less of a question, and more of something I get concerned about as a manager reviewing resumes. I was advised by a peer to submit this to you in hopes that some hopeful applicants might see it and be more cautious.
I often have resumes from younger individuals that specifically advertise their gender identity or sexuality. While we are a progressive workplace, with many in-house accommodations and built-in support structures that allow team members to present as the gender and be open about the sexuality they are most comfortable with as they are comfortable expressing. That being said, we are located in a less progressive state, where it’s becoming increasingly fraught (while still illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ+ folk in the workplace).
It’s not my place to coach applicants who aren’t my staff, but I wish sometimes I could advise them to be a little more cautious about openly sharing this information — especially at a stage of the hiring process where a less scrupulous person could still choose to discard their resume under the guise of a more “acceptable” reason.
Most often, candidates who do this are doing it intentionally because they want to screen out employers and hiring managers where it’s more likely to be an issue. It’s a way to screen for inclusive workplaces. It’s not infallible, of course, but it’s better than doing no screening and hoping for the best.
4. How much notice should I give before retiring?
How much notice should I give before retiring? Is a standard two weeks enough?
For context, I just got a big promotion in December and I have been leading a newly formed team since January. I am only 54 so I think this move is going to be a surprise, and I feel bad about leaving the team at a formative time. I also have a great relationship with my boss and I hate to put her in a difficult position. But for a variety of reasons, I’ve determined that retiring in September is the right thing for me to do.
Given the circumstances, is it better to give my boss a heads-up well in advance, or should I just stick with the standard two weeks?
It comes down entirely to this: do you trust your boss and your employer not to push you out earlier than you want to leave? And if they did, how much of a problem would it be for you?
If you think that they’ll be grateful for early notice and won’t push you out earlier than September (or if you wouldn’t mind much if they did), go ahead and give them a couple of months of notice if you feel comfortable doing that. But if you don’t trust them on that, or if it would be disastrous if they did, stick with two weeks. You’d be giving two weeks for other types of departures, so it’s not a terrible crime to do that here too.
Keep in mind, too, that “push you out earlier than September” doesn’t have to mean something dramatic like they blow up and tell you to leave immediately. It can look more like initial gratitude for the heads-up, followed a few weeks later by, “We found the perfect replacement but she would need to start immediately so let’s set your end date for sooner” or, “Since we’re about to launch a bunch of new projects, it doesn’t make sense to have you start them and then leave soon after, so it makes more sense to move your ending date up.” I would be particularly concerned about those since you’re still pretty new in the position and, in their eyes, may still be getting acclimated to it.
Related:
how much notice should you give when you resign?
5. Interviewing in the third trimester of pregnancy
I’m currently job searching for a fall start date. Job searching in the spring for a fall start is normal in my industry, although some companies will make offers in March and others might not make offers until June. I find myself in a sticky situation with timelines, because I am in my third trimester of pregnancy, and due in six to eight weeks. I look pregnant, but most people who see me think I am five or maybe six months pregnant — so I seem earlier in the pregnancy than I am.
My current job is a one-year position ending in September, but I will be able to take my full maternity leave at this job. My plan is to return to it for one month before moving to a new job, should I land one. I have had some great first round virtual interviews, with two different kinds of responses — some companies want me to come in ASAP for in-person interviews, and some want to wait until late May or early June for in-person interviews (when I will likely be giving birth/freshly postpartum).
For companies that want to interview me ASAP, I am considering volunteering information during the interview about completing my leave at the current job and not needing a delayed start or maternity leave from the new job, because people may not realize that is my timeline based on my appearance. Is this a good idea? I know there is no way to avoid implicit bias now that I’m visibly pregnant, so I’m hoping to get ahead of the timeline concerns that may pop up. And for companies that seem inclined to take things slow, is there anything I can say without disclosing my pregnancy that would help them realize I cannot wait that long to interview? I did not say anything in the interviews when I was told this because I did not know how to respond, so I’m afraid I will now look panicked or unprofessional.
I’m fairly junior in my field and many women in the field choose to delay pregnancy for 5+ years beyond where I am to avoid being thought of as unserious. But I do love my career, I am incredibly serious about it, and it is my passion. I am afraid that my otherwise strong candidacy will be overlooked due to my pregnancy.
Yes, for the companies interviewing you in-person, it’s smart to share your plans and timeline because they’re going to be reluctant to ask (since they can’t legally factor your pregnancy into the hiring decision).
For the companies moving more slowly, since you know you won’t be able to interview in late May/early June, you might as well put it on the table now: share that you’re pregnant and when you’re due and that you’re planning to finish your leave before you’d be starting with them. They might not be willing or able to interview you any earlier, but they might.
The post I don’t want gifts at work, employee doesn’t wash his hands, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
dumbing_of_age_feed
Every month at the Dumbing of Age Patreon there’s two new exclusive bonus strips — one that patrons get to vote on, and another that’s my choice! This month, we get BOOSTER! And Walky! And a snowpile. But not for long.
Check out this strip and the backlog of hundreds of previous bonus strips at the Dumbing of Age Patreon! Also, if you pledge $5 or more per month, you can read tomorrow’s strip a full day-and-five-minutes early, every single dang night! You could be reading tomorrow’s strip right now!
scalziwhatever_feed
The current state of the new back deck: In progress!
The astute among you, who also remember anything about the previous deck, will notice two differences so far. Most obviously, those tall posts, which will serve for framing a roof, and rather less obviously, the new deck is going to be flush with the patio door where the previous one had a step down. Why did it have a step down? Because, apparently, why not. Krissy decided she could do without the step down so here we are. This will mean that the stairs from the deck to the walkway will have one more step, but this is a choice we are ready to make.
I think it’s looking good, although when it’s done we’ll have some further decorating and landscaping choices to make. This is the way of all home improvements.
More updates as warranted. Expect at least a couple more before it’s all done.
— JS
zarfhome_blog_feedThe common thread this time is "the id". I don't mean the games are horny; they're not. (Although PSI has "flirt" dialogue options.) I mean somebody wanted a specific thing and made a game that catered to it. You want a style of puzzle that videogames don't do much, or you want a building-climber with zero risk of falling, or you want 3000 books piled on the floor. Here you go.
A short puzzler made up of Hunt-style puzzles. That is to say: basically paper-and-pencil puzzles where you get a lot of clues and maybe a grid and no immediate idea what to do with it all. But when you start putting pieces together, a pattern emerges, and then a final solution. Neat! This form is very familiar to me as a Boston resident; in fact, some of my friends are off doing a BAPHL as I write this. (I skipped it for Open Studios.) However, the form is not common at all in videogames. I hope this becomes more of a trend.
PSI (yes, the letter "Ψ" is their logo) is short and on the easy side. Hints are available to make it even easier. That's fine! It's a pleasant day's spy-themed entertainment. With just a hint of dating sim for flavor, if you're into that.
Golden-Idol-alike set in a cursed community theater. "Cursed" because people keep dying! Totally by accident! Deduce the details of ten (or more) deaths, from 1975 through 1995, and figure out who's really behind it all.
(That's not actually a mystery -- one character is consistently a sociopathic jackass in every scene, although he's not the only one. Maybe I should say "jack-dog"; the characters are all rendered as anthro animal cartoons. Jackhound? Hm.)
Birch Tree Theater is a good playable example of its genre. It's fun to see the theater and its dramatis personae through the decades. The shows are mostly musical theater, which gives the author scope for innumerable furry-musical puns and filks. You don't have to be a fan of musicals to get them. Well, you probably have to be a fan to get all of them, but I caught "Alan Minken" so I figure I'm doing pretty well.
A nonviolent(*) open-world puzzle adventure in a tropical archipelago. These sorts of adventures always involve climbing charismatic megastructures, which I love. Normally the climbing is part of the puzzle. In this one, you're a gecko! You can climb literally anything! You can dance on the ceiling! Falling doesn't hurt because you're so small! Perfect.
(* Almost nonviolent. Sometimes you have to beat up some hostile beetle-pots. They can't hurt you much though.)
Notionally, you're trying to solve puzzles to light up statues and stuff to bring back the Gecko Gods. In fact you're there to smash pots and eat tasty bugs. Puzzles are just a way to keep score.
...Okay, I'm kidding. The puzzles are quite good. Not brain-crushing hard, but a good variety of levers (which you can grab with your tiny gecko mouth), wires to connect up, balls to push onto plates (with your tiny gecko head), and so on. There's a few slider puzzles but they're not too painful. And of course lots of disorienting three-dimensional architecture to crawl around, including on the ceiling.
Eating bugs is still the best part. I have no idea how, but your tiny gecko viewpoint somehow invites you to be distracted by every tasty bug you see. Even though snacking down provides no bonus whatsoever. Other than an achievement for eating one of every species -- but you can't eat just one bug! C'mon. This is master-level embodiment work.
I haven't finished this; I think I'm working on my third island of five. It's a pretty large-scale game, and not just in comparison to your tiny gecko self. Will finish though.
Some games have a convoluted design history, full of pivots and agonizing "find the fun" focus sessions. Other games, you can tell, had a one-line design process: "Oh my god what if you were in a giant messy room full of books and you had to shelve them all?!" Sold. Write it and ship it.
Seriously, click through that game link and look at the screenshot. If you don't immediately Get It, you're not the target audience.
I'm afraid Arcane Library doesn't entirely fulfil its promise. At root it's an incremental game. You start out picking up books one at a time; then you begin to acquire magic to make the job go faster. The problem is that this wheel turns about one-and-a-half times and then jams.
I say "incremental" but really these games trade on the exponential, right? Every phase is supposed to go ten times faster than the last, until you're blasting through paper clips or potatoes or whatever in planetary-sized gulps. Here, your fifth shelf of books goes a lot faster than your first; your tenth shelf goes somewhat faster than your fifth; after than you're kind of in a rut.
I think if the game had more varieties of spells, with more interesting interactions, it would have held together. Maybe 40000 shelves instead of 400? With a rank of spells that operated on a whole new level -- shelves instead of books? Or a lot more secrets. (There are four locked chests but no surprises beyond that.) As it is, I decided I'd had enough after an hour or so.
Footnote: A friend insists that you're supposed to play without using the spells at all. Just put away 3000 books, by hand, one at a time. If that's your kink, have I got a game for you.
I played this in 2003 and reviewed it with the faintest of praise. My entire 2003 commentary:
An acceptable followup to the first two Soul Reaver games, but not inspired. The paradox story elements from SR2 are abandoned completely -- not that they were all that strong to begin with, but I was hoping that the conclusion would be more interesting. The major story revelations are all either murky or implausible. I still want more games set in this universe, but they need to start over with better writers.
If I had known that the next Nosgoth game would take 23 years to ship, I might have been kinder!
Historic note: A followup game called Dead Sun was planned in 2010 with Sam Barlow at the helm. It was cancelled in 2013, freeing Barlow to go off and write much more interesting games. (And yet we mourn.) Some remnant of Dead Sun was spun off into a multiplayer battler called Nosgoth, which never got out of beta.
So what's it like to come back to a twenty-year-old game that I never planned to replay? I sure didn't remember much of it.
You alternate playing Kain and Raziel, recrossing the same territory in different time periods, until they converge at the end for a final beat-down with the Elder God. That's about all I remembered. That's about all there is to remember.
Oh, there's plenty of story. You cross paths with the regulars: Moebius and Vorador, Ariel and Janos Audron. You even have a run-in with Mortanius, who hasn't been on-stage since Kain corked him in the original Blood Omen. (Time travel: a scriptwriter's gift to cameos.)
It's just, you know, lots of revelations and people sneering at each other. We get more history of the Elder Race vs the Hylden, but as usual, the Hylden are boring. The Hylden Lord escapes at the end, which is either sequel-bait or a reverse-setup for Blood Omen 2 -- I'd completely forgotten him.
Any given exchange is a pleasure to listen to! The voice actors are having a blast. (Check the making-of bonus videos.) But when I try to lay out what happens, I get: "The writers put Kain and Raziel through their paces." No wonder they get so antsy about free will.
I had fun. There's plenty of puzzle-shrines and puzzle-tombs and puzzle-courtyards to keep you busy. The environmental puzzles are the heart of these games; Defiance provides them in top form. As a bonus, most of these maps are polymorphic. Kain and Raziel run through the same areas -- from different starting points, using different abilities, solving different puzzles, breaking or fixing architecture in ways that will be reflected in each others' time periods. It's a genuinely impressive design stunt.
On the down side, this is all paced out with endless hallway fights. Fights, fights, fights. They just don't vary that much, as Kain or as Raziel. You beat on mooks until they bleed and then suck them dry, blood- or soul-wise. Bosses: dodge first, then pound.
The one exception is Turel, the boss-vampire cut from the first Soul Reaver script. You finally get to take him out -- and his fight is a stylistic gesture back to the environmental puzzle-fights of that earlier game. A good bit. Otherwise, it's all a bit of a slog. Or a bit of a sluagh. (Sorry.)
"Zarf, you Nosgoth fanboy, you protest way the heck too much." You bet your tattery blue ass I'm a fanboy. I love the whole ridiculous setting. Raziel is one of my household gods. (Limited-edition 18" figurine guarding my book collection.) When Ascendance and this remaster came out, I grabbed both and played right through.
What I love about the world of Nosgoth is that it's big, underexplained, and trails off in a thousand weird directions. It's exactly the kind of setting that doesn't benefit from having all its cracks filled in and smoothed out. Vorador forged the original Reaver blade? No, argh! This is exactly why Sam Barlow's mission was to start fresh with new characters and a new era.
That said, I will give Defiance its due: it wraps up Raziel's story on a hell of a high note. (Spoilers:) It effectively recasts the entire Kain-and-Raziel arc as a twisted vampire love story. Seriously, Raziel dies in Kain's arms swearing eternal fidelity. Not a dry eye in the house, albeit probably tears of blood.
Okay, yes, Kain has spent the last 1500 years of linear history being an unsurmountable and utter dick to Raziel. For plot reasons. Still -- OTP forever. Go them.
scalziwhatever_feed
One of my friends recently told me she’s pregnant with her second child, and as much as I love nice cards I knew I wanted to do something a little more for her, so I asked her to tell me what baked good she was really craving. She answered muffins, and my muffin making journey began.
Though she never specified what kind of muffins she wanted, my mind immediately went to a coffee cake type of muffin. In my experience, coffee cake always hits the spot, and there is virtually no one who doesn’t love cinnamon and brown sugar (shout out to the one person I know who is allergic to cinnamon). I just needed to find a good recipe for such muffins.
In my search for coffee cake muffins, I came across this video, showing banana coffee cake muffins:
I knew this recipe was the one. Banana bread vibes enhanced by cinnamon brown sugar streusel?! Yes, please!
Looking at the recipe, it’s very interesting because it uses butter, neutral oil, eggs, and sour cream. So you already know we are in for a MOIST muffin. Especially with the addition of the bananas.
Honestly this recipe is very good for a casual home baker, as there’s nothing weird or hard to come by on the ingredients list. I only had to go buy sour cream and bananas, everything else I had on hand. Though I did use the very last of my flour and brown sugar for this, so sadly I will need to replenish those on my next grocery trip.
Anyways, let me tell you, this recipe is super quick and easy and these taste so flippin’ good! They were so good that I decided to make them again, and this time document it for y’all. So technically this was my second time.
Here’s the ingredients lineup:
If you’ve got a keen eye, you’ll notice I left the oil out of the photo. That was an accident, so just imagine a tall bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil in the photo. Thanks.
The recipe says to make the streusel first, and I have no arguments against that, so I did! The first time I made it, my butter was cold and cubed like the recipe says, but the second time it was definitely not as cold. But the streusel turned out fine, in my not-so-expert opinion:
You want your streusel to kind of be like wet sand. At least, that’s what I’ve heard in the past. I covered this with a tea towel and put it in the fridge while I worked on the batter.
The first step of the batter is to mash the bananas and mix in all the wet ingredients. Finally a recipe that adds the bananas to the wet ingredients instead of making you add them at the end. Lookin’ at you, Joy of Cooking.
It says to mix until smooth and glossy, and that’s looking pretty glossified to me:
For both times I made these muffins, I actually did not melt the butter fully. It was just very, very soft butter, not liquid. So, melt if you want, but I don’t think it matters too much. Everything whisked together super easy!
In the recipe, it says to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then fold into the wet ingredients, but why not make this a one bowl batter and just throw the dry ingredients in right on top of the wet, and then mix? Makes more sense to me. Here’s the completed batter:
I always use cupcake liners because I hate trying to get muffins unstuck from the pan, plus my pan is kind of not in incredible shape. It’s seen better days, so liners it is.
The recipe says to fill the cups halfway, then add a layer of streusel, then pour more batter and finish off with a top layer of streusel. So here’s the tricky part. How do you know how much streusel to use on the half-cup-layer to ensure that you have a decent amount in the layer, but also ensure that you don’t use too much and make it so the top layer is weak? You have to prioritize the top layer’s condition, but make sure there’s at least some in the middle.
Honestly, my line of thought is to have a decent crumble, but make sure you’re not completely covering the batter. Like you want to be able to see the batter. Then, when you do the top layer, that’s when you cover the batter completely and make it a very full layer of streusel that can’t be seen through. So here’s the half layer:
See how there’s like, a good amount of crumbles in there but you can still clearly see the batter through the spaces? Here’s the top layer:
Almost no batter visible at this point. I used every crumb of streusel in the damn bowl (ignore the streusel crumbs in the middle parts of the pan). These were ready to bake.
One interesting thing about this recipe that I haven’t really seen before is that she says to bake them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit and then reduce the temperature to 350 after five minutes, without opening the oven door. How intriguing! I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Regardless, I listened and reduced it to 350 and baked for 13 minutes since it said 12 to 15.
They come out a little ugly, but they smell incredible:
The streusel sort of just melds into the top of the muffin instead of being a defined layer on top, so they just kinda look bumpy and weird. But I promise they taste damn good. Look at that crumb!
These are super soft, moist, flavorful muffins with a delish crunchy, sweet cinnamon streusel topping. There’s cinnamon in the streusel and the batter itself, so you’re getting a lot of warm flavor here. The banana is an enhancement, not a detraction.
I gave the first batch to my friend like I mentioned, and she told me they were “AMAZING” and “insanely good” and literally told me to come back and get one immediately so I could try it myself. Thankfully, I had enough ingredients to make a second batch shortly after, and now y’all can try it for yourself.
Some of the muffins from the first batch had a weird issue of sinking in a little bit on the top in the middle, but the second batch didn’t have that issue. Not sure why.
Anyways, this recipe is going to be one I return to often. These are perfect just to gift to friends and family, or have on hand for a morning snack with your coffee. I highly recommend giving them a try.
Do you like banana bread or coffee cake better? Would you try this delish combo? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
kottke_org_feedA supercut of context-free intertitles from Adam Curtis documentaries. Even if you don’t know who Adam Curtis is, this is entertaining.
daringfireball_feedGreat stuff around MLB:
Those around the league quickly honored that legacy during Monday night’s slate of games. Tributes rolled in from across the league, with various play-by-play announcers deviating from their typical routines to give a nod to Sterling’s distinct style.
It started with the Yankees and TV man Michael Kay, who called Aaron Judge’s first-inning home run exactly as Sterling would have: “It is high, it is far, it is gone!” Kay said, continuing: “Aaron Judge, a Judgian blast! Here comes the Judge!”
The Yankees also tipped the cap to Sterling by playing a recording of his iconic post-win call over the loudspeakers in Yankee Stadium once New York wrapped up a 12-1 win over the Orioles — “Yankees win, theeee Yankees win!” — something Judge and manager Aaron Boone each said they hoped could continue to be done moving forward.
The Yankees will wear a commemorative patch for the remainder of the season. I’ve got my beefs with Hal Steinbrenner, but the organization still knows how to do stuff like this right.
Sterling called 5,426 regular-season Yankees games and 225 postseason games. According to this tally, there are only three teams that have even played in at least 225 postseason games in franchise history. He called 5,060 consecutive games from September 1989 to July 2019 — a span that included every at-bat of Derek Jeter’s career and every inning of Mariano Rivera’s. He called five seasons for the Atlanta Braves before getting a real job.
To put that longevity in perspective, how’s this for a factoid:
John Sterling called nearly 3.0% of all games in MLB history — this includes all games, for all teams, even those prior to the first ever radio broadcast of a ballgame on Aug. 5, 1921.
(Vin Scully, the best there ever was, called over 4 percent of all MLB games ever played.)
I listened to Sterling call a lot of games. He never once made it boring.
kottke_org_feedNew episode of Great Art Explained on Francis Bacon. “A new generation was starting to ask - who gets to decide what is right? And who has the authority to tell us how to live?”
daringfireball_feedThat previous item led me to look at Claris’s website for the first time in a while. And, lo, there’s a banner promoting a message from CEO Ryan McCann that was posted just yesterday, under the headline “How Claris Is Building for What’s Next”:
Every AI-generated application creates the same problems: Where does it run, and how is it deployed, secured, and managed?
The app needs a database. It needs user authentication, role-based permissions, and audit logging. It needs backup and recovery. It needs to work on Mac, Windows, iPad, iPhone, and the web. It needs to run on infrastructure your organization controls, whether that is in the cloud or on your own hardware.
This is what FileMaker already is. One unified platform with data, logic, interface, security, and cross-platform delivery, built together from the start. We’ve been solving this problem at scale for over 40 years.
“Mac, Windows, iPad, iPhone, and the web”, huh? Feels like there’s a somewhat popular platform missing from that list. Can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh yeah.
FileMaker 2026 is coming soon. This release focuses on resiliency, productivity, and infrastructure, including native disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities enabled by two new features: FileMaker Server Remote Backup and Standby Server. Additionally, it lays the groundwork for agentic development. We will share specifics in the coming weeks.
Later this summer, following the release of FileMaker 2026, we will deliver the first developer previews of our agentic coding functionality.
I have to admit I very seldom hear about FileMaker, and I’ve never once heard of Ryan McCann before. But it must still be a significant business. Tim Cook certainly doesn’t seem like the sentimental type.
daringfireball_feedApple Newsroom, back in August 2024:
Apple today announced that Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri will transition from his role on January 1, 2025. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams, including information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. As part of a planned succession, Kevan Parekh, Apple’s Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis, will become Chief Financial Officer and join the executive team.
That continued leadership role wasn’t ceremonial. Maestri still has an executive page, which reads:
Luca Maestri is Apple’s vice president of Corporate Services, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. In this role, he oversees a range of functions, including information systems and technology, information security, real estate and development, Caffè Macs, and Claris.
I find the mention of Caffè Macs to be utterly charming. (And the mention of Claris to be at least a little interesting.)
unsung_feedA surprising entry in the thread started by Photoshop and continuing through screwdriver handles is this 11-minute video from Errant Signal about a platformer game called Derelict Star:
I was inspired by the video, and really enjoyed its exploration of a demanding game that’s composed of just a few mechanics that are done really, really well:
The number of inputs are small, but the expression those inputs allow is deceptively expansive. […] Derelict Star’s various areas are all built to explore the way movement systems function and even interact with one another.
I think of user interfaces similarly, and of their need to build a certain consistent vocabulary of names, gestures, interface elements, concepts, and so on. Perhaps in an enterprise app you right click and discover something useful in a menu, and this will teach you about the usefulness of right click menus in general. Maybe pressing ⌥ to get to alternate symbols on your keyboard would inspire you (either consciously or not!) to try holding ⌥ in said menus, only to discover this brings up useful alternative options. Maybe seeing a keyboard shortcut next to one of these options will suggest to do that next time, and so on, and so on.
I really loved this bit in the video that could apply to a lot more software than just videogames:
It took me maybe an hour to do this, but right on the other side is a checkpoint. The game is hard, but it isn’t cruel. It’s designed to challenge you, but it has faith in your ability to complete it.
The narrator uses the term “ludocentrism” to refer to games that ruthlessly prioritize the mechanics and gameplay over narrative, aesthetics, and so on. (“Ludic” meaning “relating to play.”)
Of course, the calculus of what videogames care about will be different than goals of creative software or enterprise software; no one cares about the hero’s journey of the largest number in your Excel spreadsheet. But I think some version of ludocentrism applies to “boring”software as well. My beliefs here are probably something like this:
