But these fascists, like many fascists and other authoritarians, confuse the pageantry of violence for power - they imagine that the state with armed men walking the streets is strong. But only a weak government needs to put armed men in the streets to exert power. A strong government has no need.

Finally got around to writing my 2025 year in review blog post. It was a pretty quiet year as I kind of chilled after a lot of public speaking (for me) in 2024. brianmeeker.me/2026/01/25/2...

365 days straight of morning pages! ~300k words over the past year

I'll never stop being a sucker for #metal covers of pop songs. I did not think Blothar had those belted high notes in him. Long live Gwar. youtu.be/I5XR48KLE8I?...

I had a great time giving this talk. Big shoutout to #CodeMash for accepting a talk so out of left field and to my audience for having so many great questions at the end.

Come check out lightning talks tonight at #codemash starting at 7! I’ll be talking about my 20+ year journey with RSI.

Lightning talk submitted for #codemash! Doing one at CodeMash in 2023 got me back into public speaking. I was so nervous to get on stage again. I've since done enough public speaking that I've gotten over the nerves. Excited to get back up on the big stage and give a much different talk this time.

FOX: Where’s the protest against the regime that's killing people in the street right now? Trent: They are doing those today. It’s called the ICE protests FOX: Are they talking about Iran at the ICE protests? Trent: No, I think they are talking about the regime that is shooting people in the face

“An axiom of organizers is that every good organizing conversation makes everyone at least a little uncomfortable” - Jane McAlevey Step outside your comfort zone and get a little uncomfortable with me at #CodeMash on Thursday. Let’s talk about unionization in tech.

This is some real, Severance-level dystopian corporate behavior…

I spent an excessive number of years moderating a gaming forum and I learned a great deal about community spaces and cultivation, whether I wanted to or not. I have critical advice for anyone who runs a game store or gaming convention. Please share this thread with people who run those things.

Giveaways have arrived for my unionization in tech talk at #codemash next week. Come ask questions and/or chat to get one! Check out @organizeworkers.bsky.social if you're interested in learning more about it beforehand.✊

I think a big chunk of the "linux is hard" sentiment stems from the fact that most linux users do weird things with their computers. basically this:

And I now have a completed talk that I'm excited to present at #codemash in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if I've ever had a talk done this early. I'll be periodically rehearsing and improving, but I feel good about giving it as-is.

good piece with an incidental insanely brutal takedown of klein

Just about done with all my reading for my talk on unionization in tech for #codemash in a couple of weeks. The rough draft of the talk will hopefully be done today so I can start editing and rehearsing.

Did my first Slay the Spire run since April 2023 and made it to the Shield and Spear. I’ll take that. I can’t even remember what is good with The Defect. Looking forward to the sequel. Really feels like we’re in a golden age of indie gaming right now.

Robots are so 2024. I’m in my floral phase now

I've heard that you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Years ago I dressed as Bill Lumbergh from Office Space for Halloween. Now I'm the engineering manager at GetThru. Dreams do come true!

It’s not often that I actually get to approve of something my legislature did, so I’ll appreciate it while I can. They’ll be back to bankrupting local governments in the next session.

Therion has the largest jump in quality from studio to live albums of any band I can think of. The studio versions of their best songs are often unlistenable in comparison. youtu.be/iGLOWTsY32g?...

You can come see me talk about unionization in tech on Thursday at 9:45. That gives you plenty of time to pester me with questions the rest of the conference on the hallway track!

I want maximum chaos. Duke upsets Virginia in the ACC title game and we get both North Texas/Tulane and James Madison in the CFB. The ACC gets shut out. 🔥

It's striking how some members of the administration want to create a worse, poorer, American ethnostate and think they need an authoritarian kleptocracy to do that and some members of the administration want an authoritarian kleptocracy and think they need white supremacists to do that.

In an era filled with tech dipshits who never developed emotionally past the age of 13 & use their wealth to become odious monsters ... ... listen to Steve Wozniak.

Reread Slaughterhouse Five last weekend for the 6th or 7th time (I've lost count). It continues to be my favorite book of all time. Vonnegut is the perfect combination of sardonic wit with a soft underbelly that gets me every time. Willing to entertain counter arguments for Cat's Cradle though.

welp

With the Mamdani photo op today, a lot of people are learning (for apparently the first time), that Trump has no ideological compass except strength and charisma. Politics do not matter. Mamdani is charismatic and operating from a position of strength right now. That is what Trump admires.

The Onion continuing to offer easy truths couched in satirical headlines. theonion.com/shedeur-sand...

Socialism won! Join DSA: dsausa.us/join-zohran 🌹

Season 4 of The Witcher has been very bad, but episode 5 is a new low. You haven't done the work to make me care about any of these characters and now you want to give them half-assed back stories? Everything about this show is phoned in. Cash those checks everybody.

“I’ll fight until hell freezes over and then I’ll cut the ice and fight on”

Today, Starbucks workers in 40+ cities began a historic ULP strike. But we’re NOT finished. We're prepared to escalate with more stores striking if we don’t see substantial progress toward finalizing contracts that address pay, hours/staffing, and the resolution of 100s of ULPs.

What a great few weeks it’s been for people once pardoned by Trump. @nytimes.com @nbcnews.com @npr.org @politico.com

Student: Teacher, why do we learn? Socrates: For life! Freire: For liberation! Dewey: For democracy! Neoliberal EduWonks: To mitigate overhead costs for employers and increase future projections of GDP!

I'm speaking at @codemash.bsky.social again this year, but this time on a very different topic. Let's talk about unionization in the tech industry! Do you have questions about organized labor in tech that you want answered in a talk like this? Let me know and I'll try to provide answers in January.

You can’t be racist against AI. AI does not have a race. It doesn’t have a body to be racialized. It doesn’t have a perspective which can experience racism “An AI” is not a person. It’s a fuckload of floating point numbers wrapped in a function that accepts input and returns outputs. That is all

I both get this and do not. Because the bands I listen to peak at eaking out a middle class existence. Even if said band releases a middling album, if I’ve liked them in the past, I want their new album to help them scrape by without day jobs. That’s peak in the modern #metal world.

The fact that Clair Obscur continues to ask me if I want to spend more time with Esquie implies that there are monsters that do not want to spend more time with Esquie.

TODAY IS THE ONLY DAY YOU CAN REPOST THIS!!!

Excited to be speaking at #CodeMash for the 3rd time in January. I haven't checked sessions for previous years, but I'm reasonably confident that I'm giving the first ever talk on unionization in the software industry that CodeMash has ever had. I have no idea what kind of reception awaits me. 😅

I'll be speaking on Tuesday at 6PM ET as part of the Global Elixir Meetup (GEM) week. If you're in the Cincinnati area, join us in person at the Launch Scout office. If you can't make it, the event will be streamed. Details at globalelixirmeetups.com/event/cincin... #elixirlang

Weekly Gloomhaven sessions have quickly become the favorite part of my week. Looking forward to every Sunday session right now. Give it a few more weeks and we'll even cleared up most of the rule snafus!

"…and Magda Goebbels made a great strudel.”

I refuse to deplore "political violence" when it is made so explicit that it is the adjective, not the noun, that troubles the people so openly weeping and rending their garments right now. Either we all have a ticket in the Victim of Gun Violence Lotto or none of us do.

Come join us for our Global Elixir Meetup! The Ohio edition will be on Tuesday, September 23rd at 6pm (EDT) with in person and online options. @brianmeeker.bsky.social will be sharing how to "Refurbish Your Creaky Test Suite"! Visit www.ohioelixir.com to signup. #ElixirLang #GlobalElixirMeetups

If they are so proud of who that dude was and what he stood for, why are they are trying to get people fired for posting verbatim things that he said? They’re more: “How dare you post that!” than “Damn right Gay people should be stoned/MLK was evil/Black women are unintelligent”etc. Worth asking.

Hegseth's insistence that 'Department of War' fake-name-change is about 'warriors' and 'warfighters' is the dumbest s*** I think I have ever heard. The guys that created the Department of Defense in 1947 - in NINETEEN FORTY-SEVEN - had done more warfighting than Trump's entire cabinet put together.

Just spent three hours reading Gloomhaven rules and slowly going through the training scenario to prep for a campaign starting next weekend. I *think* I know what I’m doing to run this well enough. 🤞