Eric Lang

Reunited with my old breakfast buddy from my old Singapore neighbourhood! He remembered me 😍

My breakfast comfort food: wonton mee (pulled noodles with soy, garlic and scallions), pork char siu and teh tarik

Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone@verhere BODY: we're going to bed ANXIETY: first of all, WE aren't doing anything, so jot that down

Friendly group of nine gamers at lunch

Catching up with old Singaporean gamer friends. Several folks here I’ve known for decades, some new friends

Only if examined abstractly enough where all words issued by authority of any kind qualify

The specifics of AI slop are useful to examine on their unique merits

Oligarch evil is bipartisan

Unpack? This feels contrarian on the surface

It requires no conspiracy, merely aligned self-interest among the worst powerful people in the world

“Make people eventually accept AI as human output” is 100% a core goal, driven by natural oligarch needs, and there’s no material difference between that and a pipeline to control

Consider that LLMs *by design* accomplish two evils:

1. Erode our collective sense of veritable truth over time, exhausting us into complicity

2. Repeatedly trigger collective hypervigilance to overwhelm and exhaust us into complicity

Arrived in Singapore on our way to Malaysia - and my ritual first meal pictured below: Dandan la Mian (spicy chili peanut pulled noodles with scallions)

So the goal was to take all of December off

And I will

Yet here I am at Paris CDG building wireframes for a new card game I dreamed up on the plane.

Or promote predation

Predators and exploitation are totally okay, but we draw the line at gay

A history walks into a bar

Bartender goes “hey, want your usual?”

A history walks into a bar

An unfinished joke walks into a bar

A poem, an analogy and simile walk into a bar

A metaphor walks out

A rabbi, a priest and a pastor walk into a bar

Bartender goes “what is this, a joke?”

A hyperbole walk into a crowded bar

Their entrance totally blows everyone away

I sometimes wonder how many dad jokes in a row I can post before being blocked by the entire internet

Fun fact: for over half my 30 year game design career, I made less than $40K/year (pre-tax)

For about 7 of those years I had a second job.

Text message with longtime industry friend: I told you I set myself a retirement date in 2027 right? Yes you did, very excited for your! Of course you need to actually stop working yo be retired Yeah but I'll just turn into Richard launius and make games when I feel like it. That is fine as long as that is constant one game after another Wait you're not my dad! No but clearly you need to hear this!

My best game industey friends and I have the most wholesome convos. I

*charges into room*

I HATE TABLETOP SIMULATOR WITH THE HEAT OF THE SUN

*breaks furniture*
*leaves quietly*

Watched The Matrix again, for the first time in many years, and reminded what a perfect movie it is.

Selfishly, I hunger to make art this impactful, this inspiring, and this *enduring*

Newer creatives: people can often tell when you're trying to impress them, and it's almost always cringe.

Just do your thing; genuine approbation will follow.

Cats are ASMR elementals

Capybara in a bathtub surrounded by orange slices

Treat yoself

Y’all have no idea how much some random posts on Reddit have influenced design and dev decisions at major publishers over the decades 😂

Message received. I’ll happily post more southeast Asian stuff.

And still talk plenty about games and politics, don’t worry :)

Remember that thing I said last year about you going places?

CONGRATS! 🤘 🤘 🤘 🤘

I'm spending the winter months (Dec-Feb) in Malaysia, which has become a new routine.

Haven't posted much about Southeast Asia - even when we lived in Singapore - mostly because I thought it wouldn't be super interesting to my followers.

Was I wrong? Do y'all want some Malaysia content next month?