iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Listening to a podcast yesterday about consulting (my job); the hosts were discussing AI imagery on consultancy websites. Both opposed, basically, unless it's been *really* carefully prompted. 1/2 hosts pays an illustrator for their site, as a signal of prosperity, quality, attn to detail.

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

so what i've been playing with is a card-based 'deck and hand' system married up to a Forged in the Dark core chassis for RP will it work? WHO KNOWS but your questions are good ones for me to ponder too as I design this thing :)

011

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

For new players, I think it's overwhelming right from the jump, but I think even for seasoned players if you play a campaign for long enough you can sort of lose track of the various bits and bobs of your character

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I love this and if you ever want to playtest, please HMU I've been building a game lately for new-to-the-hobby pals, and one of the problems I'm trying to solve with it is around 'stuff' (abilities, items, options, decisions) getting buried

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

(I ask because I mostly find crafting systems in TT(presumably RPGs?) an afterthought at best, but to flip it on its head and make it the main thing is interesting!)

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Is the TT *game* mostly about finding novel materials and doing things with them (i.e. it's a game about crafting) or is the crafting system *within* the game mostly about those things, but the broader game is about other things?

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

So my hunch is that for many folks aren't that mad about data ctrs, per se, but: if you have a sabot, and you can access a gear, why not chuck it in? If your work is being stripped of dignity but you need the pay cheque, the data ctr build (and municipal reelection) is the place you DO have leverage

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

On the flipside, it's clear to folks that land use planning is a place where regular people can have power -- typically, it's NIMBYs against housing or important infrastructure, who can grind a project to a halt with a few angry emails to a councilor or rants at a public meeting

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I think this is right. At least in a N. Am. context, crushing labour has meant that people feel powerless to resist slow dehumanization and deskilling of work. Your job gets crappier each year but what can you do?

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

We have some basic needs to chat, gossip, riff, banter, and in doing those things we really strengthen the social fabric inadvertently (I am a pretty introverted person who is bad at those things and so I can see the gap personally!) If botchat hoovers up that need, we lose the side benefit maybe!

130

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

I think that we like to think that relationships are made intentionally but my hunch is that a lot of it comes from relatively-idle forms of co-presence. It's linked in my mind to "work wife/husband", church basement socials (and the folks working in the kitchen), gaming friendships etc.

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

In another era, bus person is texting a friend, maybe memes or about their boyfriend or whatever. Now: is it the same, just with a parallel thread with the bot? Or is the bot soaking up that brain space and social energy, and by extension fraying the web of relations that rises from ambient chatter?

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

My other 0.02: in my UofT digital soc. classes, ? was whether tech was displacing traditional relations. The impression I recall was that it was transition of relations to async, but not a curtailment. People had rich social lives, interweaving online and offline. I worry that this *does* displace.

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

A little vignette that's stuck with me is seeing a person chatting with ChatGPT on their phone, on the bus. Just tap tap tap the whole way. An omnipresent mediating layer for life. Interesting slash yikes!

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Double weeknotes today! Coworking in a church, reflections on the attention/anxiety/action loops that homeownership sculpts, farm animals Last week: spencerbeacock.com/weeknotes/20... This week: spencerbeacock.com/weeknotes/20...

020

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

I’m ashamed to say I’ve never given Dr Who an honest shake (despite lots of pop cultural preferences suggesting that I’d enjoy it!) so maybe this is the way in

010

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

I’ll add them to the list! Truthfully while I like Westerns generally, my recent kick was because Catherine O’Hara (RIP!) was in Wyatt Earp, and then of course I *had* to watch Tombstone for comparison, and then from there I figured I would watch Deadwood (which also has a Wyatt Earp cameo…)

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

(All this to say, I liked the movie, but I think probably mostly in conversation with these other things I’ve been watching!)

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

As I watched those older films, I was struck by how the trope of far-right wanting to “retvrn us to 1950” isn’t right — it’s the *18*50s — the world of Tombstone and might-makes-right even for the notional heroes. OBAA turns that on its head and shows corruption that goes with violence as key tool

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

This winter I watched a handful of westerns (Wyatt Earp vs the competing Tombstone; Deadwood), and I couldn’t help but read OBAA as an inversion of that genre, told from POV of the outlaws instead of typical lawbringers, with Sean Penn et al. as a bizarro-world villainous sheriff-led posse

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

they read your posts about lake swim and decided to help you condition yourself for that! How helpful! (For real though, I hope you have inherited an astounding rent-controlled rent — seems like a lot of hassle in this building!)

010

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Extremely Ontario-coded afternoon activity: A sink sprang a leak, so I put the old part in a plastic milk bag and went to the obvious place for plumbing supplies, Canadian Tire

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Weeknotes for Mar 22 - 28: spencerbeacock.com/weeknotes/20... In which I discuss birthday cake, Marathon, and Sinners

spencerbeacock.com

March 22 to 28, 2026

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Here in Toronto, I think you can pick up pieces of it in an MBA program, through U of T’s i-School, and through OCAD’s Strategic Foresight & Innovation masters. But no SD-focused degrees from what I’ve seen

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Looks great! When I was starting in the SD field there weren’t reaaaaally courses (I have a sociology background!) so it’s fun to see that coalescing :)

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

Oooh! Do you have a syllabus or outline posted somewhere?

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

There’s a Venkatesh Rao essay in his Art of Gig roll-up about ‘bootstrapping [consulting clients] with beef’. He makes an interesting argument that spice = lead gen if done well!

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Quite randomly I wound up with two different pistachio spreads as gifts — the one linked above is very sweet and smooth, almost like a pistachio Nutella. The other one is coarser and less sweet, kind of the texture of pesto, and also great with the jam. So no need to be picky on the spreads :)

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The jam is a four-fruit Bonne Maman jam (I think most grocery stores have the brand — it’s the twee little octagonal jars and French-ish branding). It’s strawberry, cherry, raspberry, and red current. The pistachio spread is this one: italianproducts.com/product/tren...

italianproducts.com

TRENTASETTE - Salty Pistachio Cream Spread - with Sicilian Sea Salt - 7.05 oz

Trentasette 37 Collection Salty Pistachio Cream is created in Modica, Sicily, a celebration of Mediterranean indulgence. It's velvety base of cocoa

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

I ended my day yesterday with a slice of toast with pistachio spread and red fruit jam and it was so good that I started today with the same so I guess what if you made even more toast?

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

All I can offer is the steady stream of ambitious young ghostwriters that our efforts would generate, keen to ghostwrite your ghostwriting

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

nav would you like to ghostwrite my substack for substack ghostwriters about how to ghostwrite substacks

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I saw Conclave recently, and I think it would be funny and also kind of fitting for the arc of that story!

010

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Hot chocolate time! Feet up! You've earned it! At least, that's how I responded after shoveling out two cars and a sidewalk this morning

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

To sate others' curiosity: seems like this building was demolished in 2020, seemingly after being owned by the local council for a while. No clear indication of what it was, but Google Streetview from 2015 shows the side of the building, at 118 E Main St, Elysian MN

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

It is extremely rude of them! Winter still has many months! (The good news I suppose is that making your own is easy and shelf-stable basically forever if you use enough booze)

010

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Each system, of course, has its own frameworks for articulating risk of failure and how it advances the narrative

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Position is how well-positioned you are in taking an action — are you hidden, do you have impt knowledge, equipment, etc. — in other words, how likely is it that you succeed? Effect is essentially magnitude — if you succeed, what impact does it have on the world? Then, you roll

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

I think one way of getting the practical education in risk that you’re imagining is to play TTRPGs Blades in the Dark, for example, has a framework of “position vs effect” that kind of maps to your “probability vs magnitude”

100

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

Peak summer option here in ON. How are you preparing God’s favourite squash?

000

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

In the summer I was doing butter, maple, and then whatever baking spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom etc. (then I tended to serve layered with stone fruit under a broken burrata) I wonder about a honey + gochujang, though, for a hit of heat and maybe a bit acidity and brightness

110

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

There is something about eating both flesh and skin that is a textural delight! Especially if cooked in some kind of slightly-sweet glaze 🤩

120

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Is this still a maker space? I believe it was ~a decade ago. Such a neat, rare example of other economic uses tucked into alleys beyond “RESIDENTIAL GARAGE”

220

Spencer Beacock @spencerbeacock.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

It’s a real special thing. It’s been fun, too, seeing them test and learn and iterate with bigger budgets and bolder bets. Not always successful but always fun to see creators creating

000