# 20250723 things I encountered today: * Serial Experiments Lain * a jewelry-maker on insta referenced this series. I've never seen it, but I love reading plot reviews on wikipedia, I looked it up * Myst and Riven * I never actually played these, but they popped up while I was browsing a catalog of games today. I remember Myst on my uncle's computer when I was a kid. I looked up the plot reviews on wikipedia. (I really do enjoy that, almost at the hobby level.) one-way immersion as a story-device - it's a very *particular* dynamic. I'm really careful with it. gesturing someone through a portal and not clearly giving them a strings-free way back, that's... well, a lot of advertising works that way this seems to describe a lot of stuff people adopt into their understanding of reality - the whole spectrum of religion and conspiracy and cult a mirrored hallway is disorienting until you step out of it and see how it was made I vividly remember a CS professor, freshman year, introducing recursion to the class, remember them noting that a lot of people have trouble *getting* it the world is full of story-spirals, to the point that I think it might be *made* of story-spirals, where populations have set up shop, set up *home* at particular intersections of particular loops of particular spirals. stepping *across* the spirals kind of feels like... like walking on cornstarch-water, just gotta keep moving. drawing maps and writing docs in those circumstances feels like the most responsible thing I can do - responsible because it both helps me and (maybe/hopefully/at-least-creates-the-possibility) helps others --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://www.isaacbowen.com/2025/07/23.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.