The Striven Word

Articles in the notebook category

Editing Inertia

I want to be able to look up at the clouds and simply transcribe their meaning. I dream. Therefore, I am a Vim user.

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By Paul Lee

Keyboarding the AI apocalypse

The founding fathers of imaginative worldbuilding, Frank Herbert of Dune and J.R.R. Tolkien of LotR, both seemed pejorative toward the continued progress of technological artifice. What can their cautions and their creative philosphies teach us now, as their works remain culturally popular at a time when the secondary creation of computer systems automatically synthesized from the accumulated collective subconscious is becoming an popular reality?

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By Paul Lee

password protected

I can't manage my passwords because of the inscrutable infinity of the digital realm, but I've realized that necessity is the key.

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By Paul Lee

this compromise

A wistful report of a strategist who has little tactical competence.

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By Paul Lee

true simplicity

Simplicity is hard for me. I never really understood it. In my youth, I experienced cognitive dissonance when acknowledging the value and virtue of simplicity, because part of me kept insisting that it can't be morally wrong to look too deeply. To my younger self, this resistance seemed validated by …

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By Paul Lee

Reformanda

In October of 2017, I created this image. The inspiration behind the visual concept was the five hundredth aniversary of the day when Martin Luther nailed his theological protests to the church door in Germany. My personal name for the design is "Reformanda," and to me it represents the constant …

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By Paul Lee

Children of the First Pandemic

The year 2019 saw the outbreak of disease leading to widespread social unrest in Europe.

I’m referring to A Plague Tale: Innocence, last year’s historical adventure game that won awards for narrative achievement even as its praiseworthy young characters won the hearts of an adoring fanbase on Xbox …

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By Paul Lee

IFComp: Grandma Bethlinda’s Variety Box

Playfulness is one quality of traditional IF that is often difficult to critique or evaluate. Big-headed reviewers often find little use for it, since it is concerned neither with Making a Difference, nor with High Art, nor with abstract Capital Letter Ideals (CLI, because parser). Although many types of digital …