Caleb van der Leek

Sing-songwriter under the moniker Opie's Funeral. Check out my EP, "Watership Down."

Highschool Bible/English teacher, father, husband, Orthodox Christian

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@SaffronOlive Hey Seth, I wanted to highly recommend that you watch this thoughtful video on game balance. It’s a common topic on the pod and I think could really transform how you and the crew approach these discussions. Would love to hear your thoughts!

https://t.co/kA1kkZvlqz

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@jayessisbach @thisisfoster I kiss my daughter on the lips. She’s two. Many cultures continue this practice well into adulthood

[Adrian McKinty @adrianmckinty]

though much is taken, much abides...

from Tennyson's Ulysses

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@LOTR_Daily_ The Orcs are sentient creatures with sophisticated language and even families but are mindlessly killed without remorse.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

Last quarter I rolled out Microsoft Copilot to 4,000 employees.

$30 per seat per month.

$1.4 million annually.

I called it "digital transformation."

The board loved that phrase.

They approved it in eleven minutes.

No one asked what it would actually do.

Including me.

I told everyone it would "10x productivity."

That's not a real number.

But it sounds like one.

HR asked how we'd measure the 10x.

I said we'd "leverage analytics dashboards."

They stopped asking.

Three months later I checked the usage reports.

47 people had opened it.

12 had used it more than once.

One of them was me.

I used it to summarize an email I could have read in 30 seconds.

It took 45 seconds.

Plus the time it took to fix the hallucinations.

But I called it a "pilot success."

Success means the pilot didn't visibly fail.

The CFO asked about ROI.

I showed him a graph.

The graph went up and to the right.

It measured "AI enablement."

I made that metric up.

He nodded approvingly.

We're "AI-enabled" now.

I don't know what that means.

But it's in our investor deck.

A senior developer asked why we didn't use Claude or ChatGPT.

I said we needed "enterprise-grade security."

He asked what that meant.

I said "compliance."

He asked which compliance.

I said "all of them."

He looked skeptical.

I scheduled him for a "career development conversation."

He stopped asking questions.

Microsoft sent a case study team.

They wanted to feature us as a success story.

I told them we "saved 40,000 hours."

I calculated that number by multiplying employees by a number I made up.

They didn't verify it.

They never do.

Now we're on Microsoft's website.

"Global enterprise achieves 40,000 hours of productivity gains with Copilot."

The CEO shared it on LinkedIn.

He got 3,000 likes.

He's never used Copilot.

None of the executives have.

We have an exemption.

"Strategic focus requires minimal digital distraction."

I wrote that policy.

The licenses renew next month.

I'm requesting an expansion.

5,000 more seats.

We haven't used the first 4,000.

But this time we'll "drive adoption."

Adoption means mandatory training.

Training means a 45-minute webinar no one watches.

But completion will be tracked.

Completion is a metric.

Metrics go in dashboards.

Dashboards go in board presentations.

Board presentations get me promoted.

I'll be SVP by Q3.

I still don't know what Copilot does.

But I know what it's for.

It's for showing we're "investing in AI."

Investment means spending.

Spending means commitment.

Commitment means we're serious about the future.

The future is whatever I say it is.

As long as the graph goes up and to the right.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@SketchesbyBoze Piranesi or Area X is what you’re looking for

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@BretVDB Indeed; she is. 😉

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@BretVDB Also: clearly you took my advice to study English seriously 🙃

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@BretVDB Was searching for a document about "truth" in my Google Drive and stumbled across your English 11 essay. Only marks lost were on mechanics — apparently too many semi-colons haha! The irony being my own abundant grammatical errors in the comments (see: "there") 😅

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@ConstanzaCore @BretVDB Ha, that is a funny connection! Thanks for saying so.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@Clint_Davey1 I’m a fan as well, though the cover’s thin subtitle font is in danger of getting a bit lost in the business of the background. Looks fine on the side of the box.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@Clint_Davey1 I hadn't heard this! Agreed, a shame.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@BenjaminABoyce @ShakysBasement @Clint_Davey1 Very cool, I will check out. Pax Pamir and anything by Cole Wehrle is brilliant. (Clint also seems brilliant but I haven’t played his games myself I’ll admit)

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@ShakysBasement @Clint_Davey1 @BenjaminABoyce Interesting cross over here between my boardgame hobby and political interests. Why did Benjamin Boyce get the tag here?

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@SaffronOlive I appreciate the moderate, optimistic take, a rare thing in Magic discourse (and in this case I think it also happens to be true)

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@bsweitz123 I’m 35 hrs in and only just got double jump after Mount Fay lmao. But I’m being pretty thorough, though I’ll admit a lot of hours is just slamming my heads against bosses for hours at a time.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@duncanreyburn This reminds me of the sham trials that Arthur Miller depicted in The Crucible.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@Clint_Davey1 You ever think of starting a podcast Clint? You obviously enjoy reflecting on game design, Cole’s games in particular, and I know he’s always happy to chat on people’s shows — a fascinating conversationalist.

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@thomaschattwill My students have all watched it and I was appalled. They seemed nonchalant about it…

[Caleb van der Leek @calebsfuneral]

@plainrunner2 Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I will mull on this!