Category: Rants

Some quick thoughts on AI in the workplace

Or
This is the sort of thing I would put on LinkedIn if I cared at all about LinkedIn

I got an email this morning informing me that I was only using 3 of the 4 AI tools that have been made available to my company at the expected rate, and I would need to begin using the fourth, and my mind immediately went to XKCD 2899.

The idea of tracking AI usage actually makes sense to me, but as a metric, not a target. Tracking it as a target implies to me a certain level of buy in, belief in the assumption that this stuff makes you more productive at your job. And I’m not actually convinced that’s true for me.

Information Sourcing and CYA

My primary issue with AI in a professional setting (please don’t confuse it with my personal opinion) is that it does very little that’s actually useful for me. I can think of one general use for the stuff that I use willingly, and it’s a internal RAG bot.

Why do I like this RAG bot? Simple, it lists all it’s sources, and it’s hooked up in such a way that it’s better at searching our documentation (internal and client facing) then any other tool. But I don’t automatically trust it’s summaries.

I’m working on an internal cross-team project at the moment with a fair number of my co-workers, and I was a bit surprised to see them treating information from this bot fairly credulously.

I like these people. I trust their judgement in their areas of expertise.

But I will walk barefeet across broken glass before I quote a price to customer in the seven fucking figure range for a feature because an AI told me it was accurate without double checking that shit first.

And I suppose this is why I don’t like workplace AI much. If it screws up, (and as of 2025, this stuff DOES screw up) its ass doesn’t get fired. Mine does.

And I do not trust a bunch of rushed to market, hype driven, LLM’s with my personal job security.

So going back to that opening point: I’ll use our AI tools. But for most of them, I’ll be using them because I’m required to, not because they solve a business problem or need I have.

$5 is $5 Dollars

Or “Class Action Lawsuits are Weird”

Earlier today I got an email informing me that I was a member in a class action lawsuit against Gamestop. Technically this wasn’t the first email, but I pretty much ignored the other one.

The actual law being broken has something to do with the VPPA, surrounding disclosure of “video store rental records.” I won’t even pretend to understand it, or why it exists. But it’s a law that’s been around longer then I have, and it seems to have nothing but a technical relationship with the grounds Gamestop was sued on.

The longer I live, the more I find myself wondering if we don’t already live in a dystopia. Sure, it’s not a dystopia for me, but just because you’re closer to the top of the heap doesn’t mean the world isn’t broken.

I’m not exactly dissuaded when I get notices like this.

“Your rights have been violated by a mega-corporation without your knowledge. Please provide information validating your existence, and $5 will be deposited into your account. You may instead elect to receive a $10 voucher to the corporation that performed the violation.”

All it’s lacking to really cross the line into full on cyberpunk territory is an opening that starts with something like “Greetings Citizen!”, and some extra neon.

It’s very rare that I feel like I’m actually living in “the future.” The only real time it’s happened other than this was when I rode in a Tesla a few years back, and saw its self-driving functionality.

This felt like a step in the opposition direction. “Your rights were violated, have a soda” is a far less enjoyable universe than self-driving cars made by a man who seems to want to be a Bond villain.

Anyway, I filled out the survey. $5 is $5.

A Quick Rant on 1 Star Board Game Geek Reviews

A while ago, a friend of mine had just released a game, and was doing what all board game designers (as far as I’m aware) do post game release: stare in frustration at the ratings on Board Game Geek.

The particular source of his frustration was a that the game had been rated with a 1 by someone who clearly didn’t own the game, and couldn’t have possibly played the game at the time. Shortly after he mentioned the whole thing to me.

We quickly discussed various reasons that players will do this, and there was a smattering of the usual ones. Review bombing a game for ideological reasons. Rating a game that is rated “too highly” to bring the score down. Fights or problems with a publisher.

It was at this point that I asked him if he’d just asked this person why they’d given him a 1. He had not.

So messaged them. I’ll be referring to the rater as “Tim.”

Reaching Out

After looking at the profile for a bit, I quickly noticed that it had a very odd distribution of ratings. Virtually all of them were 1’s, with a smattering of 7-10’s, but the 1’s MASSIVELY outweighed the 10’s.

So I messaged Tim, and asked them about their rating system for games. After a brief back and fourth, they responded, and I found their answer surprising.

The Big Surprise

The first thing was that Tim was not a single person, and instead was a group of players who used the account to collaboratively track plays and games for their gaming club.

The second was that when they “rated” a game, they were not rating it based on playing it. They were giving a rating based on how they felt as a group, and if they wanted to order it for the group. So a game that wasn’t bad might receive a 1 for the reason that nobody in the group was interested in trying it. This was especially common for games that the group considered too simple, or didn’t have the right player count.

There’s also one specific quote I want to pull out from their response, that I found quite telling.

Regarding the not yet released (games) – we consider ourselves enough experienced so we do not need to play the game to know that it is not for us – one text or video review is more than enough.

This is not an approach I would ever take, but I appreciated the clarity, and I think it gives insight on why this person had such a high number of low-rated games.

I thanked them for their response, and moved on.

The Takeaways

The general vibe I have gotten from designers when discussing what I’d generally consider to be unusually low ratings is a sense that they’re being targeted in some way or another.

There absolutely are folks in board game spaces who do what I’d call “hateful reviews.” The folks who hate others based on their sexual orientation, gender, race, etc. The whole nine yards. And because they exist in board game spaces, they also exist on Board Game Geek. And they will rate games badly as a way to harass and attack people.

There are also folks who are picky or petty. They’ll rate a game low because a component was damaged. Or because it was rated too highly. Or it was shipped to reviewers before Kickstarter backers. Or any number of a variety of other things that I’d personally consider mundane and irrelevant to the experience of the game.

But I think there is also a third category of folks who are just doing their own thing, and see nothing wrong with rating a game that they do not personally like much as a 1, and moving on.

Does this usually ruin that designer’s day? Yes! Do I have any idea how to fix this problem?

Not a clue.

I don’t think many board game players recognize the impact ratings have on a game, or the folks who make them. At the same time, I’m not sure publishers and designers are interested in asking the less vocal folks who rate games weirdly why they’re doing it, when all available evidence (to them!) labels those folks as hateful or petty.

PAX East 2025 – Day Three Quick Thoughts

It’s day three, and I’ve somehow managed to make it to the finals of the Omegathon. That fact is starting to become mildly overwhelming, but for now I’m gonna focus on other things before it becomes all consuming.

Anyway, day three.

I took today pretty slow. After showing up and looking around for a bit, I met up with another friend. I spent some time showing him around the show, and a bunch of the stuff I already liked, meaning I spent less time looking at new things today than I would have otherwise.

Still, before it was time for the Omegathon round of the day, I did get a chance to try out Don’t Wake The Beast and play a bit more Cappy and Tappy. I also played some Dining Deck, a two player co-op prototype deck builder. Dining Deck was interesting, but frankly pretty unpolished. I also played a bit more Re:Match!

And then it was time for the Omegathon. I’ll recount the events in greater detail later, but suffice to say, I’m now in the finals! So in less than 24 hours I’ll either be a champion, or swearing revenge for next year. Either way, it’s been an incredible PAX East, and I’ve had so much fun (and also stress) competing.

After that I got some food, and then finally got a chance to play some two-headed giant with a friend. We did reasonably well, finishing 2-1 overall.

More tomorrow, and Cryptid Commandos for the win!

PAX East 2025 – Day One and Two Quick Thoughts

Long time readers will know that I do daily writeups and wrapups of what I saw, and what I played during conventions. Unfortunately, I’m a bit busier this year than I normally am. So allow me to offer a brief and undetailed account, written in a mild fugue state, just around midnight of day 2.

First up, I’d like to explain the business: I’m competing in this year’s PAX East Omegathon.

Sorry, let me say that again.

I’M IN THE FUCKING OMEGATHON! AND I’VE MADE IT SEMIFINALS (after being carried in F-Zero by my awesome teammate)!

Anyway. More on that post show. But suffice to say: any extra energy has been redirected from writing to the Omegathon for the moment. I still want to document my thoughts, so let’s get started.

Day 1

Day 1 started off with the first round of the Omegathon. More on the full experience post show, but the game was F-Zero X. I practiced a little once I got the game list, but I was still quite bad. Fortunately, my partner practiced a ton. Between my mediocrity, and her excellence, we won our round and advanced.

This was followed by hitting the show floor, and just generally browsing. I’ll be honest, it feels a bit weaker this year. There are a lot of repeats, and also a lot of gaming-adjacent stuff. Chairs, dice (god, so many dice), and not as many games.

I want to make a special callout to Elden Ring Nightreign having this cool-ass inflatable geodesic dome thing that you can go inside and… not the play the game? It wins first prize for “Wow, I wish this was more interesting!” I don’t know why I would want to watch an hour of streamers playing a game that I can’t play, but whatever.

I did get a chance to finally learn and play Crokinole, so that was fun. I don’t know that I can squeeze and entire post out of Crokinole, but I might try since I’ve been playing a lot at the show.

Crokinole was followed by something I’ve been looking forward to for years at this point: A chance to play Re:Match, the new name for Brother Ming’s Sento Fighter. I’m hoping to do a larger writeup on the game post PAX, but for now all I’ll say is that I’m excited.

Finally, there was an opportunity to play in a Starter Deck Gem Blenders tournament. I’ve always had a hard time refining my thoughts on Gem Blenders, and playing a competitive event seemed like good way to grind some more matches. So I did that, got to finals, and split the pool.

Then I played out finals for fun and lost, but it’s okay since I already got half a booster box.

Finally, I went up to the Jonathan Coulton concert. I stayed for the opening set from Paul and Storm, but then decided to go back down the show floor and just relax.

Day 2

I spent most of the morning practicing Push Me Pull You, a game that truly has some of the sound design of all time. After that, and some intense rounds in the Omegathon, my team came out triumphant, leaving me with the rest of the day spend futzing about.

I started my futzing with Crokinole, before moving over to UnPub.

UnPub has been interesting this year. I played a bunch of stuff, but none of it so far was super memorable—except for one thing that was memorable for… less than great reasons. That said, it’s a work in progress. I have nothing to say about an unfinished game anymore then I’d comment publicly on an unfinished painting.

On the flip side, though, I got to play Tournament Arc again! I wrote a bit about this in one of my PAX Unplugged writeups last year. It’s still just as funny and enjoyable as it was then, except now it’s launching a Kickstarter shortly! So more on this one later, but for now just know that it’s good. If you’re at PAX East, you should check it out.

After that enjoyable experience, I tried to sign up for some 2-Headed Giant MTG. That… did not work out. It was an incredibly frustrating and frankly, incredibly stupid experience. I’ll get into this post-PAX most likely in a full rant post. It was that bad.

For now, I just want to note that it’s not the fault of individual staff of supervisors at the Pastimes booth as PAX East, but it was still incredibly dumb.

So instead, I just went and played in another Gem Blenders tourny, won another half of a box, played some Wavelength, before finally heading out.

Tomorrow is another day of Omegathon, so wish me luck and I’ll edit this post into something more coherent after the show. But for now, I just need to sleep.