PicoBlog

With twitter going in on reducing reach on those without blue checks and Substack feeling quite cozy, there is certainly a world where this becomes my main info stream. I would like to see videos here, as well as enhanced threading to keep up with current events, but if I get those two things, I may become a substack-first reporter. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjaa%2ByKegp6yYmrqwvs1opaislWSwbn2Tb2dsbWds

Here’s Issue #24, hot off the presses and fresh off the plane. I returned yesterday from Tel Aviv, where I saw the culinary cultural center and met the colleagues I’ve been working with since June for the first time. It was my first trip since COVID and it was such a treat to see Asif: Culinary Institute of Israel in real life. What a beautiful place. What an amazing group of people.

“You sure sound bitter!” It’s one of men’s favorite responses to my posts. And I’m not alone. A stunning, successful (and very much not-bitter) woman I know recently posted a photo of herself with a comment about smashing the patriarchy. Some troll-looking supposed human male, who might actually have been part dog and part sea slug ,immediately responded to tell her how bitter she sounds. Thanks for your comment, bro! Glad to see men are still upset enough about women’s existence to take time out of their days to insult us.

I got into The Velvet Underground when I was about 12; it was on the back of listening to Lou Reed a lot, and having a compilation album that had Heroin and Waiting For The Man on it. I read books about Lou Reed and knew about the VU for a while before I ever really listened to them. In high school I collected up all their albums on CD – and for a little while there I felt a bit ahead of some of my mates.

👋 Hi! I’m Tao. As I learn about building products & startups, I collected some of the best content on these topics shared by successful Chinese entrepreneurs. I translate and share them in this newsletter. If you like more of this, please subscribe and help spread the word! (This issue is best viewed on Desktop) Hey there, As usual, I like to take a break after focusing on one thing for a while.

I should profess this by saying, I’m the type of person that easily develops wild obsession with things. My favourite crisps, obsessed, my favourite Greek yogurt obsessed, my favourite towel, obsessed. You get the idea, I’ve got what they say is an obsessive personality. Like everyone else, I was obsessed with the series White Lotus, but what caught my eyes was the nail polish the character Portia (Haley Lu Richardson) was wearing throughout the series.

So let’s talk about the term “cinematic” when it comes to roleplaying games. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot and I’m not sure I’ve read someone actually explaining what they mean by that. So I’m going to try and explain what I think the term cinematic should mean when it comes to TTRPGs. Now this isn’t something I normally do. Normally, I am a kind of descriptivist - I just try to describe what other people mean when they use a word.

On my latest advice podcast, my cohost Danny and I answered a question from someone about the tyranny of maintaining a social calendar. The questioner said that they have a “fairly normal social life,” just with one problem: they often find themselves feeling anxious about filling their weekend with fun plans. “In the past, I dealt with this anxiety by simply making a ton of plans,” they said, “which usually worked in the short-term but also made me feel like I was on a hamster wheel—going through the weekend, then immediately worrying about what the next one would look like and rushing to fill it again.

The weather is turning cooler and there even was a little rain today—hopefully a sign that our summer drought is close to being over. In the mornings, I hear the voices of the neighborhood kids as they wait for the school bus outside the fence near my garden. I don’t know why fall brings on baking urges in me, but it does. You, too? There are half bags of shredded coconut and crystalized ginger on my pantry shelves, and carrots and apples in the fridge.