Happy World Standards Day - unless, of course and as usual, you're in the US, in which case World Standards Day is next Thursday week.

New Girl Genius graphic novels turn up. As usual, I discover I need to go back to the start of the arc to make sense of the ludicrously convoluted plot. ... except that's not far enough back and I need to be two volumes before that...

If the industry can be killed by asking permission from artists it should be killed by asking permission from artists.

Great antho - I enjoyed pretty much every story, and some were absolute killers. I reckon if you really want your mind blown you need to be open to different styles and perspectives. And if you don't want your mind blown, why are you reading sf?

I normally liveblog my Phenomenon (Canberra RPG convention) experience and I am not doing that this year because of personal reasons, but I have played some damn fine games this year.

My niblings have a home skeeball set and have organised a family tournament. I have just defeated my sister against the odds, and am through to the third round. I'm against my other sister next. I'll keep you posted.

The South Australian Museum is still pretty great. It has whale skeletons, a giant squid, amazing rock galleries, and an inexplicable Egyptian gallery. And also a ten-thousand year old boomerang, and an opalised plesiosaur skeleton that must be one of the most wondrous things in the world.

"I always worry that the machine won't take my train ticket." "I told you, if you don't have a ticket it takes your soul instead." "Fair enough. What use is a soul these days?" "Well. Without it you can't get a return ticket."

A Mean-Spirited Curlew.

A Funky White Spoonbill.

Anyway Cleland Wildlife Park is quite nice.

"Yeah, they're one of Australia's only silicon based lifeforms." "Dad. They're not called rock wallabies because they're made of rock." "No, you're right." "I know." "It's their killer guitar solos." "Dad."

This is such important work. Just to give women their names is a political act. Women are STILL socially positioned as servants to men.

A tragedy of binding - Troy is lost in the crease.

"You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you know will also die. You will lose them forever. [...] You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time." - Emily Wilson's intro to the Iliad.

Classics.

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com p.s. this week I am on a USA/Canada tour with my new book. Details and preorder links at tomgauld.com

"Hey, kid, I want to take you to a museum. You might find it a bit dull..." "Dad. When have you taken me to a museum and I've found it dull?" "...I. Well. You make a very good point. Well argued."

"Father! Upon what do we feast this even?" "Tonight, my child, we dine upon the ham of the burger, the green of the leaf, the meat of the tomato berry, and a majestic alchemical blending of yeast and wheat. Such is the bounty I lay before my offspring!" "Will there be whimsy?" "For all, my child."

"Dad - how was your flight?" "Uneventful. I slept for most of it." "So... a plain flight?" "...yes."

Definitely haven't stopped here before: it's new, a bench in loving memory, overlooking the marina and the infinite. There's flowers and a candle and a plaque. This was a great place for flying kites. Probably still is, but I don't have one to hand.

I mean, I do come from a nice part of the world. Green bluffs, blue seas, ochre cliffs (not pictured). Plenty of the infinite to contemplate, should one need to contemplate the infinite.

Trying to reschedule my flight because I have covid. It is ... difficult and very expensive. The economic drivers *definitely* say I should keep my mouth shut and travel sick. Why do we make such hostile systems?

One of the deadset weirdest things about being in Adelaide is that a kid I went to primary school with went on to be an Important Football Person and he's mentioned in nearly every news bulletin.

My dad's car stereo is really weird - it won't pause, it won't skip tracks and it plays these bizarre spoken word pieces that I think are some sort of parody of consumerism?

My dad - always a more precise operator than myself - has absolutely mastered coffee making in the past ten years or so. And now my own brew is maddeningly inadequate.

Social cohesion Australia is fraying. Not because of immigration. Social cohesion is eroding because of increasing inequality. Fear results. Hope must be restored for social cohesion to build. But hope is dead if uncertainty reigns. Uncertainty ends when the future feels assured.

Google developer #1: "That's it. Our search engine is simple, efficient, and reliable. It's perfect. We're done." Google developer #2, presumably: "But wouldn't it be *more* perfect if the first search result was always a robot who mansplained your search results to you incorrectly?"

I think I would enjoy bluesky more if it wasn't for the collapse of democracy and the ongoing apocalypse.

Little darlings. It's been a long cold lonely winter.

My latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books. p.s. I have a new book of cartoons out soon: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

I'm back in Adelaide for family reasons, and I am a bit lost in my own head. My mind always goes to what's changed since I was last here, and what's changed since I was a kid, and what hasn't changed at all.

I used 'Fluke' to start a wordle because wouldn't that be funny? But now it's my regular starting word and every day the eventual payoff will be less funny, but I also don't want to miss it if it happens. I think there's a metaphor here.

My team's life's work of the past year and a bit.

Zelazny's Home is the Hangman, in Unicorn Variations (1985), is a killer story. The whole antho is interesting in a Zelazny-thinking-about-writing way. But a story about a rogue AI seeking a reckoning with its creators hits hard right now.

I've just discovered my sister has the coriander/soap gene and I don't know what to do with the information.

My people are good people, and I am grateful for my friends.

Essay wanders a bit, but I liked it. I'm very cynical about the current government. They're very good at going "There's a sensible, popular, well-evidenced path that will meet our policy commitments, and an absolute wingnut path that won't, and we're going to pragmatically choose the middle road."

Oof.

Alternatively…how I was really feeling.

There is a certain class of ancient literature that goes: "Wouldn't it be terrible if our leaders forsook virtue, made stupid decisions and ignored their advisors?" "Haha, yes, that would surely usher in an age of terror and chaos!" "Guys! You'll never guess what the king has done!"

If I was an RTS character? "Hey." (cheerful) "Hey." (apprehensive) "So." "UGH." "I got ya. You got this." "Do not plant a tree whose fruit will be poison." "What are you actually trying to do here?" Any of Dak'kon's lines from the 1999 CRPG classic Planescape: Torment "How certain are you?"

Study: "Prescribing the right medication helps people." When you're diagnosed with ADHD, you learn how many people are *worried* about all these ADHD diagnoses. Not yours, of course. They're sure yours is probably legitimate. But all those others... The right medication helps people. Full stop.

It's always weird to me when public policy gets enacted that we know full well won't work. Like, it's very deficit-model of me, but how can you be regulating drugs without understanding Prohibition?

Wanderhome is easily one of the best narrative games I've come across; this bundle is worth the price of admission for that alone.

This is why all unsolicited theories I receive go into an appropriately labeled e-mail folder and never return

I really struggle to comprehend what's going on at ANU. This is monstrous. I can't find words.

My dog club understands prioritisation.

Also on Star Trek - the current Trek writers clearly include people who learned storytelling from point-and-click adventure games, and I don't know how I feel about that. (Ref: SNW, "Through the lens of time"; Disc, Season 5)

Pretty niche recommendation, but the ST: Lower Decks graphic novel Warp Your Own Way by Ryan North is actually pretty amazing - it uses a choose-your-own-adventure structure to stage and pace a pitch-perfect LD story. It's very clever dumb fun, and I recommend it with great recommending.