In 20 years, horror movies are going to deliberately try to make their visuals look AI-generated, the same way 2000s horror used videotape static and recent horror uses video shear

So I made my first real grown-up control deck for MWM Brawl Builder, an Oura the Imitator faerie tribal deck stuffed with cheap removal and counterspells. I suck ass at playing control (though I'm learning), and mainly win by pissing people off to the the point where they scoop, lol. I can close […]

"You're never going to be anything but a man!" You can believe what you want. It doesn't affect me. "I don't have to accept your delusion!" It doesn't matter what you accept. I am who I choose to be. You not accepting that doesn't change it. "Stop shoving your deviance down our throats!" I […]

It's worth remembering that in Fahrenheit 451, the book-burners are not just destroying some particular knowledge that the government doesn't approve of, like the Nazis burning the Hirschfeld Institute library. The Firemen are trying to incinerate the concept of knowledge itself. Bradbury took a […]

The TMNT set is an abomination that never should have been brought into existence, but I must admit that I'm pretty hype to get my hands on a Donatello avatar (yes, Donatello is the objectively best Turtle, don't @ me) #mtg #mtgarena

When you think about it, it's remarkable how much of our social institutions are based on making us fight each other. Adversarial political systems, adversarial legal systems. Competitive economies, competitive education, competition in workplaces. Competitive games lionized to the level of […]

AI creates nothing of utilitarian value, but it provides an invaluable service that a lot of people can't seem to get enough of: an excuse to stop thinking

The real dividing line between Millennials and GenX is, when you see the number 69, whether you say "nice" or "69, DUUUDE!"

I don't understand people who defend first-past-the-post and the electoral college. The first makes a huge proportion of votes worthless, and the second makes some votes worth more than others. This makes them fundamentally undemocratic systems that distort the will of the people. I don't give a […]

"Ghost Ships" is starting pretty good, BTW. I have the first scene drafted and basically the whole plot skeleton firm in my head, though it's going to be concept-heavy and the characters and their viewpoints need to be developed more. I'm hoping to keep each scene to a tight 1k and keep the […]

So Chrome has decided that it's going to stop displaying the cursor when I move it into the document whitespace in both Google and Proton Docs. This led me to start a new story in LibreOffice, which is what I really should be doing anyway since Proton Docs sucks ass and Google is a voracious […]

If I told 19-year-old me on the eve of the millennium that when ze's in zir 40s we will be arguing about whether the President of the United States shit his pants on live television, ze would say "wait tell me more about AI", and I would have to explain that no, AI is actually really dumb and […]

My novelette All Rights Reserved is now available IN PRINT! Order direct from your favourite online storefront, request it from your local bookstore or library, or get a signed copy when you join the Patreon at the Posthuman tier or above! […]

As beautiful a dream and an achievement as it might have been, I kind of feel like nuclear disarmament was always a pipe dream. Genies, bottles, etc.

The primary difference between orcs and goblins is that orcs are k-selected and goblins are r-selected I'll go into it more if you want but I'm high as balls and not up to explicating right now

I deeply dislike revisionist history that attempts to position Lucian as the writer of the first work of science fiction. It involves a deep misunderstanding of what distinguishes sci-fi from fantastical fiction in general, and I can't help but suspect that the underlying motivation is to […]

It's really funny when people who are into sports get upset that everyone around them isn't as enthusiastic about sports as they are, and that some people are even (shock horror) *sarcastic* about it. Oh honey, it's cute that you think you know what being persecuted for your hobbies is like

I wish I understand why right-wing people love obviously stupid clowns so much. Trump, Farage, BoJo, Poilievre. These people are fucking *idiots*.

Right-wingers will endlessly pick apart every single mistake and misstep of the communist revolutions, but if you dare to apply the same level of scrutiny to the American revolution, they immediately start shrieking about "critical race theory" and "trying to make people ashamed of their heritage"

IT'S HERE

Had a really cool idea for a space opera story today. It's based on the WWII Ghost Army (look it up) and it'll be a mostly slow, meditative piece about both the necessity and the ridiculousness of war

...so apparently Patreon has removed the ability of users to download audio links from my posts, even though I still have a checkbox on my dashboard allowing me the option to let them do so

My first Patreon audio reading is now available! I'm experimenting with selling these a la carte, so if you're interested but don't want the commitment of a full membership, it's available to purchase for only $3USD! https://www.patreon.com/posts/reprotech-user-149214618 #scifi #sciencefiction

I'm making lasagna for supper, I'm close to finishing and posting my first audio reading for Patreon, and I got an acceptance today (details to follow). Today was a good day.

The thing about Thunder Junction is that I psyched myself into being disappointed with it. At first I was just like "sigh, OK cowboys I guess", but as the reveals came I began to build up a picture in my head about how it could be subversive, about how it might critique and deconstruct its genre […]

[US politics] Frankly, I think Orange Mussolini's cabal of cronies is scared to death right now. They know that Dear Leader could kick the bucket at any moment, and they don't have a viable succession plan. For all that there are plenty of Americans that are up for fascism full stop, there's a […]

I started reading a book on "deep learning" (what they used to call that which is now marketed as AI) published in 2018, and it is a wild trip looking back on the kind of tech hype I swallowed uncritically a mere half a decade ago with the benefit of experience of what the deployment of this […]

Apparently the city I live in was one of the seven coldest in the world today, all of which are in the same province. Please, someone in Autearoa take us in. I'm sick of this and would love to move to a temperate ocean paradise, lol

A really fun interaction I have on at least a daily, if not hourly basis: Me: Hey, how's it going? Customer: PREROLLS

My grandparents had six children and five children respectively. My partner's grandparents had four and ten. My parents and my partner's parents each had three children. We have no children and are both cut. My sister has one child and no intention of having more; my brother and his wife have […]

Fresh newsletter incoming in one week! Want a taste of what you're missing? Check out my archive and sign up for a free ebook! https://xaurielzwaan.ca/NewsletterArchive #sciencefiction #scifi #amWriting

I still feel like Carney is largely a neoliberal weasel, but I must admit I'm liking him in his newfound role as "guy who says out loud what everyone knows but nobody wants to admit"

So I realized something interesting about the way I mentally use the terms "comic book" and "graphic novel". It's nothing to do with some highfalutin cultural divide. If you're buying pamphlets issue by issue, they're comic books; if you're buying a full perfect-bound or better volume, it's a […]

So I got Audacity and I'm liking the experience, but A) they immediately upsold me a set of tutorial videos for $5, B) their plugin store is actively promoting a bunch of AI garbage, and C) they're shilling me a paid proprietary cloud service with a "free trial" to get me hooked. I looked it up […]

Today in "creepy reminders that we live in a surveillance capitalism hellscape": I installed an ebook reader app on my brand new android phone because I broke my kobo and I wanted to see if I can download some epubs from Gutenberg. It automatically scanned my device for ebooks, and lo and behold […]

I found out that a lot of Patreon's newer features are locked for 18+-only creators, and it kind of bums me out. As someone whose content is explicitly queer and occasionally sexual, it's unsafe for me to mark my writing family-friendly, and so I have to relegate myself to being treated as a […]

Also in fun work news: The new GM has started writing inspirational quotes on the office whiteboard, so I wrote "Workers of the world, unite! - Karl Marx" underneath, more to make fun of it than anything else. Well, two days later it's still up, despite multiple managers having seen it, and none […]

So the results of the sales contest are in and we got fourth place, no bonus for us. We're only the highest grossing store in the entire province. But since the metric was "how much money you make per transaction go up", the stores in the rich-people areas where they can easily convince people […]

It is extremely uncanny seeing art from Magic cards that people have appropriated for their own use. Like I was looking through friend recommendations on facebook and someone's avatar was Pollenbright Druid, I recognized it immediately. It's not the first time that something like that has […]

I have a new patron-only post up on Patreon! COMING SOON: RECORDED AUDIO READINGS of my published work! Plus access to my Discord and free copies of 3 short ebooks -- all for as little as $5USD! https://www.patreon.com/posts/january-2026-148008531 #scifi #sciencefiction #amWriting

It continues to be my fondest hope that all the grace and mercy evangelicals have for others will be visited upon them tenfold.

I got a really bad paper cut as I was breaking down boxes to go into the recycle at work the other day, a serious bleeder, and getting a bad paper cut is just super embarrassing. Like I'm cursing, trying desperately to stanch the blood, hunting frantically for a bandaid to put on it. Dani runs […]

Suggestions for the best free open-source audio recording & editing software? My primary criterion is ease of use and low learning curve; as long as it will make me a decent audio file, I do not need a lot of fancy features

Thing is, I kind of do "believe in Jesus", in that I think Jesus is cool and had a lot of good ideas. I don't believe in a bunch of mystical bullshit, but I do believe that the world would be a better place if more people acted like Jesus. And it's a damn shame that so many people who call […]

It occurred to me that Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar and Shot Through The Heart by Bon Jovi are basically the same song, just from different gender perspectives

So last night, I forgot to clock out of my timecard app until after I got home, and when I went to clock out the app said I was "outside the geolocation zone" and wouldn't let me do it. Which is how I found out that our timecard app is tracking our location

History Teacher in 2097: his feelings were hurt that he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, so he had the Federation Internationale de Football Association make up a fake peace prize to give him in exchange for concessions on a future World Cup. The next month, the US military bombed Venezuela and […]

I die for the 35th time to Ornstein and Smough. I tell the PlayStation AI to start playing the game for me. I watch it beat the boss. I get up and walk out the front door. It is a beautiful day. I take off all of my clothes and run into the woods. I am free

So today was inventory day. Absolute clusterfuck. We were supposed to be done by 12 and we didn't finish until 7 (and even that was a slapdash last-minute sprint; if we hadn't half-assed looking for the unsaleable junk from 22nd that might or might not be in the store we almost certainly would […]

Here's a question I've been wondering about: If Venezuela does as Stephen Miller orders and expels China, who will reimburse China for the lost investments? The US? Or will China just start seizing things in China?