Recursive Words

Virtual Worlds

January 26, 2025

After wandering into the living room this evening I caught the second half of the wonderful movie “Free Guy” – where Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer and Joe Keery explore what might happen in a virtual world such as “Second Life”, or “Grand Theft Auto” if the non-player-characters develop sentience through artificial intelligence.

A similar theme was explored in “Westworld”, where the non-player-characters were given access to their own memories in order to generate more nuanced behaviour. (Spoiler – a minor event in the first episode unravels the entire story over the course of several seasons of perhaps the best TV show that nobody seemed to watch).

As the closing titles of Free Guy scrolled past, I couldn’t help wondering why we still don’t have “The Oasis” that “Ready Player One” dreamed about. A virtual world that makes the world smaller, and more accessible to anybody and everybody.

When Mark Zuckerberg bought Oculus a few years ago, I wondered if he had read Ready Player One, and was putting the jigsaw pieces in place – when Horizon Worlds was announced, I will admit to being somewhat optimistic. It didn’t take long to realise that Mark was Nolan Sorrento – not James Halliday.

I still wonder if a ubiquitous virtual world might happen one day. The closest we have ever seen is “Second Life” – where anybody could (still can) create new areas, visit, chat with friends, and hang out. It’s based on a twenty-five year old code-base at this point though – without investment, or interest. The reason why is straightforward – it was owned by a corporate entity – it was a walled garden, designed to make money.

A virtual world – or worlds – would require the same kind of “moon shot” that brought about the world-wide-web. An agreed protocol to describe assets, characters, actions, animations, interactions, media, and so on. An open protocol, protected by a non—profit foundation for the benefit of all. The infrastructure would need to be federated – with no overall owners or gate-keepers.

Maybe the extention of the internet we now take for granted to embrace virtual worlds is inevitable. Maybe it’s already happening. Let’s just hope it’s not owned by anybody.
The Midnight Writing Club

January 22, 2025

Welcome to the inaugural meeting of the “Midnight Writing Club”. Unfortunately we only have one member at the moment, so I’ll be acting as chair-person, taking the minutes, making the coffee, and putting the cake on plates that I brought with me.

Of course I jest.

Or do I? Perhaps this should be a thing – a gathering of writers in the dead of night to hang out together – perhaps just co-existing in a chat room with one-another while writing a few pages – be it for a blog, a book, or whatever. We could have our own Discord server – shrouded in mystery as all good secret societies should be.

It’s something to think about, isn’t it.

Anyway.

I’ve just checked my work calendar – it looks miraculously empty tomorrow – there’s a distinct lack of meetings. For the first time in months I’m considering an escape attempt – a few hours at a local café or pub – listening to podcasts while tapping away at my laptop. A change of scenery – a reminder that a world still exists outside of these four walls.

Wish me luck.
Oblivious Idiot

January 21, 2025

The clock will tick past 1am in 4 minutes. I’m sitting in bed, in the dark, tapping away on a laptop – running down the last bit of “awake” I have left.
After another morning watching a long-running process on a distant server farm and filling a colossal document with the results of it’s progress, I escaped at lunchtime to grab something to eat from the nearby garage.
Late this evening I discovered that while en-route to the garage I had walked straight past one of my closest friends. She said hello. I didn’t respond – I just carried on, oblivious.
How bad is that?
I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.
I’m sitting here, wondering if becoming so consumed in whatever you’re doing is a good thing or a bad thing. I mean… it’s not great, is it. Sure, you’re proving that you have ridiculous levels of focus, but at what cost?
There is a kind of dark humor to it really – I managed to completely ignore the one person I would willingly spend any lunchtime with, if given the chance.
Anyway.
It’s getting late.
I tried avoiding the arrival of Monday on Sunday night – it didn’t go well – it never does. The ball of mud we’re all standing on will carry on spinning, and keep delivery tomorrow after tomorrow after tomorrow. It’s good at it.
Watching and Waiting

January 20, 2025

I’ve spent much of the day watching a long running process on a distant server farm slowly report onward progress. It’s been interesting – wanting to find better things to do, but not wanting to look away, should it mysteriously run off the rails as computers tend to when given the chance.

While half watching progress bars eat their way across the screen, pixel by pixel, I scooted across the room to “the other desk”, and began opening browser tabs at WhatsApp, Threads, BlueSky and Substack. The four horses of my procrastination apocalypse at the moment.

The social networks seemed to be filled with friends in the US trying to avoid broadcast television, and half of their extended family – posting a tidal wave of the same sort of hate they were complaining about. I scrolled for some time – looking for traces of normal life – of little things – acts of kindness – moments of happiness – they were hard to come by.

I’m still looking – still trying to carve out a quiet corner, filled with at least a little normality.

I’m fortunate in having a small circle of distant friends I can call upon from time to time. Sometimes our conversations flow from day to day, and sometimes we vanish for weeks or months at a time. It never seems to matter – it turns out “hello” erases time and distance remarkably quickly.

While writing this I have some music playing – Carole King just started singing “You’ve got a friend”. It’s oddly fitting.
A grand day out

January 18, 2025

After scraping myself out of bed this morning, and standing rather conspicuously in the middle of the kitchen in my underwear sipping coffee – while waiting for a turn in the shower – I pulled some clothes on, and prepared to set out with the rest of the family for a day in London together.
My middle daughter had requested the day out as part of her birthday present – “a day in London”. What she really meant of course was a trip to Build-a-Bear in Hamleys toy shop on Regent Street, lunch at Nandos, a trip to M&M World at Leicester Square, across the way to the LEGO store, and then finally to Forbidden Planet. She had it all mapped out on her phone the night before.
We walked to the local railway station, printed our tickets from the machine on the platform edge, then amused ourselves with our own idiotic conversation as we hurtled towards London.
Hamleys is everything you might expect from a Hollywood movie – with an army of entertainment and service staff wherever you look – filling children with wonder, and emptying their parents wallets expertly. I quietly listened to the sales pitch being given by one of the floor staff about a table-top air-hockey game. His utter nonsense almost had me believing. I came away wondering how much of it was improvised, and how much of it was informed by a sales department armed with mountains of behavioural data.
After the girls had bought their “Build-a-Bears”, we carried on to Nandos – a staple of the British high-street, imported from South Africa. While dressed up as “discovered street food” it’s really just variations on chicken and chips, marinaded in a variety of peri-peri sauces. We all clean-plated.
After a short walk, we arrived in Leicester Square and I descended into the strange smelling hell of M&M World with my daughter, while my other half went off to explore a tea emporium across the way.
We emerged with the most expensive bags of M&Ms in the known universe and unexpectedly walked straight into my other half again.
“I thought you might still be in the tea shop?”
“Erm. No. Not at £17 for a small tin of tea leaves.”
“What?!”
“That’s what I said.”
The next stop took us to the LEGO shop – to gaze in wonder at the various kits and displays, and be walked into, or pushed out of the way by the most oblivious idiots I’ve crossed paths with in some time. While trying to avoid them, my other half found me;
“You’ve got to come and see this…”
“You’ve just found Barad Dur, haven’t you.”
She grinned.
It’s a £400 LEGO kit, that builds Sauron’s castle from the Lord of the Rings books and movies. It’s colossal, and we would have nowhere to put it, but it was oddly impressive.
The final leg of our expedition took us towards Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue – the biggest comic book and collectibles store in the country. While the rest of the family looked at Funko Pop figures, I descended into their comic book labyrinth and returned with a bag full of wonders (well… wonders to me).
Before leaving London we somehow chanced upon a rather wonderful Harry Potter store, filled to the gunnels with everything you might ever imagine from the wizarding world, and more. I chanced upon a replacement wallet for my daughter (to replace the one I put through the washing machine). She now has a wallet emblazoned with the “Marauder’s Map” in her pocket.
I won’t lie – as much fun as it is to visit London, it’s also nice get home again. I have friends that live half a world away that would have loved to come with us – so try to catch myself in calling out anything negative about the city or it’s people.
If you’re wondering about the books I bought, one of them isn’t a comic-book at all – it’s a wonderful dramatisation of life in San Francisco during the explosive re-emergence of video game development in the 1980s. I’ll let Stephen Fry’s synopsis do the talking:
Picks and Shovels, Cory Doctorow’s reconstruction of the rise of Silicon Valley, is note perfect. I love Marty and Art and all the main characters. I love the hope and the thrill that marks the opening section. But I love too the thesis that San Francisco always has failed and always will fail her suitors. Even in the sunlight of that time the shadows are lengthening. the seeds of enshittification are all there. Despite cultural entropy, corruption, greed and all the betrayals there’s a core of hope and honour in the story too… And some damned good recipes that I have tucked away.
I can’t wait to read it.
A slightly less brave new world

January 17, 2025

After trying to convince myself that I wanted to live in my own castle for the last several weeks, and after sitting high atop my invented throne, admiring my own handiwork, I had a moment of clarity – or rather the thought “why the hell am I doing this?”
An hour later, my blog (the castle) had vanished in a cloud of smoke and debris, and re-appeared “as new” within the halls of Substack – among the great and the good of the publishing and broadcasting industry. Of course they’re all trying to monetise their writing – I’ll be doing nothing of the sort.
I have kept the “new” name – Recursive Words – because it sums up the idiocy I record pretty well. An almost daily journey into the same day, over and over again. A rotating conveyor belt of thoughts, ideas and fears.
Anyway.
There it is.
I’m sitting in the dark of the junk room writing this, sipping a colossal can of cider I found in the fridge earlier this evening. I’m rubbish at drinking – it’s gone straight to my head. Could the “two beers” moniker be shortened to “one beer” ?
We’re heading to London tomorrow for a day of museums and comic book shops with my middle daughter. She was 21 last week. I have no idea how that happened – she will always be that unsure five year old in my head – clinging to my leg on the infant school playground.
I have to buy her a new wallet – on account of accidentally putting her last one in the washing machine (it was in her coat pocket). I’m blaming the cat – he weed on her coat, causing it to go into the washing machine in the first place. Of course it wouldn’t have been on the floor if a certain somebody had hung it up instead of ejecting it on her way through the house. I’m not allowed to say that though, because that’s “getting at her”. I have to buy a new one, and keep my mouth shut.
I’m looking forward to visiting the comic book shop though. And maybe Covent Garden. And a record shop or two. We’ll see.
Nosferatu

January 14, 2025

I just got home from a visit to the cinema with my eldest daughter – to watch “Nosferatu” – a new version of the story inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Although I’ve known of the original movie for years – it’s one of the earliest horror movies – I didn’t know the full story until earlier this evening when curiosity got the better of me, and I fell down the internet rabbit hole in search of truth.
It turns out the director of the original movie changed some names, but otherwise remained close enough to the source material for the estate of Bram Stoker to summon rather a lot of lawyers – who ordered the movie destroyed. The only reason we still know about Nosferatu is because a few copies survived the cull.
The new version was properly dark. Forbidding. Sinister. It wasn’t really shocking or blood-thirsty – and didn’t get inside your head in the same way that Gary Oldman’s Prince Vlad did thirty years ago – but it was still very, very good.
We talked about it all the way home – always the sign of a good movie. The story is about much more than a tale of ancient evil – it’s also about fear, loneliness, and those that prey on the vulnerability of others.
Even though I don’t believe in the occult, stories like Nosferatu always seem to unlock a healthy fear of “fucking about and finding out”. You’ll never see me go anywhere near ritual objects, incantations, or spell books.
Willem Dafoe’s aged professor summed my concerns with one line:
“Science… it blinds us to the darkness all around”.
Caverns Measureless to Man

January 12, 2025

Over the course of this weekend – for no other reason than to satisfy an unending curiosity, I have re-created a simulacrum of a computing platform I last saw perhaps thirty five years ago.
While tinkering with the Raspberry Pi (a tiny little computer that sits on the corner of my desk, and tries not to disappoint), I discovered how to create a platform upon which I could re-build the under-pinnings of MS-DOS, and Windows 3.11.
Within an hour or two I not only had Windows 3.11 working – I also had Microsoft Office, Lotus SmartSuite, Borland Office, and countless other abandoned software suites.
I have no reason to use any of them.
After another couple of hours I had the DOS (character based) versions of Word, Excel, Lotus 123, dBase, Protext, Norton Commander, Wordstar, and Wordperfect up and running.
Again, no reason to use any of them.
You know the mad thing? It all fits on a small memory stick. The entire collection of software – that ran companies all over the world for the better part of a decade – fits on a small memory stick. It fits into the corner of a small memory stick.
It still beggars my mind that a tiny computer that costs no more than a meal at a restaurant can not only run it’s own software – but can within itself simulate thirty-odd year old hardware, and run a second operating system within it’s own, and then run software for that operating system on top of that.
Just to put the cherry on top, I tried running the old character based applications within Windows 3, within the emulator, on top of the tiny computer, sitting on the corner of the desk. It worked flawlessly.
While eating dinner this evening another old memory returned – Infocom text adventures. Back in the days before games consoles took over the world, and before 3D graphics removed a generation’s imagination, there was a thing called “interactive fiction” – or “text adventures”. The computer would render the text of the story on the screen, and you would give instructions to (hopefully) progress the story, which mostly took place in the theatre of your own mind.
If not for the cinematic rendition of “Ready Player One” being so awful, text adventures would have seen an explosive comeback. In the novel of “Ready Player One” (which is infinitely better than the movie), Wade Watts has to complete a real-life version of the text-adventure “Zork” to gain one of the keys to the gates.
Anyway.
After a search through the abandoned catacombs of the internet, I discovered a treasure-trove of the old Infocom text adventure games, and got them running on the Heath Robinson time-machine in the junk room.
I won’t tell you how much time I then spent arguing with Mr Prosser while lying in the mud in front of a digger – in front of Arthur Dent’s house – while a Vogon Constructor Fleet approached.
The Melting Pot

January 11, 2025

While sitting atop my fence with a bag of popcorn, waiting for the Facebook, Instagram and Threads mud-slinging escapade to calm down, I’ve been trying to understand the anger, spite and fury that seems to have consumed so many.
On one hand, we have social networks using algorithmic timelines – which slowly surround people with content likely to engage them – because that’s the end game of the puppet masters. They don’t really mind what you’re talking about, as long as you’re talking about it within their walled garden – under their watchful gaze.
On the other hand, we seem to be moving towards online platforms with little or no guard-rails in terms of what people can post. It might be that giving the worst of us just enough rope is a good thing – because the most objectional impulses will be laid bare for all to see – making discovery and eradication of those we would rather not interact with that much easier.
If you think about it though, what’s the difference? A machine figuring out who you tend to interact with, and curating that which you see – or you curating what you see, by blocking that which you would rather not. Both routes reach the same result – a user-base that slowly divides based on personal prejudices.
Perhaps it’s natural that people coalesce into like minded communities. All the “social internet” has really done is throw everybody into the same melting pot – levelling the playing field for a while – causing the same sorting to happen that would otherwise have happened through other means – be that societal, cultural, or whatever else.
Anyway.
Enough pontificating.
I watched a wonderful movie late last night – quite by accident – called “Colette”, starring Keira Knightly and Dominic West. It’s a dramatization of a true story – of the life of French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. I don’t want to ruin it if you’ve not seen it – suffice to say if you love writing, reading, and books, you’ll love the movie.
Almost daily

January 8, 2025

For the last several years, whenever asked how frequently I write on the blog, I have replied “almost daily”. I’m beginning to wonder if I should refactor my stock reply to “almost weekly”.
I’ve been keeping my mouth shut a lot recently (or rather, my hands away from the keyboard, I suppose). While there’s been all sorts of subjects I might like to have weighed in on, I’ve managed to catch myself before emptying my thoughts all over the social internet as one might imagine one could hurl a bucket of tripe.
In a strange sort of way, my reluctance to poke my head above the battlements has caused me to consider why I’m here – why I write this codswallop in the first place.
(cue “It’s all about you me”, by McFly)
I’ve been half-reading the uproar that’s exploded across Facebook, Instagram and Threads in response to Meta scaling back their censorship and fact checking – wondering why people get so worked up about other people’s opinions, no matter how objectionable, misguided or badly informed they are.
Whatever happened to ignoring people?
I can’t help but be reminded of a comic-strip I saw several years ago – around the same time the “social internet” first happened. It might have been on XKCD – I forget, and can’t be bothered to fact check myself. There was a drawing of a man sitting at a computer, late at night, feverishly typing at a keyboard. His other half is on her way to bed, and asks “are you coming to bed?” – he replies with “I’ll come to bed in a minute – I just need to explain to this person why they are wrong”.
I’ve never quite understood how the internet became so polarised – or how people became so polarised, I guess. To me, their arguments often feel like somebody saying “Next door have decided to paint their front door red. I think we should have a home-owners association that bans red front doors, because I don’t like red front doors. Or anything red. Or doors.”
Anyway.
I have some rather ridiculous news to share.
There is an AI version of me, out there in the wild.
You know that I make pocket money while monkeying around with pretend aeroplanes on the internet? I was approached over the Christmas period to review a service that provides air traffic control services via AI voices that you can talk to while flying your pretend aeroplane (a bit like Alexa, I suppose). One of the services they offer allows pilots to “ask a mentor” while flying – to have an AI person sitting in the cockpit with you during the flight, dispensing knowledge, wisdom, and know-how.
I’m now one of the mentors available to fly in people’s planes.
I spoke to myself this morning. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. And you know the even weirder thing? The AI version of me knows more about anything and everything than I ever will.
The robot overlords aren’t just coming – they’re here already.
Scammers

January 2, 2025

I received a message on my mobile phone yesterday – I didn’t take much notice at the time because I didn’t recognise the name. While catching up with email late last night I remembered the notification and went off in search of the message.
It’s worth noting that I can never remember which app somebody has messaged me on – I end up checking private messages across all of the popular social networks. Quite why they can’t interoperate with each other is another story (Google tried to get everybody to agree on a protocol years ago, and gave up because Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn wouldn’t agree).
Anyway.
I finally found the message in Instagram, and a smile spread across my face.
The sender appeared to be a beautiful blonde woman, with a candid profile photo taken in a stair-well – her hair pulled scraped back into a ponytail.
Call me cynical, but before messaging back, I did a reverse-image-search on the profile photo – to find out where else it had appeared on the internet. Surprisingly, nowhere. Could it be a really good AI generated photo?
Next, I took a look at her Instagram account. It was filled with hundreds of shares of other people’s content – all posted within a few hours. “She” had followed hundreds of people, but only fifteen people had followed her. She was following a very specific demographic – men, aged perhaps fifty and upwards. They all looked like they looked after themselves, and all went by their real names. The people that had followed her in return were all male, and all quite a bit older – perhaps sixties and seventies.
I replied to her message with a non-commital “Where do I know you from?” to see if “she” might make an immediate mistake. No immediate reply was forthcoming, so I forgot all about “her”, and made a mental note to check today.
I just remembered.
Her account is gone. Deleted.
I wonder how many of those approached reported the account on-sight? I wonder how many people “she” engaged in conversation? I wonder how far “she” got through her script with each of them?
The reason I remembered about the message today was because I saw a wonderful prank we can all play on scammers – add them all to group chats! I almost fell off my chair laughing when I saw the first message too;
“Hi all, I know you’re all desperate to get in touch with me, and you all love making new friends – so I thought it would be easier if we all joined the same group chat! Feel free to introduce yourselves!”
Genius.
New Years Day

January 1, 2025

Last night we were invited to bring in the new year with neighbours. We hadn’t planned on going anywhere or doing anything, but thought “you know what – why not?”. After pitching ourselves into their party, their circle of friends, several rounds of tequila, a few rounds of “Cards Against Humanity”, and some idiotic dancing in their kitchen in the run-up towards “The Bongs”, we said our goodbyes and retreated home – glad to have met new people, perhaps made some new friends, and were also very, very tired.
I should probably explain “The Bongs” for international readers. In the UK, despite advances in technology, the internet, atomic clocks, and whatever-else, when the country pauses a few seconds before “ringing in the new year”, we all turn our attention to “Big Ben”, and listen to the hammers strike midnight.
Big Ben is the name of the largest bell in the “Elizabeth Tower” on the corner of the Houses of Parliament in London. Most of the television and radio stations throughout the country pause programming in the seconds before and after new year to broadcast the chimes from the clock tower, live.
Anyway.
After sleeping in this morning, and filling in my tax return for the last twelve months – because who in their right mind does that on New Year’s Day morning – we wandered over to another friends for more drinks, more food, more conversation, and more, more more.
While I was grateful to be asked, and enjoyed meeting another round of new people, hearing their stories, sharing a few of my own, and doing my best at making conversation, I was also happy to say my goodbyes, to hug friends, and to escape.
I’ve always been a fairly quiet person – despite outward appearances. If you meet me at a party, you might think I will talk to anybody about anything – and I typically will – but it’s mostly a charade. I find it exhausting – walking the conversational tightrope with new people – trying to take an interest in their stories – to properly listen – not just appear to listen.
Moving from one conversation to another around a busy room almost feels like re-setting a board game over-and-over – introducing yourself again, choosing what to share, and picking your entry and exit points from conversations. Trying not to judge. Sitting on fences. Doing no harm. Putting your best foot forward.
Like I said – I find it all exhausting.
While a part of me whispers that there’s not much point in any of it – that a good book and a coffee would be a better idea – another part of me whispers that a new friend could be just a hello away – a sliding door moment that might re-direct the future. It’s a fear of missing out, isn’t it – a fear of missing out on a person you might meet and the stories you might share or even write together.
Meeting new people over the last few days has brought into focus the friends I already cherish – and served as a portent against the “grass is always greener” trap that so many seem to fall into.
Perhaps – looking towards the new year – friendships should become a focus. Rather than always moving forwards – looking for the next thing, and the next thing, and the next – there’s value in slowing down and reminding myself why I am surrounded by such a diverse and wonderful circle of friends.
Each of us has stories of how we met – how we entered each other’s stories, and how our stories have become woven together. I suppose it’s up to each of us to decide how those stories continue – and the only way to do that is by being present as the stories are written.