Here's an amazing thing John Zinser and I recorded: www.legendofthefiverings.com/30-years-of-...

TIL that Congressional Districts are not defined in the Constitution. The only Constitutional language speaks as to how many members of Congress each state gets and that those seats be filled by bi-annual elections of the People.

So @mikeselinker.bsky.social how do we get a California-style redistricting initiative on the ballot?

Lessons learned from Cuomo's loss in NY: 1. Almost 40% of voters preferred a disgraced failed governor to Mamdani. The idea that there's been some kind of sea change in the country is deeply wrong.

Lessons learned from Mamdani's win in NYC: 1: He never uses the word "Socialist" or "Socialism"; he doesn't talk about his membership in the DSA.

Great resource from a pioneer of MMOs

What do we want? DRAGONS! When do we want 'em? NOW! Where do we want 'em? IN TODAY'S BLOG! buff.ly/Q3YzyqH

I'm sure lots of people will benefit from this list!

My adventure "The First Dungeon" is now available as both an e-book and a print-on-demand book. With artwork by @stannex.bsky.social! Check it out. legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/5369...

TIL that the US accidentally inflated the number of KIA in the Korean War by 17,306 due to a clerical error. www.theguardian.com/world/2000/j...

From today's UnderstandingAI www.understandingai.org/p/16-charts-...

Yesterday I did a delightful interview with the team at @redraccoongames.bsky.social . Not sure when that's going to go live but I assume in the reasonably near future!

Today I noticed that Kickstarter has added the ability to send an Update to your Project Followers. This is a feature long, long, long requested and I am so glad @kickstarter.com has finally delivered!

The world is on fire but the guy in the #61 Dump Here jersey at the ALDS last night is my current hero.

Help my friends fund the fight against cancer.

Now that genocide has been reduced to a stock replacement for "war is hell", what is going to be our new word for "the most horrific thing one group of people can do to another"?

The count of detected extrasolar planets has gone over 6k. But something that really bothers me is that much of the coverage of this science uses science fiction without notice. The sum total of extrasolar planets that have been imaged directly such that we can see what they look like is: Zero.

I rarely have an opportunity to play TTRPGs but I do love to read them. I don't buy physical books any longer so I really love it when I can get PDFs. The Reward for all the Cypher products in PDF at $90 is wonderful!

Wired writer essays about the political changes in tech in the past two years. Writer professes astonishment. I think what is happening is that the top layer of tech execs are now using horizon AIs (often enabled with features unavailable to the public) to shape their decisions.

Excited to launch our first project on Hive today! hiveinteractive.com

In @mearls.bsky.social current blog about the OODA loop in TTRPGs he talks about how the input might be months from the output and how that is suboptimal.

I saw a YouTube clip of West Wing the other day and it reminded me of the conspiracy theory I've always had about that show. A thread.

TIL the Kink’s “Lola” was banned by the BBC. Not because it features casual sex. Not because it features casual sex between two men. Not because it features casual sex between a man and a cross-dressing other man. Banned because it mentions Coca-Cola. Band changed Coca to Cherry and all was well.

One element of fascism that often gets overlooked is the need for performative acts. Fascists are always wondering who the other fascists are and how big their numbers have become so performative public displays give them that data. Fascism's danger grows with its numbers.

I felt challenged to enumerate my values: Respect other's life choices; defend free speech; protect democracy; yield to the rule of law; apologize when wrong; pay your taxes; debate honestly; celebrate diversity; love your neighbors; and do unto others as you would have done unto you.

I vibe coded a Python app to extract email addresses from ZenDesk tickets using @warp.dev and Claude 4.1 opus. About an hour. Prompt: I want to make a script project that will use the REST API on zendesk to extract the email addresses from all tickets in a group. Our account is alderac.zendesk.com.

Waymo's most recent crash report data analyzed by Understanding AI indicates that the self-driving cars had +70% fewer incidents where an airbag was deployed than the estimated number for human drivers over similar distances (96 million miles) www.understandingai.org/p/very-few-o...

Congratulations to all macOS Tahoe users (including me!) Apple has enabled the "code from txt pasted into web form" technology that has been in iOS for a while for desktop use. Such a nice quality of life feature!

Andor was the best mass media (don't care about size of screen) I have seen in the past two years. Well deserved.

I was going to say this myself, but didn’t want to be the first—

The biggest difference between today and the 1960s is that today, rage can be easily monetized. In the 60s, converting rage to money was hard. Today it's a business actively pursued by thousands. The successful monetization of rage means that a feedback loop requires that there will be more rage.

A lot of people have asked why I stepped back from doing our weekly Politics livestream. Yesterday is the clearest answer I could give. Once political violence starts it is extremely hard to contain. It has strong virality. Tit-for-tat violence is the usual result.

Acquired pet insurance today. Cost for two pets (dog & cat) about $100/mo for $5k annual per pet. Seems like a rational expense given what we've paid in vet bills over the past few years.

TIL that Nancy Wilson co-wrote the Stillwater songs in Almost Famous. Proving once again that there is a universe of great music we don't have because music publishers are morons and don't let artists make the music they want to make when they want to make it.

We may be seeing the end of human-written software. Maybe 20-30 years from now there will be a terrible cliff where older engineers retire and there's nobody to replace them. Or maybe nobody needs a programmer like nobody needs a travel agent.

The Digital Economy Lab has posted a report about the effect of AI on software engineering. This chart summarizes the effect of AI in this field. This is what I would expect to see if AI coding was "working" in the sense that it was allowing smaller teams to get the same velocity.

@mearls.bsky.social in his recent Substack "I reject your reality" discusses the "simulation" in many #ttrpgs. I've long thought that the original sin of D&D was combat rounds measured in seconds. Imagine an alternate reality D&D with 10 minute rounds. arcanemutterings.substack.com/p/i-reject-y...

Tomorrow at 9 Pacific we're launching Into the Fun Factory. We have tried to do things with this campaign that we've never seen done before. The centerpiece is the ability to add a game to your order that will decrease in price based on the number of other items on your order - all the way to FREE!

Looks like @bsky.app pushed a tweak to their algorythim today. My feed is now 80% @mcuban.bsky.social (Mark Cuban) posts. I think Cuban is interesting but not that interesting. Maybe don't overweight on # of followers @bsky.app

The world depends on Taiwan's chip manufacturing remaining free of Chinese control (and of Taiwan not being bombed into the stone age during a Chinese invasion). Paying WHATEVER IT WILL COST to onshore the necessary infrastructure to keep making Frontier-level chips on US soil seems only logical.

From the designer of Tiny Towns, @peterlmcpherson.bsky.social, we are proud to present Lodge! Draft room tiles and place them on matching floors to attract guests and construct amenities to keep them happy. Coming to Kickstarter January 2026! www.kickstarter.com/projects/cam...

Meta is blowing up it's AI division. There can only be one reason: Their internal benchmarks show they're falling behind the Frontier. Either they switch horses, buy a better system, or lose. Since Zuck thinks this is existential (for humanity) he's not going to lose without doing everything he can.

How many of these have you played? (Personally I wish that #5 had been more true than it was.)

Thanks The Game Bard for the awesome review of Kasper Lapp's Into the Machine - coming soon in the Into the Fun Factory campaign on Kickstarter! www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4zM...

Reading the compliments being paid to King of the Hill reminds me of Texan Valerie Briscoe. I sure miss Val. thebarbedwire.com/2025/08/13/k...

I keep my Gold Name copy close too. I may ask to be pit into the ground with it when my time comes.

With the help of my AI buddy @warp.dev I have been recovering the digital history of OrganizedPlay.

A question for the OSR crowd: Has anyone re-written 1ed AD&D so it is a complete and coherent game? #osr #dungeonsanddragons

It’s been a super busy and fun Gencon. We are ready for Saturday. Come by the AEG and Flatout Games booth and check out our new games and say hi. Yes that is the CEO with his W.M. Inspired outfit at the 30th anniversary party.