Books ↗ New? Start here

Subscribe

Letters, not a feed.

The Grokkist letter Once a month. Danu's letter, what's alive in the community, the Snackables. The Press New writing as it's published, and letters from the editor.

What's the difference?

The Grokkist letter is Danu's monthly letter about the whole Grokkist community: what people are making and thinking about, gatherings coming up, and a handful of Snackables, small good things worth your time.

The Press sends you new writing from this site as it's published (essays, talks, stories, books in instalments), plus a monthly letter from the editor. You can narrow it to the Realms you care about.

Choose either or both. Each email has a one-click way out.

One click to leave, any time. We never share your address.

Check your inbox: there's a link to confirm. Then you're in.

That didn't go through. Try again, or write to [email protected].

Choose Realms, or see what each letter is ↗

Make senseMaker's ForgeSnackables

🎮 The Genius AI Behind The Sims

I'm a big fan of Mark Brown's channel Game Maker's Toolkit, which explores game design in exquisite, entertaining and thoughtful detail. Here he unpacks the believably autonomous characters in The Sims — how Sims think, and how the AI 'yes-ands' the player's choices without going against t

Grokkist Press

15 July 2023 · 1 minute

I'm a big fan of Mark Brown's channel Game Maker's Toolkit, which explores game design in exquisite, entertaining and thoughtful detail. Here he unpacks the believably autonomous characters in The Sims — how Sims think, and how the AI 'yes-ands' the player's choices without going against the story the player wants to tell. A lovely intersection of emergent gameplay and the human desire to engage in storytelling.

In good company

Replies from signed-in readers. They open in their own space, so you can sit with the piece first.

Keep reading

Nearby on the shelf.

Surprise meWild Margin

🗞️ The Myth of the Informed Citizen

Nicholas Carr traces a recurring fantasy of modern life: that each new communication technology, from the telegraph to the internet, would produce wiser citizens and healthier democracies — and how each expansion of information instead bred new forms of confusion and overload. At its centr

Grokkist Press · 1 min

GroundedSoma Isles

🎨 Sculpting with Tree Sap and Time

A 15-minute documentary following Kyoto artist Mine Tanigawa as she creates sculptures from urushi lacquer, a material used in Japan for over 7,000 years. Less a 'making of' than a portrait of attention: raw tree sap transformed through layer upon layer of colour, polishing and curing, eac

Grokkist Press · 1 min

GroundedEntangled Vale

👁️ Iris Murdoch and Love as a Way of Seeing

Matthew Crawford revisits Iris Murdoch as a philosopher pushing back against thin, hyper-rational models of human life. For Murdoch, morality isn't mainly abstract reasoning but attention — the difficult practice of seeing the world, other people and oneself more clearly. Her radical claim

Grokkist Press · 1 min