We Trade With Ants: Plague
When disaster strikes, Jeff and Anastasia call in some professional help| Fortress of Doors
ChatGPT gave the wrong answer to a research question. I published an article with the correct answer, then checked to see if ChatGPT could find it.| Fortress of Doors
We "big speakers" keep projecting our human minds on them, and the "little speakers" keep projecting their ant mind on us. This is the problem.| Fortress of Doors
When disaster strikes, Jeff and Anastasia call in some professional help| Fortress of Doors
I show a new web-playable game I'm working on, the rationale and philosophy behind it, as well as a detailed Godot 4 tutorial that outlines my process step by step.| Fortress of Doors
“Now Ma’am, I’m afraid that um, the property tax code of the state of Texas does not recognize ‘haunting’ as grounds for a reduction in taxable valuation.”| Fortress of Doors
Jens Trondsen rocked slowly back and forth in his chair on the side porch of his house. It was a beautiful spring day and the house was empty–Jens' wife Margaret and their two girls were at a play date at a friends' house. Right now it was just him| Fortress of Doors
Jeff and Anastasia subject the ants to a series of tests to verify whether the "little speakers" really can talk...| Fortress of Doors
A Dark Mirror ideology stands only in moral opposition to its counterpart, while otherwise making the exact same factual claims about how the world works. The only thing the belief systems disagree about is what we're supposed to do about it.| Fortress of Doors
Howdy everyone! As part of my new job working for the Center for Land Economics, my co-founder Greg Miller and I have taken over day to day management at ye old Progress & Poverty substack, and one of our duties is for one of us to put up a new post| Fortress of Doors
Three big announcements today: 1. I've started a new job at the Center for Land Economics. 2. My colleague there, Greg Miller, and I are relaunching the Progress & Poverty substack, which had gone dormant for a while. 3. In a few weeks I will be launching a new open source| Fortress of Doors
Defender's Quest 2, at long last, is available to play.| Fortress of Doors
Imagine, if you will, a world in which pretty much anybody can own a magic lamp, complete with magic genie, for an operating cost on the order of $100/year. The genie isn't all-powerful, but it's perfectly obedient, perfectly benevolent, and very smart. So smart that it can answer any| Fortress of Doors
There are certain kinds of experiences that most human beings know very little about because a) they are rare, b) they can only be felt from the "inside", i.e., by the people who have them, and c) not all of those people choose to, or are good at, writing| Fortress of Doors
Apparently if you want to teach kids how to ride a bike you're supposed to take the pedals off first, and now my mind will never be the same again.| Fortress of Doors
Nikolas Andreas Doucet, age 8, died painlessly of sudden cardiac arrest on Friday, November 8th, 2024, at 7:03 PM Central time. He was buried on Friday November 16, 2024. The following was the eulogy that I, his father, gave at his graveside.| Fortress of Doors
The latest in a series of short stories about talking ants. In this story, protagonist Jeff Boudreaux finds his landlord George having a heart attack. Jeff intervenes and afterwards discovers a mysterious device in George's garage...| Fortress of Doors
If you travelled back in time, how quickly could you push human civilization forward to the same level as the world you came from?| Fortress of Doors
When something really bad happens to you, one of the few silver linings is that you gain a new perspective and can use this to help other people understand your rare experience. Grief is one of those things that’s hard for people to understand; most people see how I’| Fortress of Doors
If you want to get good at something, you need to put in the reps.| Fortress of Doors
What if ants could talk? What if we could trade with them? I wrote a short story to answer that question.| Fortress of Doors
Long ago, in a parallel universe three doors down and one to the left of our own, OpenAI headquarters found itself in chaos. A klaxon blared overhead as red lights began flashing. A message played over a loud-speaker: “Warning! Warning! This is not a drill! Artificial General Intelligence window closing!| Fortress of Doors
On October 20th, my seven year old son Nikolas suffered cardiac arrest while undergoing a procedure at the hospital to treat an underlying congenital condition. The doctors performed CPR and succeeded in reviving him but ultimately he suffered catastrophic brain damage. My wife and I were in the hospital for| Fortress of Doors
If you go down to Oslo Town Look well upon its seal Upon that sign you'll find inscribed Within its mighty wheel A maiden slain, a young lord thane The stone that brought him down The arrows sharp that felled them both The light of Heav-en’s crown What fate| Fortress of Doors
In what kind of world would humans be the most likely to rise up against AI and smash it to bits with hammers?| Fortress of Doors
GO PLAY THE DEMO RIGHT NOW! The moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. Defender's Quest 2 is playable, right now, today, for a limited time as a free demo on Steam, as part of the week-long Steam Next Fest. Much like Defender's Quest 1's famous demo, this| Fortress of Doors
Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin is officially re-announced! You can wishlist it on Steam right now! Rise above the Mirk & protect your ship from dangers unknown in this epic tower defense game. We're happy to announce that we're publishing the long-awaited Defender's Quest 2: Mists of Ruin by Level| Fortress of Doors
What happens when most "people" you interact with on the internet are fake?| Fortress of Doors
Now that we're into December, I think it's useful to take a step back and look at where things stand with the game, and review everything we've accomplished in the last year.| Fortress of Doors
October marks the beginning of a concerted content push for the game.| Fortress of Doors
Rebalancing levels in response to testing & fancy scripts to auto-balance the economy.| Fortress of Doors
A month's worth of bugfixing, bigger portraits, and path tracers that won't give you a heart attack.| Fortress of Doors
New features include wave mutations and connected snake-like enemies. We're also nearing the end of our big level design push.| Fortress of Doors
New levels, new cannons, new abilities, new bosses, multiple things that catch on fire, and more!| Fortress of Doors
We're proud to say that a full 25 levels are now "near final balance." It doesn't mean they won't change at all before the game releases, but it means that they're pretty dialed in and we feel the game is in a good place.| Fortress of Doors
We've roughed out all 50+ battle locations on the map with basic level designs and are now moving on to polishing up the first half.| Fortress of Doors
Designing levels was taking too long, so we designed some tools to speed up the process and we've had great results.| Fortress of Doors
