August 2, 2025

Medieval navigation, witches, and war-games

Hi friend!

My latest post is live - in it I explore medieval nautical navigation, and consider how we can adapt the same techniques to help navigate life’s unknowns.

Articles of note

• Witches have joined the digital age, and sell spells on Etsy. Filed under curiosities, this is weird capitalism at its finest.
• How a little ice age shaped Europe - The continent was 1-2°C colder than today, leading to increased famines, and was one of the drivers for agricultural innovation such as artificial fertilisers.
• The sound of inevitability - a look at the framing of the discussion around LLMs and AI in general. FANG etc framing it as “inevitable” distracts us from a more important question - is AI the future we want?
• Cataphract - an asynchronous, real time war game - a design diary for a unique concept, a cross between Arma 3, and Dungeons and Dragons. It explores the logistics and operations required to follow through on a war-game strategy instead of the tactics or strategy. As Bonaparte said, “the amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics”

Neat web gizmos

• Godchecker - non-denominational holy database to almost 4,000 Gods of mythology, literature and legend. Useful for research, writing, and general boredom among other purposes
• Priority compass - A tool, and useful task categorisation idea reminiscent of the Eisenhower matrix, but more applicable for individuals with personal tasks.
• Medieval murder map - A set of three interactive maps of medieval York, London, and Oxford with a variety of homicidal flavours on offer.

Quotes

“Corporations interpret ethics as damage and route around them”

– boringcactus

”Now I let it fall back in the grasses.
I hear you. I know this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious on this earth.
But what are you trying to be free of?
The living? The miraculous task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.”.

— Joseph Fasano, For a student who used AI to write a paper

That’s all for now, I hope you have a great August,

Justin