Giles P Croft

I often think about the technical limitations that game designers of the 80s had to work with - both in terms of software and hardware. The game that stands at the very top is Elite. Think about this for a second: The core game code on the BBC Micro version occupied roughly 22 KB of memory. Now think about what Braben and Bell turned that into: a universe with eight galaxies, each containing 256 star systems (for a total of 2,048 planets/systems). Each system featured unique details: government type, economy, technology level, population, commodity prices, and even descriptive text (e.g., a planet known for "carnivorous arts graduates" or similar quirky combinations). If you still need a bit more help to contextualize that, try this: Elite was smaller than many modern text files or desktop icons, yet it contained (and let you freely explore) a multi-galaxy-spanning universe that felt vast and limitless. Oh, and by the way, the game also rendered 3D wireframe ships, stations, and planets in real time on a 2 MHz 6502 processor. This is no slight on today’s game designers. They work with what they have, and that's okay. But when you think about the worlds that some programmers created with the tools they were given, it sometimes breaks my brain trying to understand how they did it. Elite is a true masterpiece on so many levels. I played the C64 version back in the day, and even 40+ years later it still feels like one of the most incredible programming wonders ever.

The Government will collect £331bn in income tax this year, and spend £333bn on welfare. In other words, we now spend more on people not working than we raise from those who do. And the cost? Debt per person has risen from £11.5k in 2000 (inflation adjusted) to over £41k today.

Real mental freedom comes through three recognitions. 1. Know that you’re inherently safe with any thought. 2. See that your experience is entirely made out of thought. 3. Understand that the self you believe yourself to be is also a thought.

When people are in pain, they go looking for permission. They scroll through Reddit, they ask their friends, they search for someone to tell them what they already want to hear. And what they find, almost always, is the same thing that they hear and that is leave… Just leave. As if the relationship were a burning building and the only rational act is to run. We have built a culture of exits. A culture that is far more comfortable handing you a door than asking you to sit with the question of how you got here. And I understand it. Leaving feels clean and it feels like agency. It looks, from the outside, like self-respect. But here is what I want you to consider. The person you are leaving the relationship with is still you. Most of what breaks us apart in love is not the other person. It is the old story we brought with us before we ever met them. The attachment wound we have been carrying since childhood. The pattern we swore we would never repeat. And if you walk away without looking at any of that, you will find yourself, six months later, standing in a new relationship that feels suspiciously familiar. There is something about the tension of staying. Not staying out of fear, not staying to keep the peace, but choosing to stay in the discomfort long enough to actually get curious. To ask not just what is wrong with them, but what is alive in me that keeps responding this way. Real intimacy is not built in the easy moments. It is built in the repair and in the willingness to be heard without immediately defending yourself. In the capacity to understand that friction, handled with care, is not the enemy of love. It is often where love actually begins to deepen. I have sat with couples who had already written each other off in their minds. Who were, emotionally speaking, already gone. And what brought them back was not grand gestures or perfect communication. It was curiosity. A single moment of genuine wondering about the other person, and about themselves. Therapy is not about saving a relationship at all costs. It is about helping you move from a reactive decision to a conscious one. Because you deserve to know the difference between leaving because you have truly grown apart, and leaving because you are afraid of what staying might ask of you.

All your overthinking is caused by a simple misunderstanding — and once you see it, everything changes.Think of a snow globe. When it's still, the liquid is clear. Shake it, and everything clouds over. Your mind works the same way.Those swirling thoughts

In 1951, Adelbert Ames created the mind-boggling ‘Ames Window’. It’s so effective that even when you know how it works you can’t break the illusion [📹 The Curiosity Show]