Tacklebox is kinda blowing up at the moment, thanks to Quinn's Quest (~1500 copies & counting). Just in case anyone's interested, I would also be open to co-publishing some of my other games (Geiger Counter, Planarch Codex, Restless, Tomb Priestesses, Lofty Beacons, Metrofinal, Last Kings, etc).

I'm gonna tell a story I tell every year around Christmastime, so sorry to people who've been hearing it since the Twitter days of yore. This is a story about my grandfather, who until his death in 2010, played Santa Claus in central New York.

This week's newsletter: DIE RPG bundle of holding. Once & Future Script Club and musings on Elsa and the Minotaur.

Fascinating interview about cultural restitution. Things I learned: The stolen jewels were purchased off the private market by the museum in the 1980s, and Hitler blocked the return of the Nefertiti bust from Berlin to Egypt in 1933. I need to read her books now.

Strawberry rhubarb paired with The Raven Tower by @annleckie.com: rhubarb is another word for nonsense, and the narrator of this linguistically intriguing book is barred from nonsense out of danger it'll become true Day 23 of #BooksAreMyJam

To no one’s surprise, the secret history of RPGs has always been women innovating ideas that men “discover” anywhere from 10-400 years later! Fantastic thread from one of the hobby’s coolest academics.

Very good paragraph here from @cstross.bsky.social on LLMs… www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...

not just in art, either, there are guys who would go around obsessively fixing every clogged pipe in a 10-mile radius if they had the free time and social infrastructure to do so

I have always said it, I will continue to say it, we are limiting the productive potential of millions of freaks by demanding they earn a wage to survive instead of enabling them to do whatever thing their brain is broken for

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

Free access today! All twelve pages of a Slavic fairy tale adaptation, KID BROTHER. Find it here: www.patreon.com/collection/1... There are loads of other free-to-read webcomics also, including the whole first chapter of a new story that will someday be a trade paperback-sized adventure. Hooray!

Sculptor Steven Weitzman placed books under the floorboards of the Barbara Johns statue's self-base (dedicated last week in The Capitol Building) with titles from prominent African American scholars and authors to signify materials the students were missing in their classrooms. 🗃️

Among the newly-released Epstein files. This Justice Dept email from Jan 2020 'I wanted to let you know that the flight records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported"

The short @kellysue.bsky.social documentary I co-directed is now available on YouTube! A deeply personal story about one of our favorite creators, I hope you enjoy it! Also featuring @mckelvie.bsky.social @kierongillen.bsky.social @dylanmeconis.bsky.social @sammaggs.bsky.social and more!

@sporadicerratic.bsky.social Hydration check! Have you had tea today?

Ok. Now had a chance to check and, well, at least some docs do appear to be straight up classic redaction fail. And there are some *interesting* bits here. www.justice.gov/multimedia/C...

When I teaching the Holocaust I note the Holocaust museum’s definition of a concentration camp is a prison whose inmates are denied due process. These are by definition concentration camps.

So apparently there are many Epstein files on the DOJ website where you can highlight the redacted text, copy it, and paste it onto another document to read the redactions

The CBS 60 Minutes Doc confirms what we knew: The U.S. is currently using our tax dollars to imprison brown people with no criminal record in torture camps overseas. It’s no wonder administration shill Bari Weiss pulled this off the air: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjY7...

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Streisand Effect, when merged, become the Bari Weiss Effect

and the ebook is only $1.99!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bookshop.org/p/books/oath...

Some Trump Admin policies can be traced to long held goals of the right. Some to donor priorities. Other to culture war biases. This, the government suppression of an entire industry, is due to a property dispute the President had 15 years ago. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

An exciting 10-day program of crime and mystery films featuring . . . musicians! Schedule, tix, and passes available at www.NoirCity.com Hosted by @eddiemuller.bsky.social #noiralley @tcmtv.bsky.social @tcmparty.bsky.social @tcmfans.bsky.social #noircity #noircity23 #noircityoakland

CBS didn't run the 60 Minutes segment on CECOT, but over here at @propublica.org we've been working on the story since March, including finding out who each and every man sent to that maximum security prison was. You can see our reporting here: www.propublica.org/series/depor...

good thread from giled on some of the actual engineering/operational dynamics underlying debates over naval procurement "why can't everything be drones??" well read on

My upcoming middle grade graphic novel Inbetweens got its second starred review! This one is from Kirkus: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews...

Something @tkingfisher.com does incredibly well is portray abuse in a very realistic way. Sometimes it's not shouting or physical violence, it's just your partner endlessly nitpicking your choices. "Are you sure you didn't offend them?" And then acting like they're "just looking out for you"

Just finishing reading this because of the post, and yeah, if you liked Tortall and want some T Kingfisher spookiness and pointed criticism of current BS thrown in, this is your book. Like A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, it fits the present moment to a tee

there’s a woman across the aisle on the bus crocheting a pocket onto a cardigan *that she’s wearing*, incredible, a thing of beauty

Update: have finished The Sapling Cage and I *did* spot @margaret.bsky.social's Tamora Pierce shoutout in the acknowledgements, I love that the Tamora Pierce fans of my youth are all grown up and writing their own books now

Yet another reminder that when billionaires take control of media, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for oligarchy. The super-rich won't hesitate to sell out the American public if it means getting merger approvals or deregulation that helps their bottom line.

if you're on the fence about subscribing, please do give me a go. It's the best value in tech analysis. If I can double from here, this can be my main gig, so I appreciate every single subscriber, and endeavor to respond to every single one. www.wheresyoured.at/premium-how-...

Last week, Blue Owl (a private investment firm) pulled out of the $10bn Stargate Michigan data center. This is catastrophic for the industry - Blue Owl pulled together *all the money* that has gone into the biggest data center projects in the world. www.wheresyoured.at/premium-how-...

Premium: How The AI Bubble bursts in 2026 - The largest funder of AI data centers is pulling out, OpenAI and Anthropic need more money than ever during a massive VC liquidity crisis - and NVIDIA's debt-powered customer base is quietly shrinking. www.wheresyoured.at/premium-how-...

@sporadicerratic.bsky.social Hydration check! Have you had tea today? Also, week of rain!

If you're looking for a last-minute holiday present for someone who loves art and biographies, 'Artists, Siblings, Visionaries' is terrific. Our spaniel, Lottie, does't look terribly impressed in this picture, but I was.

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

“These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.”

So Bari Weiss’s first real editorial intervention at CBS is to repress coverage of American concentration camps.

I would like to articulate one of the BIGGEST misconceptions about cat breed genetics by talking about the NEBELUNG! An extremely rare breed with only SIX(6) in the whole US, and no breeders, yet one that thousands of folk online are convinced they own. Your cat is NOT any breed, and that's okay.

started / going

She co-founded Reid’s Records in Berkeley, dated Jackie Robinson, delivered cash for the Black Panthers and published a memoir.

Sometimes the scroll is startlingly on point.

I was trying to find a very shallow bookshelf, suitable for storing books, covers out. I went searching, and it was frustrating until I discovered they’re called “behind the door bookshelves”, and now I have a ton of options. This is the modern power in true names.

Currently reading. Happy to report this crime novel is a Blades '68 campaign in which no one can roll above a 4.

I will keep saying this. If you bought a calculator and it EVEN ONCE told you 2+2=5, you’d throw it out and demand a refund. If you had an employee who lied confidently to you, and was easily caught, you’d fire them. LLMs are the untrustworthy calculator and the confident liar. Fire them.

Upon me seeing one for the first time in SF, I asked the taxi driver I was sat in the car of what she made of driverless cars. She said there were three makes, and one of them she'd get into, one was safe enough but often useless, and warned Waymo make deathtraps...

“The last-minute christmas rush at the bookshop.” - my latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books

Dragon is 100% right and let's take a look about how Miyazaki presents the death of a "stormtrooper" with his own hand shall we? In the scene I'm about to break down an imperial plane has landed in the Valley of the Wind searching for survivors of a crashed transport.