A round of book reviews, containing fiction about gods, ghosts, and monsters, and nonfiction about serial killers, supposed AI, whether or not we'll live in space, and how (maybe) not to go insane dealing with this stupid world. Or maybe to make it happen faster. Baudrillard is hard.

It's rough on the internet these days. Please take with the caveat that I am a teacher, not a security specialist or a lawyer, but I'm trying to digest and make accessible some of the things I'm coming to understand. If someone understands better, I fully welcome corrections.

The worst damage of the far right was enabled by the center right too fearful to push back against trump

Hi. If you design games, I think you should read this blog post. It's short! I agree with everything Markus says here. personable.blog/human-centri...

Some thoughts driven by the observation of a persistent brain bug:

Hey, so, I don’t do civil litigation, is it generally considered good when the judge does this? storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Some bangers on this book round-up: www.brokenhandsmedia.com/blog/2026/2/...

The world's real fun right now.

I have now gone to a dealership and two mechanics to fix a car I bought less than a month ago because it stalls at red lights and randomly dies in the cold. While they all agree that there is a problem, no one can apparently identify what the problem is. Apparently, it drives done but not for me.

The world's real fun right now.

I hate that em dashes are seen as a sign of AI writing now. I default to using them a lot, and people seem to get mileage out of pointing them out -- and, to such people, I want to say: I'm sorry that you've never had a flare for the dramatic or so many thoughts you've got to interrupt yourself.

I went to the dealership because my car has a problem my normal mechanic can't figure out. The waiting room is filled with the sound of Jeopardy reruns and hold muzak from one elderly gentleman's phone. I've been here for nearly two hours and my brain is mush.

I like how, whenever I tell my phone to do something, it instead stops to tell me that I should be gambling instead.

“Homeland” wasn’t a word people in the US used to talk about the US when DHS was created. It felt at the time like Republicans laundering explicitly fascist language into their public project

On Thursday morning, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement toured a warehouse in south Kansas City with aims to hold detainees there. By the afternoon, city lawmakers banned such detention centers from being approved.

this is Minnesotan for "I am mad enough to bite through rebar"

If this is all a simulation, it's just proof that open-world games suck.

More isn't always better, and I'm beginning to think that obsessions with great magnitudes (biggest, strongest, fastest, etc.) is a mark of a childish character.

The Onion nailed it: "ICE Confirms Agents Do Not Have Faces Beneath Masks" "... seeing a man in tactical gear is far better than seeing a man without a face, staring deep into that empty chasm, and instantly going mad." https://theonion.com/ice-confirms-agents-do-not-have-faces-beneath-masks/

RT if you've never had a tab of ChatGPT open 'just to do quick research'

Add another one to the great big board of "Urban Planning Debates: Academic Research vs. Some Guy"

Starting off the year by pushing out reviews of the last...twenty? books I read last year. I, uh, I should have done this sooner.

I hate it here, for the record.

Entering our Too Lazy to Manufacture Consent era

My year of weird spices begins.

Here’s to 2026

> doing the reading, letting it change yr mind: Valhalla > doing the reading just to be a little shit: Jötunheimr > not doing the reading, admitting it, vibing: Midgard > pretending to have done the reading to escape notice: Niflheim > pretending to have done the reading, being a little shit: Hel

I went vegetarian at the start of this year for what my partner describes as "Dale Gribble reasons" (not trusting the gov't). On Christmas, I'm full of portobello mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, mashed potato, and wine. I feel like I've made good decisions.

I've made it difficult for myself to take a week off. Here are some notes on something I've been thinking about for a while:

started / going

fucking NO.

Doing any last minute shopping for the weirdos in your life? Consider one or more of these books that I read! www.brokenhandsmedia.com/blog/2025/12...

I've made it a personal goal to stop using the term "content" when referring to media made by artists. The word implies mass-produced filler and calling someone's hard work their "content" has started to feel kinda like an insult. Like human art made strictly for quick consumption

Remember: The Green Knight is a Christmas movie.

#ai #mozilla #firefox #fuckAI #genAI #fuckGenAI

Call me crazy, but I don't want the Nazi Wizard Game even if it's free.

i stand by this statement every year

A plan, based on a few years of experience: two simple methods for spotting AI writing while grading papers.

A few words on Anarchism, From David Graeber's 'Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!' davidgraeber.org/articles/are...

The sheer number of drivers in this town that don't understand bike lanes is terrifying.

A review of 'Book of Hours' by @weatherfactory.biz, shading into some thoughts on game design, storytelling, and how "mystery box" narratives work.

MAN what a novel

A short but powerful list of books for today. I think I enjoyed B.R. Yeager's 'Negative Space' the most, out of the fiction I read, though I also finished 'Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion' by James Maffie, and that was a real brain-bender. Check out more detailed thoughts below:

A brief essay on why things never seem to get better, politically speaking.