So how exactly do horcruxes work? If you're about to die, do your horcruxes spontaneously and suddenly die after a short trip to Ukraine and Disney World? Asking for an enemy. 😁

Yes, I have a comfort video game. Don't judge me. 😁

There's a new version of Claude out called Mythos, and here is a review by someone who played with it pre-release. It's...scary powerful, creating entire games from a single prompt. Whether you're pro or against AI, this is something you probably want to read. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/what-it-fe...

The illustration for FRIDAY was in my mind when it came to make the cover for PLATINUM DONKEYS. While I am nowhere near as talented as Mr. Whelan, images get stuck in my head the same way. This is how Maggie was meant to look and I'm glad (even using some sketchy tools) I was able to get there.

I had an image in my head this morning and I wanted to bring it to fruition. A blue fist of rebellion, punching outward at a surrounding circle of red ideologies -- but it's clear that the blue outnumbers the red, overall.

Gully Foyle is my name, Terra is my nation, Deep space is my dwelling place, and death's my destination.

My parked car was hit by someone at about 5am last night. Thankfully our dogs have deployed full cuteness protocol to make us feel better.

That's an interesting (?) place to be. I think it's saying that I'm difficult to classify. But seriously, just throw me in the furry cluster, leaning to the tech/science side. 😊

1. Elites enjoy a culture of decadence. 2. The decadence creates widespread economic hard times. 3. To protect their wealth, the elites prop up an authoritarian stooge to ensure austerity programs don't hit them. 4. The authoritarian stooge goes wacky and starts wars. That's 1920s Germany. Right?

Today on "Deep Dives in which Google has failed me", I'm trying to figure out why everybody hates Will Stancil. He seems like a socialist that right wingers hate, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. More importantly, he lives in my broad neighborhood and is offering what sounds like good advice.

A coalescing thought: If super-rich people are terrible and a danger to society, doesn't government have an interest in preventing people from getting too rich?

"The very first rubber dick to touch government-issued leather boots triggered a full-blown chemical weapons response. That is not metaphor. That is not exaggeration. That is a literal sentence that happened in America in 2026."

If you're from Minnesota, this article is a great pat on the back. My favorite paragraph:

Huh. Midwinter is not the time you'd expect to see cracks in the ICE. 😊

I find it intriguing, in mythic terms, that the agents of darkness have so far unleashed their violence against that which was Good and Pretti.

Well, I almost got into a fistfight at Chuck E. Cheese because I was wearing a mask around a horde of coughing kids. Great start to 2026, everyone! 😁

What am I doing on New Year's Day, you ask? Well, we have the grandchild so, you know...I'm in hell.

It's not official that we have a new dog yet, but my granddaughter has grown unreasonably fond of this one. For those not keeping track, the scrawny white one is new. He's a foster that we are considering keeping.

I was interviewed by Konstantine Paradias as part of his author interview series on YouTube! Konstantine is a short story and game writer who has worked on Raft and many other things. We geeked out a lot about sci-fi and the process of writing. Check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQM...

Woke up in afib, I guess; heart rate 154, pain in my chest. Got it to 50, then normal 75, so I guess I'm still alive. Should sleep some more, I guess. Hard to do when death's within your chest. Two steps forward and I'll be fine. When I take a step back, forgive my whine.

I know I'm going to make enemies of people I admire, but I think this is the precisely wrong take on generative AI. 🧵

Breaking news: I'm hearing reports that Ghislane Maxwell had a horse named Bubba, and I can't stop laughing about it. 😆 #Bubba #WhoisBubba

Convincing you to read my novel by the first sentence. Share yours if you want!

I'm honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand: Errata is never published.

I've just been cocooning in games lately, and I made a mistake with Rimworld. It's a fine game, but if you've played Dwarf Fortress then Rimworld is deeply boring. Yes, lots of things can happen but you'll never see anything like that insanity of a dwarf fortress spiral.

Quote this with a book you read way too young that explains why you are the way you are. Hahahaha! I think I was eleven when I read this. Soft porn -- and *weird* porn -- definitely had an effect on this young boy's development.

Someone -- and her grandmother -- is getting her first pedicure. Hey grandfather, namely me, does not need anyone touching his feet, thank you.

Just wanted to point out that we are on the timeline that now has an 'Official Porn Bot of the United States Government'. So that's FUN.

You all know that I'm avoiding the news, and I fell into a hole of Rap Battles on YouTube. The flows are pretty good and the disses are fine, but I'm worried that these songs are affecting my mind. I'm talking in a rhythm and what's even worse, everything I say is in two-line rhyme verse! 😁

Post a picture of when your pet was little.

My second submission. I think I prefer this one. Graphics can be misunderstood; words are clearer, and being a quote from a famous advocate of liberty gives a strong impression.

Pour a bottle out for Landsat 7. At 1808z today, they switched my boy off. L7 was the first satellite program I worked in and the first space launch I attended. While L7 had its problems I'm proud of the work we did calibrating it into the most accurate land cover satellite of its era. Vale, L7!

This kid is just weird, and I approve!

Here are two versions of a promo I made for Narrativity, the best little writing convention in the Midwest. Which one do you like better? Narrativity is June 26-29 in Minneapolis this year! Hope to see some of you there! www.narrativity.fun

You can hate the MCU movies all you like, but Thunderbolts* was an excellent film that was the most emotional sci-fi work I've seen a long while. Thoughtful, timely (since everyone is depressed these days), and with fantastic emotive acting. Gotta give the MCU makers credit on this one!

It's the First of May, and you all know what that means! Passing around this song is mandatory: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1GD...

I call this composition, "Grandpa is watching me this morning."

By the way, the perfect ratio for Paas Easter egg colors is one color tablet, one teaspoon of baking soda, and then one half cup of vinegar. You get the fun volcanic explosion (mix this in at least a two cup container) and then you're left with a useable dye.

Easter eggs colored. Any embellishment in black sharpie is mine; everything else is straight from the four year-old granddaughter.

Gonna ride out the end times in here.

This may be a hot take, but aside from the entertainment of their incompetence I don't care what Trump's administration does with the economy. The economy can be fixed. It's a sideshow. I care about the damage Trump does to civil rights and democracy. Everything, everything else is a distraction.

Ha, ha! This barrel of stupidity has no bottom.

Um, it needs to be widely known that the US administration is asking policy advice from ChatGPT. Like, everyone needs to know this is how it was done. Historians need to engrave this on certain tombstones.

"Whatever helps us stay productive is what really matters right now. There’s still plenty of time left for 1933 to be our year. Politics will come and go, but I’m sure when I look back on this period, what I’ll remember most will be the work that I completed on schedule."

In honor of one year of being published, I'm permanently dropping the price of all my novels. It's a great time to find out what a Platinum Donkey is! Available at all ebook sellers, and all links can be found here: www.patscar.com?p=99

Just wanted to spread this one around more. This poster was created by Reddit poster /u/Best-Subject-7253, and is being printed out and stapled around Minneapolis. It deserves to go wider.

The internet has justified its existence once more, with the news that Donald Trump was hit in the face by a microphone, and voices across our country asked with sympathy, "Is the mic okay?"

If I'm as quiet as I have been lately, it's because I'm trying something new creatively and...struggling. I'll push through it. But if you didn't learn it as a teenager, video editing is hard, y'all. 😁 Sometime soon I'll have something to show, somehow.

If you see this, post your skeleton art.

Sigh. In a forum I'm on, someone is claiming that they are so allergic to the COVID vaccine they go into anaphylaxis when in the same room as someone who's been recently vaccinated. It is depressing to watch the average naivety and dishonesty of the human race increase during my lifetime.