I'm two books into the Murderbot Diaries now and it's an absolute delight. Drawing on the finest traditions of "person refuses to believe they're a person" with some more modern sensitivity towards neurospiciness, plus it's funny.

When we write or draw porn or erotica, we get banned from having a bank account and our livelihoods get seized even if we give it away for free. When billionaires steal what we've written or drawn to churn out a slop-approximate of porn, they're allowed to charge for it.

hbbbbbbbbbbswelop;;;dcxf -- cat poetry

So the infinite paperclip factory is one of the hypothetical doom scenarios of runaway AI: a robot is programmed to make paperclips, and it does so until the whole world is paperclips, with no regard for the devastation it causes along the way. But there are already infinite paperclip factories.

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.” ― Cardinal Richelieu

Holy shit.

My family is getting all het up about a developer trying to build a golf course on a provincial park in Mabou, Nova Scotia, repeating a trick they pulled a few towns north. And it's depressing because, like, is there any rich person play that isn't some form of fencing the commons?

"Welcome to the afterlife. What did you accomplish in life?" "Oh, I put a screen on microwaves that queues up ads for the exact length of whatever you're cooking. Hey, what are you gonna do with that hot poker?"

Oops I accidentally double-submitted a short story despite having a spreadsheet that is theoretically designed to prevent me from doing that. Fortunately*, one of the venues rejected it today, so we should be good. * Or not, actually.

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day? Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

Had a dream in which a parasocial bestie excitedly showed me her new game, which was somehow inside a spreadsheet. The words "Animal Crossing Darkest Dungeon* (but tower defense)" and "rotting colossal possum god" are what I remember about the game. * Which I guess is Cult of the Lamb?

Trying to work out a quip or trenchant observation around the overlap between a Stochastic Parrot and Stochastic Terrorism but all I've got is that if we haven't already seen a mass-shooter who was radicalized by AI, we will soon.

Wild that the regime is so fixated on performative macho bullshit they saw the Russians doing that they are also dabbling in the Russian practice of not paying their soldiers. We will soon have a military as strong as Russia's, unable to defeat a country 1/8th its size.

like you can do Hegseth's performative MANLY MAN deus vult assed tattooes too and it works, it's all drag, top to bottom, Trump's bad toupee and bronzer all the way down to the social media tradwives, it's all a terminal case of stage IV metastatic gender, always has been

If you see this, quote with your first anime. For me it was Robotech (the Americanized release of what I understand is more properly called Macross).

I've been working on Fork off and on in one form or another for a few years. I'm one more polish pass away from querying it. Meanwhile, I've started reading Lock In. How DARE Hugo-winner John Scalzi write a better book than me, saying 60-70% of what I was gonna say?

:checks increasingly terrifying news: uhhh... guess i'm gonna, um, get to work on this rewrite...

Rogue: I have a bad idea. Fighter: I'm in. Barbarian: Me, too. Rogue: Don't you want to hear the idea? Fighter: A bad idea, violently executed now, is better than a good idea sometime in the future. Barbarian: "Violently executing a bad idea" is my entire personality.

“Why is it green, now?” Animus models 10 and 11 were sitting in the middle of the room. Model 10 had leaves of inky black, rustling gently in the stir of air from the vents. Model 11 still had the same basic shape, a stalk surrounded by petals or leaves, but they had become a warm green.

CHOTINER: So do you have any success stories in teaching students some control? XAVIER: Yes, of course. Ms. Pryde, for instance. CHOTINER: And she's gained control of her powers that she previously lacked? XAVIER: Indeed. CHOTINER: And how did that happen? XAVIER: Is this on the record?

the political policy cure for “male loneliness” is - more time to hang with the fellas (4 day work week) - more money to spend with the fellas (higher wages) - more things to do with the fellas (taxing the rich and building 3rd spaces)

I had to bring my Greater Polycule post over here from Twitter because, uh, a friend just pointed this out to me: youtube.com/shorts/8PbOg...

DM: You're surrounded, by a vampire, a werewolf, and a chain demon. Sorcerer: This is it. The moment I've been waiting for. I cast "greater polycule." DM: Do you mean "greater polymorph?" Sorcerer: I do not, no.

Another entry in the "am I crying because of the Art or because of the Everything?" files.

Theory: to most people, the purpose of comedy is to subvert expectations, mock the powerful, and comfort the afflicted. To the Right, the purpose of comedy is to put people in their place and reinforce the hierarchy. That's why they don't laugh at one another's jokes.

This brought out a bunch of doomers "...but! but!"-ing with all of the obstacles facing a pro-democracy movement in the USA, but I think it is worth thinking about the question from the other side. What does MAGA need to do to do (not how, just what) to hold power long-term? Are they doing it?

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

I was thinking about chess-playing and AI as I drove to game night tonight. Chess is one of those things that computers have become very, very good at. It's entirely possible to create a computer that could beat me at chess 100% of the time. (I'm not good at chess.)

The problem isn't autism. It's fear and hatred of autism. The problem isn't trans people. It's fear and hatred of trans people. The problem isn't immigration. It's fear and hatred of immigrants.

So I've been watching Judge Dee's Mysteries and for some reason, the part that's bothering me isn't the dubiously-period costumes or the wuxia bullshit or anything (those things are mostly plusses), it's the fact that this plot arc is on a boat and they're getting many, many boat facts wrong.

George W. Bush is a Reverse Hitler. He was a right-wing leader with authoritarian tendencies who invaded weaker nations and did racism, but then became a pretty good painter.

Gentle reminder that in the late '50s, the U.S. government did not censor comics. Comics companies censored themselves. Not sure why that crossed my mind today but there it is...

Theory: to most people, the purpose of comedy is to subvert expectations, mock the powerful, and comfort the afflicted. To the Right, the purpose of comedy is to put people in their place and reinforce the hierarchy. That's why they don't laugh at one another's jokes.

This is exciting. Magical Athlete is one of the games of all time.

I am in a big fancy board room at Marvel Studios HQ. "Thank you for coming to my MCU X-Men pitch." I lean into the mic and throw up my only slide. "The Xavier Institute is Marvel Hogwarts." I am instantly buried in a pile of money.

Gonna be like a dandelion. Scrappy, hard to kill, always getting places we're not expected, nimble, adaptable. Getting plenty of sunlight and water.

It turns out I was wrong about this. But in the best way.

Young mimic that doesn't quite get it yet and keeps turning into small versions of things. Small treasure chest. Small table. Finally gets it right by turning into a tankard but keeps skittering across the table and shoving other tankards out of the way to try and get picked up.

It's a "watch My Next Life as a Villainess" and "play Sunderfolk" kind of evening.

It is a very reasonable need. There is a reason it is so high up the pyramid, Maslow gets it.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse turned out to be War, Pestilence, Famine and Ethics In Games Journalism.

Working on a short story currently titled "In Which Tech Bros Re-Invent Conservationism" and pretty sure it's going to be triggering for some of the women I've worked with in corporate environments.

For anyone who needs respite from the news, I highly recommend Taskmaster, an extremely silly long-running UK show in which five comedians compete at absurd tasks. Low-stress, high-pleasure, lots of laughs, utterly disconnected from reality. As your doctor, I hereby prescribe one episode minimum.

Can't decide if I'm tearing up at this new episode of Only Murders in the Building because it's that good or because I am Not Doing Well with all the everything.

History rhymes, and we can learn from the cadence.

"Bullets are not my friends!" - No One Lives Forever "Evil, meet my sword. Sword, meet EVIL!" - Baldur's Gate 2.

Slightly diminish a book: Infra-Redwall

Redux of an old post of mine that was borderline unreadable, but which had a nugget of wisdom worth salvaging. There are two totally different types of hexcrawl and nobody else seems to have pointed this out before. knightattheopera.blogspot.com/2025/09/how-...

Hey if you feel like crying, Cinema Therapy has their KPop Demon Hunters episode up. youtu.be/-Moo6eTKkZM?...

Sometimes I'll reference Arthur C. Clarke, most notably his famous third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And I feel compelled to add a little "(no relation)" in there.