Hi ,

What did you get up this weekend? How's your locked down or curfewed life going these days (or maybe you're free as a bird - where do you live then)? I've honestly had enough.I had friends over for a big raclette lunch today, followed by some board / card games, and it was great to  interact face to face rather than via video conference calls. It was my third lunch with friends this week. Admittedly I didn't work as much as I should or could have, but with a 6pm curfew days time is the way to go and I just need to have social interactions. My waist line may regret all the melted cheese later but I don't right now!Last week on Teaching Tangents with James D'Souza the question I was asked (and we discussed) was: "Is university worth paying for when you could do your own thing?"I'm not sure when I prepare the newsletter before or after we record, so I'll share last week's episode. I also updated the audio feed for Teaching Tangents; you can find all the episodes on your podcast app or Spotify.We talked about focus and reading a little bit, I was curious to see how my reading speed is these days, this test measured it at 404 words per minute with 100% comprehension, which is above average speed. I think it used to be higher, and I think because I knew I'd be asked questions afterwards I may have slowed down a little. I can practice to increase it. More on that in the next section.That's about it for the general updates, keep in touch and take care!Best,Willem

Strong raclette reaction GIF right there

 Weekly Combo Typically a mix of playful and strategy flavours. 

How to be a genius (Aeon, 16 min read)

Firstly to follow from the previous section, given I'd just done the reading speed test I measured how long it would take me to read a much longer piece (and of course this automatically implies I'm keeping focused on reading this only for however long it would take me, which is not a given these days - I can easily stop for no particular reason and check a number of other tabs, check my phone, etc). The article is about 3,300 words and it took me a little over 12 minutes to read, so a much lower reading speed than the test I'd just done, even though I thought I was trying to read faster. So that was a bit disappointing. 

More to the point of the article, it was written by Craig Wright, a professor at Yale University. He recently published a book about genius, after having taught a course about genius at Yale for the past. The course is an inquiry into what genius is, and the short version presented in the article is fascinating. He got interested in the topic after a youth of intensely practicing and studying the piano. After over 15,000 hours, 50% more than is usually believed to be the amount of time needed to be a master at something, he realized he'd never be good enough to compose or perform. As an interesting side note in the article, it took Mozart only 6,000 hours to become a master-composer and performer.I didn't think I was a genius before reading and even less so when I finished. I won't spoil the end for you though, I recommend reading it.

Indie [tabletop roleplaying games] are missing the target

It was referenced in an episode of the gaming podcast I participate in, and I hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. It's a few years old, and I've had it on an open tab for a couple of months. While you may not have the game design references, it also introduces a really interesting idea coming from marketing and advertising that isn't often referenced in tabletop roleplaying games; that there could be a target audience to think about for a given game.A few keys that may be useful to get some of the points the author makes, which I believe raise a lot of potentially rich discussion points. First, they begin the post with this idea of "coherence in roleplaying games." This is an idea increasingly developed by "indie roleplaying games," where having more coherence in a group, equates to having a clearer / stronger / better shared creative agenda for what the game is, what you're here for, how you're playing it, etc. Meaning to have more coherence is also a group effort, it can't be an individualistic pursuit (unless it's a solo roleplaying game, perhaps) - which is where this article contrasts with the first one about genius.While ideas to make roleplaying games more coherent are making it slowly into the "mainstream roleplaying games" (i.e. Dungeons & Dragons), it isn't a revolution. That's the thing the author endeavours to question, and where he takes the idea of a target audience, and what it might take for more people to be interested in playing tabletop roleplaying games. Which in turn, can of interest for anyone interested in knowing how to get people to be interested in and trying (or buying) things they haven't before. Just like the article on genius, there are no firm answers, certainly interesting perspectives though.