PicoBlog

Hey everyone! Welcome to Warnament Dev Updates! Warnament is a grand strategy game, made by a solo dev Denis Makhortov. It is as deep as classic games in the genre, but only takes minutes to get into action. You can play out historical scenarios or create your own: take control of a nation on a global map and take it to glory by taking over territories and achieving military, technical, cultural, or political advantage.

A few friendly warnings as you read this week’s newsletter: I’m not analyzing one of the many tech stories this week and instead of giving you what is top of mind for me at this moment about where I spend my time. Feel free to just skip down to the what I’m reading section if you want a sense of what stories caught my eye this week and you aren’t interested in that.

Knowing what book someone is reading and what parts they resonate with most can be so intimate. It reveals their interests, where their head is at, and what excerpts are so significant that they will mark up a page because they think it’s worth revisiting at a later time. Personally, I’m fascinated by what books others gravitate towards and I find that it helps me get to know them better and gives me a small glimpse into who they are at their core.

What I’m reading: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto - a novella sent to me by my brother for Christmas, and I really, really liked it. It’s set in Japan (first published in 1988), and deals with grief, friendship and love in a really soft, slow way - plus there are some gorgeous descriptions of food. What I’m listening to: Dolly Alderton on Caroline O’Donoghue’s Sentimental Garbage about Robbie Williams. I could listen to these two for hours (but also wish the High-Low would return, no other podcast quite fills the void)

The Montana Club, a private club in Helena that was founded in 1885 and has long advertised itself as “the oldest continuously operating private club between Minneapolis and Seattle,” closed its door on March 29 with one final bash that was open to all. Montana Club President Charles Robison told me the next day that the crowd that gathered was “wall to wall.” Mint Juleps were served. I know this, because I asked Robison when I interviewed him for an article about the club’s closure for The New York Times.

recipe is part of the Kitchen Projects QUINCE INDEX, a curated selection of recipes that celebrate quince. For more quince-piration, from pickles to cakes, stews to jams, jellies to tarts, click here to learn more When I was researching quince pastes (also known as quince cheese) - and there are a lot of recipes out there - I was surprised at just how many steps there are. They also mostly used 1:1 sugar which, for me, is a bit too sweet.

This is not, to be clear, a regular weekday supper. Even at my poshest, I can’t say that cooking — or even eating, for that matter — a rabbit has ever felt routine, and nor should it. No-one’s yet cracked the economics of factory farming bunnies, for better or worse, and so they’re unlikely to feature too often in anyone’s kitchen.  There are a few ways to cook a rabbit: roasted, stewed, and I’m told even grilled all work out great.

Conflict is part of life, and part of congregational life as well. In fact, conflict, the way it is walked through, shapes the very character of congregations. For pastors, church leaders of any kind, how you understand a congregation’s social dynamics shapes the way you lead your congregation in conflict, engaging injustices, and cultivating the Spirit’s work among you. This in turn shapes your congregations. In this regard, I’ve learned much from political theorist Chantal Mouffe.

Housekeeping: To honor Turpentine’s ~1-year anniversary, we’re releasing our 1-pager master plan. Check it out here and subscribe to Turpentine company updates here. I discussed EA and E/acc on Bankless this past week and thought I’d write out my thoughts in more long-form. Epistemic status: speculative, not my area of expertise Effective Altruism’s reputation has taken a massive hit in the last two years. Fairly or unfairly, the combination of SBF and the Open AI debacle made EA the butt of all jokes and the supposed root of all problems.