This piece has been largely rewritten. It also now identifies the sources for some of the art in RDR2, which (surprise!!) Rockstar misappropriates. readdead.com/2024/08/21/v...

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

Added to this piece: close reading reveals more evidence of Rockstar's racism. Also, Charles Manson, maybe? readdead.com/2024/08/14/t...

oh, you're a woman? name 5 pant sizes that fit you

Added here: closer consideration of how RDR2 positions Micah Bell as a Satanic figure, and that weird, weird lighting in "Red Dead Redemption." readdead.com/2024/07/17/d...

What i've highlighted isn't just a cute line: The narrative set-ups, basic tasks, and easy conclusions of video games — "go here, do this, find that, feel this," etc — mirror children's picture books to a pretty crazy degree. I should know, I read a lot to my 3-year-old! good piece, grayson

You know how humans have a strong preference to look at other human faces, starting at like 2 months old? When I try to compare these two images, even though the right is "more realistic," my eyes slide off it and land on the left every time.

Added to this piece: a visual comparison of Dutch Van der Linde and George Gordon, Lord Byron. readdead.com/2024/07/09/d...

From Chicago and the Twin Cities to Vermont, police departments play an essential role in the ICE abductions, violently suppressing resistance that would otherwise keep people safe from the clutches of the kidnappers. ICE is the enemy of humanity. So are police. crimethinc.com/police

Highlighting some site updates! To begin: discovering the historical fight that inspired RDR2's "Americans at Rest." Also, over 100 years later, I definitively exonerate Sontag & Evans of one of the murders they were accused of. NBD! readdead.com/2025/06/18/p...

I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...

NEW on Read Dead: … everything! The site has been completely redesigned. The essays have been edited for clarity and updated with new evidence. Many new photos, inc. classical art bc fuck generative AI. Also, DARK MODE now available! readdead.com

Once again, I am promising Democrats there are literally thousands of former department of justice people who will crawl over broken glass to prosecute this administration given the chance

I hope all those Rockstar North boys go choke 💕

Pals! A friend of mine is in serious need in LA. Phil is one of the kindest people I know, and he's always taking care of other people. If you can give to his fundraiser, or share it, please do!!! www.gofundme.com/f/psmpowerup...

ABOLISH ICE

Thesis: ICE is un-American and the Minneapolis protestors are real Americans. Antithesis: Ackshually ICE is operating in a long American tradition of racist terror. Synthesis: Minneapolis is now the epicenter of a clash between two distinct but historically grounded American political traditions.

no, those are my emotional support 50 screenshots from 1 minute of primary text

nonsense about telegraph poles and spider webs??

every time windows updates: let cortana call your mom for you. install copilot on all your thought processes. windows now wipes your ass

"2025 has seen the industry seemingly collectively agree that its prices should be based around the income of the CFO rather than the working Joe." SPEAK ON THAT

The number of bibliography entries I need to write. horrid.

I am still hard at work on new research and site updates!! Please don't forget me 💗

god, how awkward it would've been if Dan Houser had had to give Best Narrative to Silent Hill F

to be clear: it is NOT an iconic line, Hamlet does NOT say it, that is NOT the line number, that is NOT what "a little more than kin" means, he is NOT talking about his father's appearance, it is NEVER cited that way because two different characters speak those lines. google. hey google. you suck

no bc it is actually GENUINELY amazing how bad AI is. gobsmacked

Haven't been checking socials because I've been so hyperfocused on my research. I've been gaining a ton of insight into the specific historical events RDR2 draws on; can't wait to share with you all!!

Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea

How the map research is going: just thought, without a trace of irony, "it is difficult to take this rock very seriously"

We're primarying John Fetterman. Last week, Fetterman again sold out working Pennsylvanians. He was the deciding vote for a Republican budget bill that will strip healthcare from over 400,000 Pennsylvanians. We deserve real working class leadership in the Senate, not a Trump-enabling Democrat.

As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history. Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX

oh my CHRIST he's a bad writer. just awful. lmao

just read the line "why be serious about a game?" (Chaucer). the universe is just trolling me now

me when I illegally fire employees for union membership and then remember the employees make the actual product

@enwright.bsky.social something tells me you're exactly as surprised as I am by Rockstar's latest shenanigans ...

lol

Figured out one of the last allusions I really wanted to identify last night while researching something on the map apparently totally unrelated. RDR2 is such a web

Love Scrivener, but its inability to format a simple outline is about to launch me into the crashout of the century

I ain't watching all that

Dan Houser (co-founder and former Head Writer and VP of Creativity at Rockstar) acknowledges the critical role workers have had in the success of Rockstar’s titles, yet Rockstar is engaging in one of the most ruthless acts of union-busting in UK video game history. www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indus...

The biggest choice on today's ballots in PA is whether to retain 3 Democratic supreme court justices. The push to remake the court has been driven by billionaire Jeff Yass. In 2022, @propublica.org detailed how Yass had avoided paying $1B in taxes and funneled that money to right-wing causes:

the feminine art of typing "[whatsitcalled]" in your draft because if you tab out to look up the name your focus is cooked

In the quest for "biological truth," the Trump admin discounts the very real biological truth that some men do get breast cancer Now it'll be harder for male veterans diagnosed w/the rare but deadly cancer to get VA coverage always read @ericumansky.bsky.social www.propublica.org/article/vete...

RIP to Dr. Greg Newby. I used Project Gutenberg a lot writing this project, and I'll forever be grateful that that resource exists.

Once again, I smile politely and refrain from writing "YOU'D THINK SOMEONE WHO STUDIED GEOGRAPHY AT OXFORD WOULD KNOW THIS BTW" in an essay

Corals are disappearing, pushing Earth to its first major ‘tipping point’ grist.org/oceans/coral... #Ocean #Coral #Climate #Heat #Reefs #Environment

"Around here, they don't even like men voting"

Working on site updates, but they're gonna take a while because WordPress block theme editor is so, so indescribably bad.

I’m over here trying to enjoy PSLF and this comes across my screen. Sigh. IGN claims his classes are “a world first.” FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, EVERYONE!!!! NEVER BEEN DONE BY ANYONE EVER!!!! Meanwhile, I and many others have been doing this for a decade or more.