This is everything I’ve posted on this version of my my grimoire at starbreaker.org. Posts can appear in multiple topics. If you would prefer a reverse chronological listing, please check the entries archive.
32bit Cafe Code Jam
- Armor Your Heart in Ice and Shadows
- Neither the cold nor the dark need be feared. Make of them instead your refuge in times of need.
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(filed under personal and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - A Place for Every Page and Every Post in Its Place
- a guide to creating your website's directory structure, and thus the URLs of your pages and posts
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, filesystem, webcraft, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Personal Web, Personal Sovereignty
- I often feel like I’ve only ever been free on my own website.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, webcraft, manifesto, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam)
abuse
- RE: Bullies
- Simone Silvestroni's story reminded me of an experience from my youth.
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(filed under personal, memories, and abuse) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Parental Rights
- some random thoughts and advice to parents from a childless man
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(filed under politics and abuse) - Veteran of the Psychic Wars (2000)
- I had originally written this for Meredith Minter Mixon's long-defunct anti-bullying website, Raven Days
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(filed under personal, memories, abuse)
ACAB
- RE: The Right to Remain Silent
- I'm tempted to rebel against Kev Quirk's opinion, but it makes sense.
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(filed under politics, rants, and ACAB) - Not This Shit Again; or, ACAB
- I’m tired of hearing about cops going full Dredd and summarily executing civilians.
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(filed under politics, rants, and ACAB)
ad blocking
- About My Ad Blocker
- It’s your fault I block ads. You chose to use adtech, and adtech is malware.
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(filed under technology and ad blocking)
advertising
- Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
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(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - No Glove, No Love
- I use an ad blocker for the same reason I wear condoms.
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(filed under technology, rants, and advertising) - Advertising Will Never Be Great
- Shakespeare had the right idea. Never mind the lawyers. The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the advertisers.
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(filed under advertising, marketing, and rants) - Maybe I Don’t WANT To Be Reached?
- I have lots of reasons to avoid social media. Advertising is but one.
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(filed under recommended, rants, parasocial media, marketing, and advertising)
affirmations
- Something for the Smol Web Newbies
- If you need this, if you’re dealing with imposter syndrome because of a misplaced notion of purity, then it’s there for you.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and affirmations) - You Are Not Normal
- I’m a little tired of people who do a better job of conformity than I claiming to be normal. They are no such thing.
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(filed under affirmations and trans rights)
ai
- Can You Spell ‘Anomie’ Without AI?
- random thoughts while reading blogs and listening to goth rock
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(filed under personal, philosophy, anomie, ai, and technology)
albums
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
alt reich
- Adam Winfield Needs a Mirror
- This little shit doesn’t realize that he’s one of the “small-souled bugmen” he claims to detest.
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(filed under politics, alt reich, and rants)
anarchism
- Anarchism As I Understand It
- I am the enemy within, if you insist on having one. I am nevertheless content to live and let live.
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(filed under personal, philosophy, and anarchism)
Angra
- Angra — Angels Cry (1993)
- the Brazilian progressive/power metal band’s first album
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Angra)
announcements
- starbreaker.org and the Holy Grail Layout
- I’ve been making some changes to the layout for visitors using laptops and desktops.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, CSS, and announcements) - The Last Post for This Version
- I should have written this over a month ago, but I’m building a new version of starbreaker.org
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(filed under webcraft and announcements)
anomie
- Can You Spell ‘Anomie’ Without AI?
- random thoughts while reading blogs and listening to goth rock
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(filed under personal, philosophy, anomie, ai, and technology)
anthologized
- The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
antitrust
- Ticketmaster Delenda Est
- There’s nothing wrong with Ticketmaster that can’t be fixed by razing the corporation to the ground
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(filed under rants, music, politics, and antitrust)
atheism
- One Nation Above God
- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
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(filed under politics, religion, atheism, secularism, and rants)
audio
- Gimme Back My Headphone Jack!
- I probably won't accept another iPhone unless Apple makes one with a 3.5mm stereo port.
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(filed under personal, technology, audio, and music) - Is Reggaeton at 9am Really That Bad?
- This techie in Argentina seems to think so. He should be grateful it’s not Babymetal at 8am.
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(filed under technology, audio, and housing)
authoritarianism
- These Men are No Mere Cowards
- I think Joan Westenberg is being charitable. Mark Zuckerberg is worse than a mere coward. Nor is he alone in his treasonous complicity.
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(filed under politics, ethics, fascism, authoritarianism, and rants)
autism
- Fortress of Solitude
- I’m not Superman, or even Doc Savage, but I still need one of my own.
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(filed under recommended, personal, introversion, and autism) - Behind the Mask
- I don't talk much about being autistic. I'm going to do that today.
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(filed under recommended, personal and autism)
Black Sabbath
- Black Sabbath — Cross Purposes (1994)
- Vocalist Tony Martin deserves more respect from Sabbath fans than he generally gets.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Black Sabbath)
blogging
- Music Questions Challenge
- This could be fun. If you’re reading this, it’s your turn.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and blogging) - Then I shall make noise!
- If expressing myself online is narcissistic garbage, make the most of it and be damned to you.
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(filed under personal, writing, blogging, and Romantic Satanism) - RE: Blog Questions Challenge
- Kev Quirk didn’t summon me for this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Why not, right?
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(filed under personal, technology, blogging, and webcraft)
Blue Öyster Cult
- Flaming Telepaths
- hearing this song on the radio back in the day pulled me into Blue Öyster Cult fandom
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Blue Öyster Cult)
books
- Four Words for Jeff Bezos
- “WE DON’T READ WYNAND”
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(filed under politics and books) - “A Man Who Reads”
- A funny thing happened at the bookstore tonight.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, and books) - Ayn Rand
- I sipped the Kool-Aid, but didn’t chug it, and eventually lost my taste for it.
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(filed under books, philosophy, and personal) - Read for Pleasure, or Not At All!
- If you need permission to put aside or refuse to read books that don’t appeal, you have mine.
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(filed under entertainment, books, reading and rants) - Impact
- Brace yourselves. This could get heavy.
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(filed under personal, memories, writing, books, and indiewebcarnival) - Talking Shit About Harry Potter
- I had read these books because my wife was into the movies; being able to trash-talk them is merely a bonus.
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(filed under entertainment, books, politics, and rants) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - Heavy Time
- a cat helped me find a used paperback of this 1991 novel
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and C. J. Cherryh) - A City on Mars
- looks like I have another book to buy for my to-read pile, or I could do the sensible thing and borrow it
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(filed under entertainment and books) - The Song of Achilles
- reactions to and opinions on the novel by Madeline Miller
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(filed under entertainment, books, Greek mythology, Homer, and Troy) - I Finally Got Without Bloodshed Taken Down
- Most writers would lament the removal of their first novel from Amazon. For me it’s victory and liberation, but now I must decide what to do next.
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(filed under writing, books, publishing, and Without Bloodshed) - Books I Never Finished
- I saw this thread on Tildes, and since I can’t chime in there I’ll have my say here.
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(filed under entertainment and books) - Insomnia
- I’m occasionally subject to sleepless nights. It’s usually my own damn fault.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, books, and games) - John Daker has seen some shit
- a commentary on the Eternal Champion novels by Michael Moorcock
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(filed under entertainment, books, and Michael Moorcock) - Living for Pleasure: an Epicurean Guide to Life
- notes on Emily A. Austin’s book about the Greek philosopher Epicurus and his teachings
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(filed under entertainment, books, and philosophy) - Holy Smoke
- Fuck censorship. Burn all book burners for great justice.
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(filed under books, politics, and rants) - Street Cultivation
- I had recently read Sarah Lin’s novel on the basis of a recommendation on Reddit.
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and opinion) - The Racist H. P. Lovecraft vs. Self-Righteous Internet Leftists
- Throwing Lovecraft’s work down the memory hole only harms the living.
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(filed under entertainment, books, H. P. Lovecraft, writing, and rants) - The Definitive Count of Monte Cristo
- opinions on Robin Buss’ translation for Penguin Classics
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, and books) - C.L. Moore: Queen of the Pulps
- one of the great 20th century originals and a worthy heir to Mary Shelley
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, and C. L. Moore) - Sally Wiener Grotta: The Winter Boy
- I had gotten a free copy in my World Fantasy Convention 2014 book bag and had the pleasure of meeting Sally Wiener Grotta and attending a reading.
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(filed under entertainment, books, Women’s Liberation, postapocalyptic) - Richard Zane’s Fantasmagoria
- an absolutely gonzo indie novel by an author I knew from Google+
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(filed under entertainment, books, and sci-fi) - Derelict by L. J. Cohen: a YA Worthy of Heinlein
- a review resurrected and expanded from the archives; I had bought the book and gotten my money’s worth
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, sci-fi, and young adult fiction)
bullshit
- Butt Thetans
- in which my wife reminds me through her choice of podcasts that Scientology still exists
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(filed under sci-fi, religion, and bullshit) - RE: A Key Feature of NFTs Has Completely Broken
- I’m laughing my ass off as I read this tech in The Verge. But my laughter is angry laughter. People really should know better, dammit.
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(filed under technology, griftocurrency, and bullshit) - Web Environment Integrity: Expectations, Reality, and Entitlement
- Google’s latest attempt to respectively exploit and protect its dominance in the browser and advertising markets puts the company’s effrontery on full display and cries out for the sort of antitrust enforcement not seen since Uncle Sam brought the hammer down on AT\&T.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, bullshit, and rants) - RE: Acting Your Wage Will Atrophy Your Abilities
- commentary on a post by Ruby On Rails creator, 37signals founder, and professional idiot David Heinemeier Hansson
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(filed under rants, workplace, and bullshit) - The Village Voice Isn’t Really Back
- Brian Calle might have resurrected the brand, but not its soul.
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(filed under bullshit) - Still Derisive About Marketing
- I’m an old techie and I still despise marketing and its practitioners.
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(filed under rants, marketing, bullshit, and private-sector PSYOP) - Web3 is Coming For Authors
- A ‘crypto revolution’ re-imagining books? Count me out.
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(filed under writing, griftocurrency, and bullshit) - Spamtoberfest
- Man, Digital Ocean really didn’t think this through.
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(filed under spam and bullshit)
business
- Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
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(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants)
cancer
- My Father is Dead
- The man worked his ass off and he didn’t even get to retire.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death) - My Father Is Dying
- The man I knew is gone, replaced by a broken, bewildered animal.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death)
capitalism
- Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Fertility Crisis? You’re Welcome!
- Has it ever occurred to New York Times columnists that wage slaves don’t breed well in captivity?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, capitalism, and rants)
cats
- Kitty Doesn’t Think Things Through
- Having cats around is one reason I prefer WFH, but they can be silly.
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(filed under personal and cats)
Cemetery Skyline
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
censorship
- RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - Isabel Hogben: a Victim of Conservative Grooming
- She’s exactly Bari Weiss’ type: young, naïve, and receptive to authoritarian ideology.
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(filed under politics, rants, pornography, censorship, and sexuality) - I Was Banned From Tildes, Too
- Unlike those who protest their innocence, I had it coming.
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(filed under personal and censorship) - Containment, Social Media, and the Dangers of Imitation
- Deplatforming wasn’t a major issue before social media, and it still isn’t even though social media more often creates cacophony than community.
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(filed under recommended, politics, parasocial media, censorship, and rants)
characterization
- Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley) - Morgan Cooper: Dirty Work
- An attempt at a character study in a style similar to what David Simon used in his 1991 book, Homicide.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and characterization) - Viewpoint Limitations
- Writing Spiral Architect in first-person viewpoint might have been a mistake. There are elements that I could explain from another viewpoint that I can’t explain from Morgan Cooper’s.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and Spiral Architect) - Writing Wonders: August 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Spiral Architect: Patient Privilege
- I should be writing this chapter, but I’m not quite ready yet.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, plot, characterization, worldbuilding, and Spiral Architect) - Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
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(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning) - Spiral Architect: Little Sunshine and more…
- I had written this update late Sunday night, but forgot to upload it for several days.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, plotting, and Spiral Architect) - Writing Wonders: July 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Our Revels Now Are Ended…
- a bit of Shakespeare that’s been stuck in my head for years
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(filed under writing, music, sci-fi, and characterization) - Theme, Variations, Eternal Return
- I don’t know if I’ll use this in a Starbreaker story or if it’ll be another fragmentary outtake.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and worldbuilding) - Writing Wonders: June 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - Questions for Your Cast
- a brief guide to character creation without prior worldbuilding
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(filed under recommended, writing, characterization, and worldbuilding) - More Stuff I Might Use Later
- These might work in a new edition of Without Bloodshed.
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(filed under writing, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, sci-fi, Without Bloodshed) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
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(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants)
Christabel Crowley
- Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley)
C. J. Cherryh
- Heavy Time
- a cat helped me find a used paperback of this 1991 novel
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and C. J. Cherryh)
class warfare
- Street Justice
- UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fucked around and found out. Too bad he didn’t get a fair trial first, but his abuses are not crimes under the law.
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(filed under politics, healthcare, class warfare, and rants) - Blocking Unwanted Referrers with .htaccess
- This is something I've wanted to do for a while now, but I thought I couldn't on Nearly Free Speech. Turns out I could, after all.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, class warfare, and commercial use) - Boots: a Haiku
- capturing the small soul of an authoritarian bootlicker in seventeen syllables
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(filed under poetasting and class warfare) - Companies Are Failing Everybody
- disputing findings in the most recent Women in the Workplace report
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, workplace, class warfare, and rants) - Always Remote
- Regardless of the weather, I will always prefer remote work over on-site.
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(filed under personal, workplace, remote work, and class warfare) - Cobra Kai at Work
- a defense of wildcat strikes, legality be damned
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(filed under politics, class warfare, workplace, and rants) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants)
C. L. Moore
- C.L. Moore: Queen of the Pulps
- one of the great 20th century originals and a worthy heir to Mary Shelley
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, and C. L. Moore)
Cloud People
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
command line
- Running GNU Emacs in the Linux Console
- Only one thing stopped me from doing this before, but no longer.
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(filed under personal, technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Fun with Dates and Emacs
- a note to myself about creating RSS and Atom friendly dates for posts in Emacs
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - Creating YouTube Thumbnails with a Shell Script
- It’s almost as good as an embed, but without Google’s spyware.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, command line, shell scripting, and programming) - Parallel Transcoding from FLAC on Linux
- Using find and xargs can dramatically speed up the transcoding of large collections of FLAC files to formats like Ogg Vorbis or MP3.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and command line) - Text Mode Weekend, Part Deux
- in which I continue to experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - Text Mode Weekend
- in which I experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments)
commercial use
- Personal Websites are for Personal Use
- Commercial use — such as listing in Google, linking to from Reddit, or scraping for LLM training data — is not necessarily welcome.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Blocking Unwanted Referrers with .htaccess
- This is something I've wanted to do for a while now, but I thought I couldn't on Nearly Free Speech. Turns out I could, after all.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, class warfare, and commercial use) - robots.txt: the Nuclear Option
- Corporate scraping of personal websites has exceeded the Ripley Threshold.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Silence Implies Consent
- My efforts to thwart commercial use of my website may come to nothing, but I will make them anyway for my own sake.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use)
community
- On Seeking Community
- Been there, done that, still got the therapy receipts from the capitalist death panel...
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(filed under personal, society, community, and loneliness)
configuration
- GNU Emacs From Scratch
- in which our intrepid schmuck nukes his overly complex configuration in favor of one only slightly less recondite
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, configuration, and Emacs)
consent
- Random Thoughts on Game Streaming
- if you’re streaming a multiplayer game, please tell me up front so I can drop out
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(filed under entertainment, gaming, and consent)
cooking
- Ideal Breakfast?
- I doubt mine is anybody's ideal, but it works for me.
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(filed under personal and cooking) - Three Mile Island Dirty Rice
- a recipe for spicy eggy rice dish, without a lot of bullshit
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(filed under cooking)
crime
- Neil Gaiman
- The victims’ allegations should be investigated. He should stand trial. If convicted, he should lose everything but his life.
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(filed under crime and punishment)
CSS
- CSS Naked Day 2025
- Don’t panic. You are not experiencing technical difficulties.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, HTML, CSS, and minimalism) - starbreaker.org and the Holy Grail Layout
- I’ve been making some changes to the layout for visitors using laptops and desktops.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, CSS, and announcements) - More Cleanup
- documenting more changes for future references
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(filed under webcraft, CSS, and image processing)
databases
- RE: Soft Deletion Probably Isn’t Worth It
- a reply to Brandur’s post about soft deletion in databases
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(filed under technology, databases, and programming) - Using GNU Recutils to Generate a Playlist Feed
- I ended up not doing this, but I don’t want to delete this post.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, databases, and programming)
my day job
- Who’s got a foreign key on this table?
- The need to identify dependencies in a database comes up fairly often at my day job.
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(filed under technology, programming, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and my day job)
death
- Tears in Rain
- I’ve been reading a dying man’s blog post about regret, and I have opinions with which I’d rather not directly burden him.
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(filed under recommended, personal, death, regrets, and rants) - My Father is Dead
- The man worked his ass off and he didn’t even get to retire.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death) - My Father Is Dying
- The man I knew is gone, replaced by a broken, bewildered animal.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death)
delving
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
democracy
- In the Hands of Strangers
- I'll admit that I've always been a bit skeptical of democracy, though not to Peter Thiel’s extent.
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(filed under politics, democracy and libertarianism)
Demon (UK band)
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
dialogue
- Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
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(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning) - More Stuff I Might Use Later
- These might work in a new edition of Without Bloodshed.
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(filed under writing, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, sci-fi, Without Bloodshed)
diet
- Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
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(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism)
Disco Freaks
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
ecology
- Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
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(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism)
economics
- Worldbuilding: Mutual Aid vs the Welfare State
- I’m not an expert in economics or in political economy, but the more I tried to think things through the more impossible it became to justify writing a straightforward right-libertarian utopia.
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(filed under writing, politics, economics, sci-fi, and worldbuilding)
education
- The Self-Educated Soul
- I did not get what I wanted; I got what the school wanted me to have: not a true education, but schooling.
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(filed under education and schooling)
elections
- To the Democratic National Committee
- A little rant against the Democratic party leadership
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(filed under politics, elections, and rants)
Emacs
- Using Sublime Text in 2025
- I don’t use it, but other people still do. More power to ‘em.
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(filed under technology, software, and Emacs) - Running GNU Emacs in the Linux Console
- Only one thing stopped me from doing this before, but no longer.
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(filed under personal, technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - GNU Emacs From Scratch
- in which our intrepid schmuck nukes his overly complex configuration in favor of one only slightly less recondite
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, configuration, and Emacs) - RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Dictionary Integrations
- adventures in integrating GNU Emacs with dictionary apps on macOS and GNU/Linux
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and Emacs) - A Cat Meets the Emacs Doctor
- a bit of Monday silliness; apparently Smudge figured out M-x doctor
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(filed under Emacs and shitposts) - Fun with Dates and Emacs
- a note to myself about creating RSS and Atom friendly dates for posts in Emacs
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs)
- Notes on Email Filtering
- Do I need many filters, or just the right filters?
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(filed under technology and email) - Email is Still Useful
- Well, I still find it useful, but I put in the work to make it useful.
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(filed under technology and email)
Ember Belladonna
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
energy
- Nuke Fossil Fuels from Orbit
- Nuclear power might be our best bet for carbon-free power generation, but fear is the major obstacle.
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(filed under energy and opinion)
entertainment
- Music Questions Challenge
- This could be fun. If you’re reading this, it’s your turn.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and blogging) - “A Man Who Reads”
- A funny thing happened at the bookstore tonight.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, and books) - Star Trek: Section 31
- It was a romp, and it was fun to see Michelle Yeoh play the heavy, but it doesn't feel like Star Trek.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, sci-fi, and startrek) - If Liking Some Pop Music is Gay, Then I’ll Be Gay.
- I want to blast Body Count’s “Cop Killer” while gunning down the masculinity police. (This time we get even!)
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Read for Pleasure, or Not At All!
- If you need permission to put aside or refuse to read books that don’t appeal, you have mine.
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(filed under entertainment, books, reading and rants) - Black Sabbath — Cross Purposes (1994)
- Vocalist Tony Martin deserves more respect from Sabbath fans than he generally gets.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Black Sabbath) - Angra — Angels Cry (1993)
- the Brazilian progressive/power metal band’s first album
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Angra) - 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure) - How to Ruin Your Franchise
- “How to Train Your Dragon” needs a remaster, not a live-action remake.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, and video) - The Sword: “Locomotive Breath”
- This cover’s a pleasant surprise from a band I thought broken up.
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(filed under entertainment, music, and video) - The Lost Boys (1987)
- Man, peer pressure sure was a bitch in the 1980s.
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(filed under entertainment and movies) - Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
- Director Todd Phillips shows that Arthur Fleck can't live up to the legend he created.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, and movies) - Dracula (1931)
- I wanted to like this classic starring Bela Lugosi, but I can only appreciate it.
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(filed under entertainment and movies) - The Substance (2024)
- Brilliantly written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, with killer performances by Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, movies, and Women’s Liberation) - Fourth Dominion
- If there’s ever a remake of Nightbreed, this band should do the soundtrack.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Fourth Dominion) - Talking Shit About Harry Potter
- I had read these books because my wife was into the movies; being able to trash-talk them is merely a bonus.
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(filed under entertainment, books, politics, and rants) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - SaGa Emerald Beyond
- an introduction to Square-Enix’s weirder RPG franchise and its latest entry, based on the PlayStation 5 demo
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(filed under entertainment, games, JRPGs, and SaGa franchise) - Oceanborn
- notes on Nightwish’s 1998 symphonic power metal album
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(filed under entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Heavy Time
- a cat helped me find a used paperback of this 1991 novel
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and C. J. Cherryh) - Happy Easter
- I don’t really celebrate this holiday since I’m neither a little kid, a parent, or a devout Christian.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, Ghostbusters, religion, sci-fi, and shitposts) - nine 𝑥 to know me
- Little lists of stuff I’m into. You might like some of these, too.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, and lists) - A City on Mars
- looks like I have another book to buy for my to-read pile, or I could do the sensible thing and borrow it
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(filed under entertainment and books) - Shoggoths Away!
- a song by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
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(filed under entertainment, music, indie rock, and H. P. Lovecraft) - The Song of Achilles
- reactions to and opinions on the novel by Madeline Miller
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(filed under entertainment, books, Greek mythology, Homer, and Troy) - Flaming Telepaths
- hearing this song on the radio back in the day pulled me into Blue Öyster Cult fandom
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Blue Öyster Cult) - Burn the Mothers Down
- I finished my first run through Final Fantasy XVI yesterday, and it’s been a ride. Expect spoilers.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, Final Fantasy franchise) - Books I Never Finished
- I saw this thread on Tildes, and since I can’t chime in there I’ll have my say here.
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(filed under entertainment and books) - Insomnia
- I’m occasionally subject to sleepless nights. It’s usually my own damn fault.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, books, and games) - After 1989: A Trip To Freedom
- notes on the historical concept album by Minutes to Midnight
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and history) - Alice Cooper, Live in Hershey
- Catherine and I crossed off an item on my rock ’n roll bucket list last night
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and live music) - John Daker has seen some shit
- a commentary on the Eternal Champion novels by Michael Moorcock
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(filed under entertainment, books, and Michael Moorcock) - Scarlet Dorn
- discovering a new (to me) band from Germany
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - Persona 4 GOLDEN
- I played the original on the PlayStation 2, and I’m feeling nostalgic.
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(filed under entertainment and gaming) - Living for Pleasure: an Epicurean Guide to Life
- notes on Emily A. Austin’s book about the Greek philosopher Epicurus and his teachings
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(filed under entertainment, books, and philosophy) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - Random Thoughts on Game Streaming
- if you’re streaming a multiplayer game, please tell me up front so I can drop out
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(filed under entertainment, gaming, and consent) - Playing as a Woman in Final Fantasy XIV
- Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t pretend to be a man in real life.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, gaming, Final Fantasy franchise, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Hellbound; or, Curse God and Live
- This K-drama got me thinking about existentialism and the problem of evil.
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(filed under entertainment, television, K-drama, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Amazon’s The Wheel of Time
- Blind Guardian did a better adaptation with a ten-minute power metal song.
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(filed under entertainment and television) - RE: Thoughts on Silly Hats
- a reply to marginalia.nu’s post on fashion and subculture
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and politics) - Street Cultivation
- I had recently read Sarah Lin’s novel on the basis of a recommendation on Reddit.
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and opinion) - Tina Guo
- Classical instruments, heavy metal, and fetishwear? Yes, please.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - Goddammit, Jon Schaffer
- Good thing I never mistook Iced Earth’s founding guitarist for a hero, let alone met the man in person.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, politics, and rants) - Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants) - RE: Against Bingeing TV
- contrary to acdw’s opinion, I don’t think Netflix invented binge culture
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(filed under entertainment) - The Racist H. P. Lovecraft vs. Self-Righteous Internet Leftists
- Throwing Lovecraft’s work down the memory hole only harms the living.
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(filed under entertainment, books, H. P. Lovecraft, writing, and rants) - Final Fantasy VII Relived
- better than I expected, with some unexpected twists, but don’t pay full price
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, sci-fi, and Final Fantasy franchise) - Proprietary Video Games
- a rant on deliberately crippled computers and software
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(filed under entertainment, gaming, and rants) - The Definitive Count of Monte Cristo
- opinions on Robin Buss’ translation for Penguin Classics
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, and books) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
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(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants) - C.L. Moore: Queen of the Pulps
- one of the great 20th century originals and a worthy heir to Mary Shelley
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, and C. L. Moore) - You Should Listen to Galneryus
- This Japanese power metal act’s first three albums are tight.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Sally Wiener Grotta: The Winter Boy
- I had gotten a free copy in my World Fantasy Convention 2014 book bag and had the pleasure of meeting Sally Wiener Grotta and attending a reading.
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(filed under entertainment, books, Women’s Liberation, postapocalyptic) - Richard Zane’s Fantasmagoria
- an absolutely gonzo indie novel by an author I knew from Google+
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(filed under entertainment, books, and sci-fi) - Derelict by L. J. Cohen: a YA Worthy of Heinlein
- a review resurrected and expanded from the archives; I had bought the book and gotten my money’s worth
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, sci-fi, and young adult fiction)
ethics
- These Men are No Mere Cowards
- I think Joan Westenberg is being charitable. Mark Zuckerberg is worse than a mere coward. Nor is he alone in his treasonous complicity.
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(filed under politics, ethics, fascism, authoritarianism, and rants) - Why I Don’t Use AI, Particularly Lex
- An answer to Lex’s 2024 letter, “Why Don’t More Writers Use AI?”
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(filed under writing, technology, ethics, and machine learning) - Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
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(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism)
existentialism
- RE: “I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life”
- Vinay Hiremath has a shitload of money and an existential crisis. He doesn’t know how to be content with more than enough.
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(filed under money, existentialism, philosohy, and rants) - Let God Speak, Dammit
- She's a big God; She can use Her words and speak for Herself.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Matters of Faith, Problems of Evil
- It’s a good thing I don’t believe in Hell, for this post alone might earn me a seat.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - Hellbound; or, Curse God and Live
- This K-drama got me thinking about existentialism and the problem of evil.
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(filed under entertainment, television, K-drama, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Glory and Blame
- In which I wax irreligious and take a whack at the problem of evil.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Making Meaning
- inspired by a Gemini post by Case Duckworth
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(filed under recommended, personal, existentialism, Men’s Liberation, and writing)
experiment
- Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley) - Text Mode Weekend, Part Deux
- in which I continue to experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - Text Mode Weekend
- in which I experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments)
experiments
- Text Mode Weekend, Part Deux
- in which I continue to experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - Text Mode Weekend
- in which I experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments)
fascism
- Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - These Men are No Mere Cowards
- I think Joan Westenberg is being charitable. Mark Zuckerberg is worse than a mere coward. Nor is he alone in his treasonous complicity.
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(filed under politics, ethics, fascism, authoritarianism, and rants)
feeds
- Feeds Update
- a brief note concerning my RSS and JSON feeds
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(filed under technology, feeds, and webcraft)
Women’s Liberation
- Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
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(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - A Masculine Mystique
- a much shorter counterpoint to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Your Body, Your Choice, Forever
- Even an asshole like Nick Fuentes might sometimes manage to say something useful.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Wearing Bigotry On One’s Sleeve
- I won’t stop believing that hating people for their race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is fundamentally un-American. Except Nazis. Nazis can fuck right off.
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(filed under rants, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Guys, Let's Talk About Periods
- If we're going to live with women, we can't dismiss this as a women's issue.
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(filed under recommended, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - The Substance (2024)
- Brilliantly written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, with killer performances by Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, movies, and Women’s Liberation) - Psycho Cat Daddy
- Inspired by 'childfree.txt' by Xandra because, despite being a man, I sometimes find myself dealing with this bullshit, too.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Pride Month
- I have my reasons for flying these colors.
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(filed under personal, politics, Gay Defiance, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - On Loneliness
- another take on the ‘male friendship recession’ from a man sick of hearing about it
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(filed under personal, society, politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - The Right to Change Sex
- A long, interesting article in New York Magazine that references Judith Butler and raises a pressing question: why in Hypatia’s holy name are we still pretending that conservatives have valid arguments?
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Concerning Trans Rights
- Most of the rights transgender people want recognized are basic rights of individual self-determination, and I’m OK with that.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
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(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Make Them Reject You
- If you don’t ask for things, and you aren’t willing to simply reach out and take them, you’ll end up with nothing.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, philosophy, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Not For Her Sake
- I had never heard of Alyssa Rosenweig until today, so it’s not for her sake that I vote against Republicans at every opportunity.
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Florida Man Bans Abortion
- I don’t care that his real name is Ron DeSantis.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - Companies Are Failing Everybody
- disputing findings in the most recent Women in the Workplace report
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, workplace, class warfare, and rants) - The Ides of March
- If you ever wanted to have a public toga party while staging a general strike, today’s the day.
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(filed under politics, workplace, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Fertility Crisis? You’re Welcome!
- Has it ever occurred to New York Times columnists that wage slaves don’t breed well in captivity?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, capitalism, and rants) - smile, he said
- it isn’t just women who hear this
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(filed under writing, poetasting, and Women’s Liberation) - Roe v. Wade Was Overturned Today
- Never forgive. Never forget. All conservatives are scum and the government can only recognize rights we’ve always had.
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(filed under rants, politics, and Women’s Liberation) - Playing as a Woman in Final Fantasy XIV
- Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t pretend to be a man in real life.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, gaming, Final Fantasy franchise, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Is the Thought of an Incel a Real Thought?
- I don’t believe incels actually exist. I think their problems are self-inflicted, and I have no sympathy.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Leftist Dating Advice Considered Harmful
- I’ve never gotten effective dating advice from a leftist on the internet. Have you?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - Bostock vs Clayton County, GA
- I’d like to see originalists shit themselves as they read this decision.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Gay Defiance, and rants) - On Allyship
- I’m nobody’s ally, but some of the things demanded of allies are easily granted, so why not?
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Sally Wiener Grotta: The Winter Boy
- I had gotten a free copy in my World Fantasy Convention 2014 book bag and had the pleasure of meeting Sally Wiener Grotta and attending a reading.
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(filed under entertainment, books, Women’s Liberation, postapocalyptic)
fiction
- Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga) - The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga) - The Kingslayer Worm
- a fake news article attributed to Bob Abooey; or, how I snuck a Howard Stern reference into a Randroid forum
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(filed under fiction shitposts)
15th century
- “Ballade of Ladies and Times Gone By”
- a 15th century Middle French poem by François Villon
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(filed under poetry, 15th century, French, and public domain)
filesystem
- A Place for Every Page and Every Post in Its Place
- a guide to creating your website's directory structure, and thus the URLs of your pages and posts
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, filesystem, webcraft, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam)
Final Fantasy franchise
- Burn the Mothers Down
- I finished my first run through Final Fantasy XVI yesterday, and it’s been a ride. Expect spoilers.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, Final Fantasy franchise) - Playing as a Woman in Final Fantasy XIV
- Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t pretend to be a man in real life.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, gaming, Final Fantasy franchise, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Final Fantasy VII Relived
- better than I expected, with some unexpected twists, but don’t pay full price
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, sci-fi, and Final Fantasy franchise)
finance
- Money as a Means and an End
- I won't go full Kantian. I promise. You never go full Kantian.
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(filed under personal, finance, and money)
firearms
- Gun Control
- in which I prove (yet again) that opinions are like assholes
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(filed under politics, firearms, law, opinion, and rants)
First Amendment
- Substack, Freedom of Expression, and Tolerance for the Intolerant
- Substack founder and CEO Chris Best claims credit for helping muckrakers find their voice, but he does the same for Nazis, too.
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(filed under technology, politics, Substack, First Amendment, and rants)
flash fiction
- Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes) - Computer Says, “Fuck You”
- an unrealistically optimistic view of artificial general intelligence...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, flash fiction, and machine learning) - Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
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(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning) - Shadowbanned
- an extremely short flash fiction
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, flash fiction, and politics)
food
- Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism)
Fourth Dominion
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure) - Fourth Dominion
- If there’s ever a remake of Nightbreed, this band should do the soundtrack.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Fourth Dominion)
fragment
- Saturday Scenes (2025-03-15)
- In which Morgan Cooper loses his shirt without setting foot in a casino.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, fragment, Saturday Scenes, and Starbreaker Saga) - Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes) - Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga)
French
- “Ballade of Ladies and Times Gone By”
- a 15th century Middle French poem by François Villon
published on , updated on
(filed under poetry, 15th century, French, and public domain)
games
- SaGa Emerald Beyond
- an introduction to Square-Enix’s weirder RPG franchise and its latest entry, based on the PlayStation 5 demo
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(filed under entertainment, games, JRPGs, and SaGa franchise) - Burn the Mothers Down
- I finished my first run through Final Fantasy XVI yesterday, and it’s been a ride. Expect spoilers.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, Final Fantasy franchise) - Insomnia
- I’m occasionally subject to sleepless nights. It’s usually my own damn fault.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, books, and games) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants) - Final Fantasy VII Relived
- better than I expected, with some unexpected twists, but don’t pay full price
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, sci-fi, and Final Fantasy franchise) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants)
gaming
- They Abandoned Their Children to Fortnite
- If children are obsessed with video games to the point of throwing tantrums when they can’t play, I blame the parents. They failed their children, and these children will spend their lives paying the price of their parents’ negligence.
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(filed under recommended, rants, society, parenting, and gaming) - Persona 4 GOLDEN
- I played the original on the PlayStation 2, and I’m feeling nostalgic.
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(filed under entertainment and gaming) - Random Thoughts on Game Streaming
- if you’re streaming a multiplayer game, please tell me up front so I can drop out
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(filed under entertainment, gaming, and consent) - Playing as a Woman in Final Fantasy XIV
- Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t pretend to be a man in real life.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, gaming, Final Fantasy franchise, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Proprietary Video Games
- a rant on deliberately crippled computers and software
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, gaming, and rants)
Gay Defiance
- Pride Month
- I have my reasons for flying these colors.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, politics, Gay Defiance, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Bostock vs Clayton County, GA
- I’d like to see originalists shit themselves as they read this decision.
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Gay Defiance, and rants)
gender
- My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation)
Genesis
- Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion)
Ghost
- Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion)
Ghostbusters
- Happy Easter
- I don’t really celebrate this holiday since I’m neither a little kid, a parent, or a devout Christian.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, Ghostbusters, religion, sci-fi, and shitposts)
Greek mythology
- Prometheus Unconquered
- a hymn of defiance from the Titan's viewpoint, written on my birthday
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - Too Much Greek Mythology?
- Some recent reading inspired an outpouring of doggerel involving the trickster god Prometheus
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(filed under poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - The Song of Achilles
- reactions to and opinions on the novel by Madeline Miller
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(filed under entertainment, books, Greek mythology, Homer, and Troy)
grief
- My Father is Dead
- The man worked his ass off and he didn’t even get to retire.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death) - What Five Stages of Grief?
- I think I’ve skipped straight to angry acceptance.
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(filed under personal, grief) - My Father Is Dying
- The man I knew is gone, replaced by a broken, bewildered animal.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death)
griftocurrency
- RE: A Key Feature of NFTs Has Completely Broken
- I’m laughing my ass off as I read this tech in The Verge. But my laughter is angry laughter. People really should know better, dammit.
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(filed under technology, griftocurrency, and bullshit) - Web3 is Coming For Authors
- A ‘crypto revolution’ re-imagining books? Count me out.
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(filed under writing, griftocurrency, and bullshit) - Crypto Direct Deposit? WTF?
- The more I learn about cryptocurrency the more closely it resembles a comic book supervillain’s revenge on a world that allowed him to be dateless on prom night.
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(filed under technology and griftocurrency)
hardware
- A Day with a Kensington Expert Mouse
- It's First World Problems all the way down, because even in the future nothing works.
published on , updated on
(filed under technology and hardware) - RE: The Ultimate Linux ARM64 Workstation
- comments on Jason Eckert’s post about running Asahi Linux on a Mac Studio
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(filed under UNIX® and hardware) - My Wife Gave Me an AlphaSmart 3000 for Christmas
- I wasn’t expecting this, and it’s surprisingly handy now that I’ve gotten the hang of using it.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, technology, hardware, writing, and word processing)
health
- Until We Meet Again
- It need not be forever, but I must away for a time.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, writing, webcraft, and health) - Street Justice
- UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fucked around and found out. Too bad he didn’t get a fair trial first, but his abuses are not crimes under the law.
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(filed under politics, healthcare, class warfare, and rants)
healthcare
- Street Justice
- UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fucked around and found out. Too bad he didn’t get a fair trial first, but his abuses are not crimes under the law.
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, healthcare, class warfare, and rants)
heavy metal 🤘
- Three Videos Giving Me Life This Week
- It might be tenebrous life, but it's life nonetheless.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Black Sabbath — Cross Purposes (1994)
- Vocalist Tony Martin deserves more respect from Sabbath fans than he generally gets.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Black Sabbath) - Angra — Angels Cry (1993)
- the Brazilian progressive/power metal band’s first album
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Angra) - 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure) - TANELORN (Strike the Balance)
- lyrics for a fictional single by Crowley’s Thoth for use in my fiction
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, poetasting, lyrics, heavy metal 🤘, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Fourth Dominion
- If there’s ever a remake of Nightbreed, this band should do the soundtrack.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Fourth Dominion) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Oceanborn
- notes on Nightwish’s 1998 symphonic power metal album
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(filed under entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Flaming Telepaths
- hearing this song on the radio back in the day pulled me into Blue Öyster Cult fandom
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Blue Öyster Cult) - Alice Cooper, Live in Hershey
- Catherine and I crossed off an item on my rock ’n roll bucket list last night
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and live music) - Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion) - Scarlet Dorn
- discovering a new (to me) band from Germany
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - Tina Guo
- Classical instruments, heavy metal, and fetishwear? Yes, please.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - Goddammit, Jon Schaffer
- Good thing I never mistook Iced Earth’s founding guitarist for a hero, let alone met the man in person.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, politics, and rants) - You Should Listen to Galneryus
- This Japanese power metal act’s first three albums are tight.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘)
history
- Some Thoughtcrime for 9/11
- They say “never forget”, as if I could. I wasn’t there, but I saw it happen live on the Internet.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, rants, memories, politics, and history) - After 1989: A Trip To Freedom
- notes on the historical concept album by Minutes to Midnight
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and history) - On Religion as Blasphemy
- Suppose we’ve been putting words in God’s mouth the whole damn time?
published on , updated on
(filed under religion and history)
Homer
- The Song of Achilles
- reactions to and opinions on the novel by Madeline Miller
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(filed under entertainment, books, Greek mythology, Homer, and Troy)
housing
- Is Reggaeton at 9am Really That Bad?
- This techie in Argentina seems to think so. He should be grateful it’s not Babymetal at 8am.
published on , updated on
(filed under technology, audio, and housing) - RE: High Property Taxes Are Good, Actually
- commentary on Brock Whittaker’s post on interest rates and real estate speculation
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, taxation, and housing)
H. P. Lovecraft
- Shoggoths Away!
- a song by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
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(filed under entertainment, music, indie rock, and H. P. Lovecraft) - The Racist H. P. Lovecraft vs. Self-Righteous Internet Leftists
- Throwing Lovecraft’s work down the memory hole only harms the living.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, books, H. P. Lovecraft, writing, and rants)
HTML
- CSS Naked Day 2025
- Don’t panic. You are not experiencing technical difficulties.
published on , updated on
(filed under technology, webcraft, HTML, CSS, and minimalism) - Footnotes: No Fun to Create, Either
- Tyler Sticka doesn't like reading footnotes online? Fair enough.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - HTML5 Needs a “partial” Element
- What good are web components if you can’t easily reuse them across multiple pages?
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - RE: All You May Need is HTML
- comments on Fabien Sanglard’s post about how to build a website
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(filed under technology, HTML, and webcraft)
identity
- RE: The Box of Doom
- commentary on Krad’s zine, The Box of Doom
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(filed under personal, politics, and identity)
ignorance
- Techies Who Don't Read Fiction
- It sounds like a promo for Oprah Winfrey's old talk show, but worse horrors await within.
published on , updated on
(filed under rants, politics, Silly Con Valley, and ignorance)
image processing
- B. Bergeron on Progressive JPEGs
- I would do so if WebP, AVIF, or JPEG XL were not available and (in the first two cases) well-supported.
published on , updated on
(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, and image processing) - More Cleanup
- documenting more changes for future references
published on , updated on
(filed under webcraft, CSS, and image processing)
indie rock
- Shoggoths Away!
- a song by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, indie rock, and H. P. Lovecraft)
indieweb
- Reconsidering POSSE
- in which the author introduces himself to people frequenting platforms like Bear Blog and Buttondown
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, indieweb, posse, and webcraft) - Impact
- Brace yourselves. This could get heavy.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, memories, writing, books, and indiewebcarnival) - Speaking English on the Multilingual Web
- The Web is multilingual, even if I'm not, so it's on me to adapt.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, language, philosophy, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Roundup
- Not all of my respondents had a single darkest hour; some still haven't come out the other side yet.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Last Call!
- This is the last call for September 2024 IndieWeb Carnival/Suicide Prevention Month submissions.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair
- In your darkest hour, what saved you? What helped you find the strength to carry on?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Accessibility on the Personal Web
- Is it just about disability accommodation and WCAG/Section 508 compliance?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and indiewebcarnival) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Digital Relationships
- or, How I Met My Wife and Why I Might Not Try That Again
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, online dating, and indiewebcarnival)
IndieWeb Carnival
- Impact
- Brace yourselves. This could get heavy.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, memories, writing, books, and indiewebcarnival) - Speaking English on the Multilingual Web
- The Web is multilingual, even if I'm not, so it's on me to adapt.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, language, philosophy, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Roundup
- Not all of my respondents had a single darkest hour; some still haven't come out the other side yet.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Last Call!
- This is the last call for September 2024 IndieWeb Carnival/Suicide Prevention Month submissions.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair
- In your darkest hour, what saved you? What helped you find the strength to carry on?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Accessibility on the Personal Web
- Is it just about disability accommodation and WCAG/Section 508 compliance?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and indiewebcarnival) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Digital Relationships
- or, How I Met My Wife and Why I Might Not Try That Again
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, online dating, and indiewebcarnival)
introversion
- Fortress of Solitude
- I’m not Superman, or even Doc Savage, but I still need one of my own.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, introversion, and autism) - RE: You Should Go To Conferences
- I know Sophie at localghost is right, but I probably won't take her advice.
published on , updated on
(filed under rants, introversion, workplace, and webcraft)
journalism
- Blood Money? I Don’t Think So
- When did Edward Fine become the Ancient Mariner, anyway?
published on , updated on
(filed under journalism)
JRPGs
- SaGa Emerald Beyond
- an introduction to Square-Enix’s weirder RPG franchise and its latest entry, based on the PlayStation 5 demo
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, games, JRPGs, and SaGa franchise)
Judas Priest
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
K-drama
- Hellbound; or, Curse God and Live
- This K-drama got me thinking about existentialism and the problem of evil.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, television, K-drama, religion, existentialism, and theodicy)
Kydia
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
language
- Speaking English on the Multilingual Web
- The Web is multilingual, even if I'm not, so it's on me to adapt.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, language, philosophy, and indiewebcarnival) - Disdain for Profanity is a Luxury Belief
- prescriptivist boors and bores alike have been looking down on profanity in English since 1066
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, language, profanity, and rants)
law
- Gun Control
- in which I prove (yet again) that opinions are like assholes
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, firearms, law, opinion, and rants)
libertarianism
- In the Hands of Strangers
- I'll admit that I've always been a bit skeptical of democracy, though not to Peter Thiel’s extent.
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, democracy and libertarianism)
GNU/Linux
- RE: The Linux Desktop is Hard to Love
- a reply to Bradley Taunt’s post about the inherent jankiness of desktop GNU/Linux
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - Installing Devuan 3.1 and Migrating to Ceres
- notes I compiled for future reference or in case they help others
published on , updated on
(filed under technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - Macbook Necromancy
- I resurrected an old aluminum unibody Macbook from 2009, and installed Debian.
published on , updated on
(filed under technology and GNU/Linux)
lists
- nine 𝑥 to know me
- Little lists of stuff I’m into. You might like some of these, too.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, entertainment, and lists)
live music
- Alice Cooper, Live in Hershey
- Catherine and I crossed off an item on my rock ’n roll bucket list last night
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and live music)
localization
- Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants)
loneliness
- On Seeking Community
- Been there, done that, still got the therapy receipts from the capitalist death panel...
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, society, community, and loneliness)
Lucifer (band)
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
luddism
- Gloomy Monday Thoughts About Computers
- half-baked and not thoroughly thought-through bathroom musings about computers as weapons in search of civilian applications
published on , updated on
(filed under technology and luddism)
lyrics
- TANELORN (Strike the Balance)
- lyrics for a fictional single by Crowley’s Thoth for use in my fiction
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, poetasting, lyrics, heavy metal 🤘, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles)
machine learning
- Why I Don’t Use AI, Particularly Lex
- An answer to Lex’s 2024 letter, “Why Don’t More Writers Use AI?”
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(filed under writing, technology, ethics, and machine learning) - Computer Says, “Fuck You”
- an unrealistically optimistic view of artificial general intelligence...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, flash fiction, and machine learning) - Writing with Large Language Models
- LLMs were not made with my needs or best interests as a writer or a programmer in mind.
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(filed under writing and machine learning) - Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning)
magic
- Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga)
manifesto
- Personal Web, Personal Sovereignty
- I often feel like I’ve only ever been free on my own website.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, technology, webcraft, manifesto, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - This is Not My Side Hustle
- I got an email from a guy who doesn’t understand why I’d run a website without trying to monetize it. My response became a manifesto. Oops.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, rants, manifesto, and webcraft) - Party Like It’s 1989
- a Web Zero Manifesto
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto) - Personal Websites as Self-Portraiture
- The personal website is both medium and message, a self-publishing technology and a new visual arts medium, and every website is its operator’s self-portrait.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto)
marketing
- Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - Would You Recommend Us to Your Friends?
- This question irks me, and if you’ve seen GoodFellas you know the answer.
published on , updated on
(filed under rants and marketing) - Still Derisive About Marketing
- I’m an old techie and I still despise marketing and its practitioners.
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(filed under rants, marketing, bullshit, and private-sector PSYOP) - Advertising Will Never Be Great
- Shakespeare had the right idea. Never mind the lawyers. The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the advertisers.
published on , updated on
(filed under advertising, marketing, and rants) - Maybe I Don’t WANT To Be Reached?
- I have lots of reasons to avoid social media. Advertising is but one.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, rants, parasocial media, marketing, and advertising)
marriage
- Twenty Years
- I never thought I'd be married, let alone stay that way this long
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, marriage, and memories) - Wife First, or Mother?
- Spoiler warning: I choose my wife. Always.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, marriage) - Just Married!
- I might have had doubts, but I don’t have any regrets.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, and marriage) - Marriage Needs No Defense
- If it takes an act of Congress to preserve an institution, it’s already fucked.
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, marriage, and religion)
Mega Colossus
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
memories
- All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Impact
- Brace yourselves. This could get heavy.
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(filed under personal, memories, writing, books, and indiewebcarnival) - Twenty Years
- I never thought I'd be married, let alone stay that way this long
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(filed under recommended, personal, marriage, and memories) - Some Thoughtcrime for 9/11
- They say “never forget”, as if I could. I wasn’t there, but I saw it happen live on the Internet.
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(filed under personal, rants, memories, politics, and history) - RE: Bullies
- Simone Silvestroni's story reminded me of an experience from my youth.
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(filed under personal, memories, and abuse) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Xennial Memories
- Well, more Generation X than Millennial, but Xennial's the new term for people born in the late 70s and early 80s.
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(filed under personal, memories) - Single? Looking? Why Not Make a /dating Page?
- Instead of using an app that makes more money if you stay single, why not use your website for online dating?
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(filed under recommended, personal, webcraft, memories, and online dating) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - I Want My BSD!
- my autobiography as a Unix fan, with apologies to Dire Straits…
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, technology, and UNIX®) - Turning Forty
- looking back from the top of the hill before I go over it
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(filed under recommended, personal, and memories) - Veteran of the Psychic Wars (2000)
- I had originally written this for Meredith Minter Mixon's long-defunct anti-bullying website, Raven Days
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(filed under personal, memories, abuse)
Men’s Liberation
- Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
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(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - If Liking Some Pop Music is Gay, Then I’ll Be Gay.
- I want to blast Body Count’s “Cop Killer” while gunning down the masculinity police. (This time we get even!)
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - A Masculine Mystique
- a much shorter counterpoint to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Your Body, Your Choice, Forever
- Even an asshole like Nick Fuentes might sometimes manage to say something useful.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Wearing Bigotry On One’s Sleeve
- I won’t stop believing that hating people for their race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is fundamentally un-American. Except Nazis. Nazis can fuck right off.
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(filed under rants, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Guys, Let's Talk About Periods
- If we're going to live with women, we can't dismiss this as a women's issue.
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(filed under recommended, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Psycho Cat Daddy
- Inspired by 'childfree.txt' by Xandra because, despite being a man, I sometimes find myself dealing with this bullshit, too.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Pride Month
- I have my reasons for flying these colors.
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(filed under personal, politics, Gay Defiance, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - On Loneliness
- another take on the ‘male friendship recession’ from a man sick of hearing about it
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(filed under personal, society, politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Concerning Trans Rights
- Most of the rights transgender people want recognized are basic rights of individual self-determination, and I’m OK with that.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
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(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Make Them Reject You
- If you don’t ask for things, and you aren’t willing to simply reach out and take them, you’ll end up with nothing.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, philosophy, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Companies Are Failing Everybody
- disputing findings in the most recent Women in the Workplace report
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, workplace, class warfare, and rants) - The Ides of March
- If you ever wanted to have a public toga party while staging a general strike, today’s the day.
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(filed under politics, workplace, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Fertility Crisis? You’re Welcome!
- Has it ever occurred to New York Times columnists that wage slaves don’t breed well in captivity?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, capitalism, and rants) - Things Do Not Have Friends
- a rant about the so-called male friendship recession
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(filed under rants, society, and Men’s Liberation) - Playing as a Woman in Final Fantasy XIV
- Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t pretend to be a man in real life.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, gaming, Final Fantasy franchise, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Is the Thought of an Incel a Real Thought?
- I don’t believe incels actually exist. I think their problems are self-inflicted, and I have no sympathy.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Does Therapy Work for Men?
- I’m not convinced it does, but I could be wrong. I am, after all, a man.
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(filed under personal and Men’s Liberation) - The Cop in My Head
- All cops are bastards, especially the one in your head.
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(filed under recommended, personal, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Making Meaning
- inspired by a Gemini post by Case Duckworth
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(filed under recommended, personal, existentialism, Men’s Liberation, and writing) - The NoFap Hoax, by an Anonymous Psychology Professor
- I found this on Pastebin and wanted to preserve it.
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(filed under politics, psychology, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants) - I’m a Sodomite and I’m OK
- You’re probably one too, unless you’ve never had recreational sex.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - The Alpha Male Myth
- Alpha wolves don’t exist in the wild, only in captivity. Research has shown this. If alpha men exist at all, it’s because we’ve made a prison of our society.
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(filed under society and Men’s Liberation)
métal hurlant
- The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
Michael Moorcock
- John Daker has seen some shit
- a commentary on the Eternal Champion novels by Michael Moorcock
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(filed under entertainment, books, and Michael Moorcock)
minimalism
- CSS Naked Day 2025
- Don’t panic. You are not experiencing technical difficulties.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, HTML, CSS, and minimalism)
miscellaneous
- From The Archives
- a list of restored posts that might prove of interest to somebody looking for a quick read
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(filed under miscellaneous)
money
- Money as a Means and an End
- I won't go full Kantian. I promise. You never go full Kantian.
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(filed under personal, finance, and money) - RE: “I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life”
- Vinay Hiremath has a shitload of money and an existential crisis. He doesn’t know how to be content with more than enough.
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(filed under money, existentialism, philosohy, and rants)
morgancooper
- Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes)
movies
- Star Trek: Section 31
- It was a romp, and it was fun to see Michelle Yeoh play the heavy, but it doesn't feel like Star Trek.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, sci-fi, and startrek) - How to Ruin Your Franchise
- “How to Train Your Dragon” needs a remaster, not a live-action remake.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, and video) - The Lost Boys (1987)
- Man, peer pressure sure was a bitch in the 1980s.
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(filed under entertainment and movies) - Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
- Director Todd Phillips shows that Arthur Fleck can't live up to the legend he created.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, and movies) - Dracula (1931)
- I wanted to like this classic starring Bela Lugosi, but I can only appreciate it.
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(filed under entertainment and movies) - The Substance (2024)
- Brilliantly written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, with killer performances by Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, movies, and Women’s Liberation) - Happy Easter
- I don’t really celebrate this holiday since I’m neither a little kid, a parent, or a devout Christian.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, Ghostbusters, religion, sci-fi, and shitposts)
Microsoft SQL Server
- Who’s got a foreign key on this table?
- The need to identify dependencies in a database comes up fairly often at my day job.
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(filed under technology, programming, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and my day job)
music
- Three Videos Giving Me Life This Week
- It might be tenebrous life, but it's life nonetheless.
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(filed under personal, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Music Questions Challenge
- This could be fun. If you’re reading this, it’s your turn.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and blogging) - If Liking Some Pop Music is Gay, Then I’ll Be Gay.
- I want to blast Body Count’s “Cop Killer” while gunning down the masculinity police. (This time we get even!)
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Black Sabbath — Cross Purposes (1994)
- Vocalist Tony Martin deserves more respect from Sabbath fans than he generally gets.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Black Sabbath) - Angra — Angels Cry (1993)
- the Brazilian progressive/power metal band’s first album
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Angra) - 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure) - Gimme Back My Headphone Jack!
- I probably won't accept another iPhone unless Apple makes one with a 3.5mm stereo port.
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(filed under personal, technology, audio, and music) - The Sword: “Locomotive Breath”
- This cover’s a pleasant surprise from a band I thought broken up.
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(filed under entertainment, music, and video) - Fourth Dominion
- If there’s ever a remake of Nightbreed, this band should do the soundtrack.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Fourth Dominion) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Oceanborn
- notes on Nightwish’s 1998 symphonic power metal album
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(filed under entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Shoggoths Away!
- a song by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets
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(filed under entertainment, music, indie rock, and H. P. Lovecraft) - Flaming Telepaths
- hearing this song on the radio back in the day pulled me into Blue Öyster Cult fandom
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Blue Öyster Cult) - Our Revels Now Are Ended…
- a bit of Shakespeare that’s been stuck in my head for years
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(filed under writing, music, sci-fi, and characterization) - After 1989: A Trip To Freedom
- notes on the historical concept album by Minutes to Midnight
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and history) - Alice Cooper, Live in Hershey
- Catherine and I crossed off an item on my rock ’n roll bucket list last night
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and live music) - I Just Bought a Piano
- Oh shit, am I petit bourgeois now?
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(filed under personal and music) - Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
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(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion) - Scarlet Dorn
- discovering a new (to me) band from Germany
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - Ticketmaster Delenda Est
- There’s nothing wrong with Ticketmaster that can’t be fixed by razing the corporation to the ground
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(filed under rants, music, politics, and antitrust) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - RE: Thoughts on Silly Hats
- a reply to marginalia.nu’s post on fashion and subculture
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and politics) - Tina Guo
- Classical instruments, heavy metal, and fetishwear? Yes, please.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - Goddammit, Jon Schaffer
- Good thing I never mistook Iced Earth’s founding guitarist for a hero, let alone met the man in person.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, politics, and rants) - Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles) - You Should Listen to Galneryus
- This Japanese power metal act’s first three albums are tight.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘)
nature
- cicadas
- a summer haiku
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(filed under poetasting and nature)
networking
- RE: Naming Computers
- a reply to dctrud’s gemlog
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and networking)
news
- Are the Electors Paying Attention?
- Is it foolish to hope that the Electoral College might ignore the popular vote?
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(filed under politics and news) - Thoughts on the Insurrection
- I am fucking sick of right-wingers and their bullshit.
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(filed under rants, politics, and news)
19th century
- “Dregs”
- a late 19th century poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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(filed under poetry, 19th century, and public domain)
online dating
- Single? Looking? Why Not Make a /dating Page?
- Instead of using an app that makes more money if you stay single, why not use your website for online dating?
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(filed under recommended, personal, webcraft, memories, and online dating) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Digital Relationships
- or, How I Met My Wife and Why I Might Not Try That Again
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, online dating, and indiewebcarnival)
opinion
- Gun Control
- in which I prove (yet again) that opinions are like assholes
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(filed under politics, firearms, law, opinion, and rants) - Street Cultivation
- I had recently read Sarah Lin’s novel on the basis of a recommendation on Reddit.
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and opinion) - Nuke Fossil Fuels from Orbit
- Nuclear power might be our best bet for carbon-free power generation, but fear is the major obstacle.
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(filed under energy and opinion)
parasocial media
- Unplatform
- a new guide to exiting social media, because you have no voice on those platforms and they doesn’t deserve your loyalty
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(filed under technology, parasocial media, and webcraft) - Concerning the TikTok Ban
- I’m actually not concerned at all.
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(filed under parasocial media) - I Would Not Blog
- If I was becoming an adult in 2025, I would not run a personal website. My rebellion would take a different form.
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(filed under personal, privacy, technology, and parasocial media) - Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
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(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - Terminal First
- Inspired by a MelonLand forum post, I explain my design approach. I then go off on a tangent about smartphones, parasocial media, and the use of pop psychology to further fascists’ agendas.
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(filed under personal, technology, psychology, parasocial media, politics, and webcraft) - Blogging Collectives
- Leon Paternoster is curious as to why there aren’t more of these.
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(filed under webcraft and parasocial media) - Sharing Optional
- I once said that integration is not a webmaster's problem. Neither is discoverability.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - The (Plain Old) Web
- I don't need a POSSE, and whether you rebrand ActivityPub as 'the social web' or not, you can keep it.
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(filed under recommended, rants, technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Proprietary Social Media Tags Considered Contemptible
- To suggest that use of Open Graph and Twitter Cards metadata is harmful would be an exercise in belaboring the obvious.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Limited Fediverse Integration
- I don’t own/operate Bridgy Fed or ShareOpenly so use them at your own risk.
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(filed under webcraft and parasocial media) - Contributing to the Cacophony
- I have an account on mastodon.social now, but I’m not leaving libranet.de; it’s a backup/RSS syndication account.
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(filed under parasocial media) - RE: The syndicate
- I generally agree with Jeremy Keith at adactio, but I want to go a bit further.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Zuck’s New Threads Are Lame
- Fuck Mark Zuckerberg and all of his works. Including his new parasocial network, Threads.
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(filed under rants and parasocial media) - They Came From Hacker News
- Going viral on aggregators like Hacker News and Reddit isn’t what it used to be.
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(filed under rants, parasocial media, and technofascism) - Trying Friendica
- My discomfort with the Fediverse might be discomfort with Mastodon itself.
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(filed under parasocial media) - Dammit, Apple
- If your content blocker is going to block images, it should block all images.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - RE: Mastodon Preview Cards
- regarding a post by Jeff Sikes
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(filed under webcraft, rants, and parasocial media) - A Letter to NPR Management
- I’m posting this here on my website so I have a receipt.
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(filed under parasocial media) - I Quit Mastodon Again
- Maybe this time it’ll be permanent…
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(filed under personal, rants, and parasocial media) - RE: Thoughts on RSS
- a reply to Matt Rickard’s thoughts on RSS and the problems it faces
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Maybe I Don’t WANT To Be Reached?
- I have lots of reasons to avoid social media. Advertising is but one.
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(filed under recommended, rants, parasocial media, marketing, and advertising) - YouTube Kids a Vapid Wasteland? No Shit, Sherlock.
- I’m sorry, but when has children’s entertainment in the US not been a vapid wasteland?
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(filed under parasocial media) - Parler Had It Coming
- Their management forgot that there is no cloud; it’s just some other asshole’s computer.
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(filed under technology, politics, rants, and parasocial media) - Relevance Junkies
- I can’t be the only one sick of hearing about J. K. Rowling.
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(filed under rants, politics, and parasocial media) - How to Avoid Reply Guys
- Anything you post in public is fair game.
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(filed under parasocial media) - Why I’m Going to Block You
- I don’t need a reason, but people give me so many good excuses.
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(filed under rants and parasocial media) - Containment, Social Media, and the Dangers of Imitation
- Deplatforming wasn’t a major issue before social media, and it still isn’t even though social media more often creates cacophony than community.
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(filed under recommended, politics, parasocial media, censorship, and rants) - Post-IPO Facebook: Echoing the Dot-Com Boom
- From my archive, a prophecy that went unheard but not unfulfill’d: I saw Facebook’s enshittification coming, but didn’t think it would be this bad.
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(filed under recommended, technology, politics, and parasocial media)
parenting
- Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - They Abandoned Their Children to Fortnite
- If children are obsessed with video games to the point of throwing tantrums when they can’t play, I blame the parents. They failed their children, and these children will spend their lives paying the price of their parents’ negligence.
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(filed under recommended, rants, society, parenting, and gaming)
parody
- Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles)
personal
- About Last Night
- Seems I need to clarify a couple of things for people who are worried about me.
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(filed under personal, webcraft) - Until We Meet Again
- It need not be forever, but I must away for a time.
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(filed under personal, writing, webcraft, and health) - Three Videos Giving Me Life This Week
- It might be tenebrous life, but it's life nonetheless.
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(filed under personal, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
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(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Can You Spell ‘Anomie’ Without AI?
- random thoughts while reading blogs and listening to goth rock
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(filed under personal, philosophy, anomie, ai, and technology) - Reconsidering POSSE
- in which the author introduces himself to people frequenting platforms like Bear Blog and Buttondown
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(filed under personal, indieweb, posse, and webcraft) - All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Money as a Means and an End
- I won't go full Kantian. I promise. You never go full Kantian.
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(filed under personal, finance, and money) - Interactive Fiction?
- The operator of foreverliketh.is asked me if I had ever considered creating my own text-based games. This post is his fault.
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(filed under personal, technology, writing, sci-fi, and webcraft) - Weekend Work
- My day job already owes me for ten hours overtime for which it won’t ever pay, and I have real work to do this weekend.
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(filed under personal, workplace, and rants) - Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Music Questions Challenge
- This could be fun. If you’re reading this, it’s your turn.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and blogging) - “A Man Who Reads”
- A funny thing happened at the bookstore tonight.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, and books) - Ayn Rand
- I sipped the Kool-Aid, but didn’t chug it, and eventually lost my taste for it.
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(filed under books, philosophy, and personal) - If Liking Some Pop Music is Gay, Then I’ll Be Gay.
- I want to blast Body Count’s “Cop Killer” while gunning down the masculinity police. (This time we get even!)
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - I Would Not Blog
- If I was becoming an adult in 2025, I would not run a personal website. My rebellion would take a different form.
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(filed under personal, privacy, technology, and parasocial media) - Anarchism As I Understand It
- I am the enemy within, if you insist on having one. I am nevertheless content to live and let live.
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(filed under personal, philosophy, and anarchism) - Armor Your Heart in Ice and Shadows
- Neither the cold nor the dark need be feared. Make of them instead your refuge in times of need.
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(filed under personal and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Then I shall make noise!
- If expressing myself online is narcissistic garbage, make the most of it and be damned to you.
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(filed under personal, writing, blogging, and Romantic Satanism) - RE: Blog Questions Challenge
- Kev Quirk didn’t summon me for this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Why not, right?
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(filed under personal, technology, blogging, and webcraft) - Running GNU Emacs in the Linux Console
- Only one thing stopped me from doing this before, but no longer.
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(filed under personal, technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - Terminal First
- Inspired by a MelonLand forum post, I explain my design approach. I then go off on a tangent about smartphones, parasocial media, and the use of pop psychology to further fascists’ agendas.
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(filed under personal, technology, psychology, parasocial media, politics, and webcraft) - GNU Emacs From Scratch
- in which our intrepid schmuck nukes his overly complex configuration in favor of one only slightly less recondite
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, configuration, and Emacs) - On Seeking Community
- Been there, done that, still got the therapy receipts from the capitalist death panel...
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(filed under personal, society, community, and loneliness) - Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
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(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism) - A Masculine Mystique
- a much shorter counterpoint to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Gimme Back My Headphone Jack!
- I probably won't accept another iPhone unless Apple makes one with a 3.5mm stereo port.
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(filed under personal, technology, audio, and music) - Wearing Bigotry On One’s Sleeve
- I won’t stop believing that hating people for their race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is fundamentally un-American. Except Nazis. Nazis can fuck right off.
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(filed under rants, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Fortress of Solitude
- I’m not Superman, or even Doc Savage, but I still need one of my own.
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(filed under recommended, personal, introversion, and autism) - Self-Care or Self-Indulgence?
- Buying posters and tinkering with Debian GNU/Linux could be either.
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(filed under personal and UNIX®) - A Shield of Silence
- There must be something I can do to help if we must endure a second Trump administration.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, and resistance) - I Voted (2024)
- Both parties are bad. One party is worse. I vote accordingly.
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(filed under personal, politics, and rants) - Impact
- Brace yourselves. This could get heavy.
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(filed under personal, memories, writing, books, and indiewebcarnival) - Twenty Years
- I never thought I'd be married, let alone stay that way this long
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(filed under recommended, personal, marriage, and memories) - Speaking English on the Multilingual Web
- The Web is multilingual, even if I'm not, so it's on me to adapt.
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(filed under recommended, personal, language, philosophy, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Roundup
- Not all of my respondents had a single darkest hour; some still haven't come out the other side yet.
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(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Last Call!
- This is the last call for September 2024 IndieWeb Carnival/Suicide Prevention Month submissions.
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(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Let God Speak, Dammit
- She's a big God; She can use Her words and speak for Herself.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Psycho Cat Daddy
- Inspired by 'childfree.txt' by Xandra because, despite being a man, I sometimes find myself dealing with this bullshit, too.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Some Thoughtcrime for 9/11
- They say “never forget”, as if I could. I wasn’t there, but I saw it happen live on the Internet.
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(filed under personal, rants, memories, politics, and history) - RE: Bullies
- Simone Silvestroni's story reminded me of an experience from my youth.
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(filed under personal, memories, and abuse) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair
- In your darkest hour, what saved you? What helped you find the strength to carry on?
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(filed under recommended, personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Transgressing the Law of Jante
- Affirmations for those who would defy a law that binds them but does not protect.
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, and society) - Xennial Memories
- Well, more Generation X than Millennial, but Xennial's the new term for people born in the late 70s and early 80s.
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(filed under personal, memories) - Behind the Mask
- I don't talk much about being autistic. I'm going to do that today.
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(filed under recommended, personal and autism) - Single? Looking? Why Not Make a /dating Page?
- Instead of using an app that makes more money if you stay single, why not use your website for online dating?
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(filed under recommended, personal, webcraft, memories, and online dating) - Better Than You
- I don't need to be better than you. I need only be better than who I was.
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(filed under personal) - Another Vacation, Please
- I’ve just had one, but I could use another. I’m still tired, dammit.
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(filed under personal) - People and Blogs
- I was recently asked to contribute to Manuel Moreale’s interview series.
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(filed under personal and webcraft) - “I Know Where You Live...”
- I’ve gotten this threat despite not putting personal info online, though it’s been over a decade.
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(filed under personal, privacy, and security) - Toward a Tao of Vengeance
- cruel thoughts on a sleepless Monday night
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(filed under personal and philosophy) - I Don’t Belong, Either
- a reply to Jackdaw’s post, “Belonging and not”
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(filed under personal) - Pronatalism is White Supremacy
- I had suspected it before; Richard Hanania’s support for this bullshit confirms it.
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(filed under politics, personal, rants, and “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”) - Pride Month
- I have my reasons for flying these colors.
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(filed under personal, politics, Gay Defiance, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - Matters of Faith, Problems of Evil
- It’s a good thing I don’t believe in Hell, for this post alone might earn me a seat.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Indecision 2024
- in which I gripe about electoral politics in the USA
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(filed under personal, politics, and rants) - Touch Grass?
- This phrase has become a pet peeve of mine.
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(filed under personal and philosophy) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - On Loneliness
- another take on the ‘male friendship recession’ from a man sick of hearing about it
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(filed under personal, society, politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Ideal Breakfast?
- I doubt mine is anybody's ideal, but it works for me.
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(filed under personal and cooking) - Personal Web, Personal Sovereignty
- I often feel like I’ve only ever been free on my own website.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, webcraft, manifesto, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Kitty Doesn’t Think Things Through
- Having cats around is one reason I prefer WFH, but they can be silly.
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(filed under personal and cats) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Digital Relationships
- or, How I Met My Wife and Why I Might Not Try That Again
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, online dating, and indiewebcarnival) - nine 𝑥 to know me
- Little lists of stuff I’m into. You might like some of these, too.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, and lists) - A Cure for Atheism
- Why can’t you love God in Her bed?
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(filed under personal, sexuality, and religion) - Concerning Trans Rights
- Most of the rights transgender people want recognized are basic rights of individual self-determination, and I’m OK with that.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Tears in Rain
- I’ve been reading a dying man’s blog post about regret, and I have opinions with which I’d rather not directly burden him.
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(filed under recommended, personal, death, regrets, and rants) - No Bottling the Genie Again
- As much as I sometimes want to become anonymous again online, I suspect that it’s too late for me. Learn from my mistakes.
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(filed under personal, technology, webcraft, privacy, and security) - This is Not My Side Hustle
- I got an email from a guy who doesn’t understand why I’d run a website without trying to monetize it. My response became a manifesto. Oops.
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(filed under recommended, personal, rants, manifesto, and webcraft) - Been Sick
- I have no idea what it was that kicked my ass, but I seem to be getting over it.
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(filed under personal) - Insomnia
- I’m occasionally subject to sleepless nights. It’s usually my own damn fault.
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(filed under personal, entertainment, books, and games) - I Was Banned From Tildes, Too
- Unlike those who protest their innocence, I had it coming.
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(filed under personal and censorship) - My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
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(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Make Them Reject You
- If you don’t ask for things, and you aren’t willing to simply reach out and take them, you’ll end up with nothing.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, philosophy, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - I Just Bought a Piano
- Oh shit, am I petit bourgeois now?
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(filed under personal and music) - Fertility Crisis? You’re Welcome!
- Has it ever occurred to New York Times columnists that wage slaves don’t breed well in captivity?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, capitalism, and rants) - Always Remote
- Regardless of the weather, I will always prefer remote work over on-site.
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(filed under personal, workplace, remote work, and class warfare) - I Quit Mastodon Again
- Maybe this time it’ll be permanent…
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(filed under personal, rants, and parasocial media) - No New Years’ Resolutions in 2023
- they usually go unkept, anyway
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(filed under personal) - Notes on Pancreatic Cancer Screening
- Is early detection of pancreatic cancer even practical for most people?
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(filed under personal) - Paying Strangers to Watch Me Work?
- How stupid can the New York Times get when it comes to remote work?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - RE: The Box of Doom
- commentary on Krad’s zine, The Box of Doom
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(filed under personal, politics, and identity) - RE: Thoughts on Silly Hats
- a reply to marginalia.nu’s post on fashion and subculture
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and politics) - Does Therapy Work for Men?
- I’m not convinced it does, but I could be wrong. I am, after all, a man.
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(filed under personal and Men’s Liberation) - Don’t Worry. I’m Still OK.
- I don’t believe anybody will care, but don’t be surprised if you don’t see me posting much here.
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(filed under personal, privacy, and security) - I Still Don't Have a Career
- I saw this post on Hacker News that struck a nerve, and thought I'd comment on it here.
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(filed under personal and workplace) - Zoom is No Substitute for In-Person Interactions
- Victor Rotariu makes grandiose claims to justify always having your camera on in Zoom. I think his claims are arrant bullshit.
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(filed under personal, remote work, zoom, workplace, and rants) - My Father is Dead
- The man worked his ass off and he didn’t even get to retire.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death) - What Five Stages of Grief?
- I think I’ve skipped straight to angry acceptance.
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(filed under personal, grief) - My Father Is Dying
- The man I knew is gone, replaced by a broken, bewildered animal.
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(filed under personal, grief, cancer, and death) - Wife First, or Mother?
- Spoiler warning: I choose my wife. Always.
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(filed under personal, marriage) - Why Should I Go Back to the Office?
- Also, why do I always get nervous when somebody at work talks about ‘safe spaces’?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - Glory and Blame
- In which I wax irreligious and take a whack at the problem of evil.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - My Wife Gave Me an AlphaSmart 3000 for Christmas
- I wasn’t expecting this, and it’s surprisingly handy now that I’ve gotten the hang of using it.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, hardware, writing, and word processing) - I Voted By Mail
- Any public official who takes voting rights seriously should work toward making voting by mail the default.
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(filed under personal and politics) - The Cop in My Head
- All cops are bastards, especially the one in your head.
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(filed under recommended, personal, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Making Meaning
- inspired by a Gemini post by Case Duckworth
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(filed under recommended, personal, existentialism, Men’s Liberation, and writing) - Leftist Dating Advice Considered Harmful
- I’ve never gotten effective dating advice from a leftist on the internet. Have you?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - What if Internal Wifi Was a Mistake?
- When was the last time you did anything with your computer offline?
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(filed under personal and technology) - I’m a Sodomite and I’m OK
- You’re probably one too, unless you’ve never had recreational sex.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - I Need a Longer Plank
- adventures in home improvement
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(filed under personal) - A Decade in Review
- a summary of what my life has been like this past decade
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(filed under personal) - I Want My BSD!
- my autobiography as a Unix fan, with apologies to Dire Straits…
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, technology, and UNIX®) - Turning Forty
- looking back from the top of the hill before I go over it
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(filed under recommended, personal, and memories) - I Know I’m Fat. Did You Know You’re An Asshole?
- I don’t want or need your acceptance. You can think whatever you want; just don’t make your prejudice my problem.
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(filed under recommended, personal, and rants) - Just Married!
- I might have had doubts, but I don’t have any regrets.
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(filed under recommended, personal, and marriage) - Veteran of the Psychic Wars (2000)
- I had originally written this for Meredith Minter Mixon's long-defunct anti-bullying website, Raven Days
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(filed under personal, memories, abuse)
philosohy
- RE: “I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life”
- Vinay Hiremath has a shitload of money and an existential crisis. He doesn’t know how to be content with more than enough.
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(filed under money, existentialism, philosohy, and rants)
philosophy
- Can You Spell ‘Anomie’ Without AI?
- random thoughts while reading blogs and listening to goth rock
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(filed under personal, philosophy, anomie, ai, and technology) - All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Ayn Rand
- I sipped the Kool-Aid, but didn’t chug it, and eventually lost my taste for it.
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(filed under books, philosophy, and personal) - Anarchism As I Understand It
- I am the enemy within, if you insist on having one. I am nevertheless content to live and let live.
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(filed under personal, philosophy, and anarchism) - Speaking English on the Multilingual Web
- The Web is multilingual, even if I'm not, so it's on me to adapt.
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(filed under recommended, personal, language, philosophy, and indiewebcarnival) - Transgressing the Law of Jante
- Affirmations for those who would defy a law that binds them but does not protect.
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, and society) - Toward a Tao of Vengeance
- cruel thoughts on a sleepless Monday night
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(filed under personal and philosophy) - Touch Grass?
- This phrase has become a pet peeve of mine.
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(filed under personal and philosophy) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Digital Relationships
- or, How I Met My Wife and Why I Might Not Try That Again
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, online dating, and indiewebcarnival) - They Too Are God’s Children
- a reply to Jeremy Sarber’s “The mission field is decorated with rainbow flags”
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(filed under recommended, politics, religion, and philosophy) - Make Them Reject You
- If you don’t ask for things, and you aren’t willing to simply reach out and take them, you’ll end up with nothing.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, philosophy, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Living for Pleasure: an Epicurean Guide to Life
- notes on Emily A. Austin’s book about the Greek philosopher Epicurus and his teachings
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(filed under entertainment, books, and philosophy) - Egoism, Neutrality, and Zeal
- I hate getting the hard sell, especially when you’re trying to sell me a cause.
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(filed under politics, philosophy, and rants) - Harry Frankfurt: On Bullshit
- I’ve some to suspect that understanding and containing the spread of bullshit is the defining issue of our time.
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(filed under philosophy)
phishing
- Nothing Like a Bad Phishing Attempt
- There’s been a phishing scam targeting M&T Bank customers via SMS since 2019.
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(filed under security and phishing)
plot
- Spiral Architect: Patient Privilege
- I should be writing this chapter, but I’m not quite ready yet.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, plot, characterization, worldbuilding, and Spiral Architect) - Spiral Architect: Little Sunshine and more…
- I had written this update late Sunday night, but forgot to upload it for several days.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, plotting, and Spiral Architect)
plotting
- Spiral Architect: Little Sunshine and more…
- I had written this update late Sunday night, but forgot to upload it for several days.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, plotting, and Spiral Architect)
poetasting
- TANELORN (Strike the Balance)
- lyrics for a fictional single by Crowley’s Thoth for use in my fiction
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(filed under writing, poetasting, lyrics, heavy metal 🤘, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Prometheus Unconquered
- a hymn of defiance from the Titan's viewpoint, written on my birthday
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - Too Much Greek Mythology?
- Some recent reading inspired an outpouring of doggerel involving the trickster god Prometheus
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(filed under poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - Little Spoon
- a romantic haiku
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(filed under poetasting) - Boots: a Haiku
- capturing the small soul of an authoritarian bootlicker in seventeen syllables
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(filed under poetasting and class warfare) - Poem for a Mass Resignation
- the Great Resignation deserves a greater poet than I, but this might do for now
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, and workplace) - smile, he said
- it isn’t just women who hear this
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(filed under writing, poetasting, and Women’s Liberation) - silent defiance
- yet another bad haiku
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(filed under writing, poetasting, and Romantic Satanism) - cicadas
- a summer haiku
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(filed under poetasting and nature) - a haiku from my study window
- blame Ghost of Tsushima if you want for this poetic impulse
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(filed under poetasting) - Mortal Glory
- I originally wrote this for Catherine, who suggested I share it on the Randroid forum.
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(filed under poetasting)
poetry
- “Ballade of Ladies and Times Gone By”
- a 15th century Middle French poem by François Villon
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(filed under poetry, 15th century, French, and public domain) - “Dregs”
- a late 19th century poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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(filed under poetry, 19th century, and public domain)
political
- My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
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(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation)
politics
- Time Machine
- I can think of a few people we might remove from history...
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(filed under sci-fi, politics, and rants) - Give Conservatives Something to Cry About
- Calling them ‘Nazis’ or ‘fascists’ only encourages them. Let’s make ‘Republican’ a slur.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Four Words for Jeff Bezos
- “WE DON’T READ WYNAND”
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(filed under politics and books) - God Damn the King
- The only kings a patriotic US citizen should acknowledge are Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
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(filed under politics) - Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - A Long War on Two Fronts
- We can’t post our way out of fascism, but ignoring cyberspace won’t save us either.
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(filed under politics) - Substack, Freedom of Expression, and Tolerance for the Intolerant
- Substack founder and CEO Chris Best claims credit for helping muckrakers find their voice, but he does the same for Nazis, too.
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(filed under technology, politics, Substack, First Amendment, and rants) - These Men are No Mere Cowards
- I think Joan Westenberg is being charitable. Mark Zuckerberg is worse than a mere coward. Nor is he alone in his treasonous complicity.
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(filed under politics, ethics, fascism, authoritarianism, and rants) - Fuck Trump
- This man has no business being President again.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Terminal First
- Inspired by a MelonLand forum post, I explain my design approach. I then go off on a tangent about smartphones, parasocial media, and the use of pop psychology to further fascists’ agendas.
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(filed under personal, technology, psychology, parasocial media, politics, and webcraft) - Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
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(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism) - A Masculine Mystique
- a much shorter counterpoint to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Street Justice
- UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fucked around and found out. Too bad he didn’t get a fair trial first, but his abuses are not crimes under the law.
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(filed under politics, healthcare, class warfare, and rants) - Gun Control
- in which I prove (yet again) that opinions are like assholes
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(filed under politics, firearms, law, opinion, and rants) - Are the Electors Paying Attention?
- Is it foolish to hope that the Electoral College might ignore the popular vote?
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(filed under politics and news) - Your Body, Your Choice, Forever
- Even an asshole like Nick Fuentes might sometimes manage to say something useful.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Wearing Bigotry On One’s Sleeve
- I won’t stop believing that hating people for their race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is fundamentally un-American. Except Nazis. Nazis can fuck right off.
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(filed under rants, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - A Shield of Silence
- There must be something I can do to help if we must endure a second Trump administration.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, and resistance) - Not This Asshole Again
- just what we need, a second term as President for America's bigoted uncle
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(filed under politics and rants) - I Voted (2024)
- Both parties are bad. One party is worse. I vote accordingly.
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(filed under personal, politics, and rants) - Freeing Time From Clocks
- Can some billionaire please bribe Congresscritters to abolish Daylight Savings Time?
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(filed under politics and rants) - Conservatives at a Casino
- You’ve got to let them play, because this is America, but never let them deal.
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(filed under politics and shitposts) - Hitler’s Generals
- Trump wishes he had them. I almost agree, but for different reasons.
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(filed under politics and rants) - RE: The Right to Remain Silent
- I'm tempted to rebel against Kev Quirk's opinion, but it makes sense.
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(filed under politics, rants, and ACAB) - Psycho Cat Daddy
- Inspired by 'childfree.txt' by Xandra because, despite being a man, I sometimes find myself dealing with this bullshit, too.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Some Thoughtcrime for 9/11
- They say “never forget”, as if I could. I wasn’t there, but I saw it happen live on the Internet.
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(filed under personal, rants, memories, politics, and history) - RE: Software Should Cost Money
- I thought it already did. Maybe the real question is 'who should pay'?
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(filed under technology and politics) - Let's Talk About Whiteness
- As far as I'm concerned, being white has been more burden than privilege.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Techies Who Don't Read Fiction
- It sounds like a promo for Oprah Winfrey's old talk show, but worse horrors await within.
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(filed under rants, politics, Silly Con Valley, and ignorance) - Talking Shit About Harry Potter
- I had read these books because my wife was into the movies; being able to trash-talk them is merely a bonus.
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(filed under entertainment, books, politics, and rants) - Pronatalism is White Supremacy
- I had suspected it before; Richard Hanania’s support for this bullshit confirms it.
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(filed under politics, personal, rants, and “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”) - Pride Month
- I have my reasons for flying these colors.
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(filed under personal, politics, Gay Defiance, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Indecision 2024
- in which I gripe about electoral politics in the USA
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(filed under personal, politics, and rants) - On Loneliness
- another take on the ‘male friendship recession’ from a man sick of hearing about it
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(filed under personal, society, politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - The Right to Change Sex
- A long, interesting article in New York Magazine that references Judith Butler and raises a pressing question: why in Hypatia’s holy name are we still pretending that conservatives have valid arguments?
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - A Modest Proposal for MAGA
- If you really want to make America great again, it’s time to eat the rich. Start with Trump.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Hacker News, Again
- What part of “my website, my rules” do some people find difficult to grasp?
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(filed under technology, politics, and rants) - Concerning Trans Rights
- Most of the rights transgender people want recognized are basic rights of individual self-determination, and I’m OK with that.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Isabel Hogben: a Victim of Conservative Grooming
- She’s exactly Bari Weiss’ type: young, naïve, and receptive to authoritarian ideology.
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(filed under politics, rants, pornography, censorship, and sexuality) - Adam Winfield Needs a Mirror
- This little shit doesn’t realize that he’s one of the “small-souled bugmen” he claims to detest.
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(filed under politics, alt reich, and rants) - They Too Are God’s Children
- a reply to Jeremy Sarber’s “The mission field is decorated with rainbow flags”
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(filed under recommended, politics, religion, and philosophy) - Not For Her Sake
- I had never heard of Alyssa Rosenweig until today, so it’s not for her sake that I vote against Republicans at every opportunity.
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Florida Man Bans Abortion
- I don’t care that his real name is Ron DeSantis.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - Parental Rights
- some random thoughts and advice to parents from a childless man
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(filed under politics and abuse) - Companies Are Failing Everybody
- disputing findings in the most recent Women in the Workplace report
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, workplace, class warfare, and rants) - The Ides of March
- If you ever wanted to have a public toga party while staging a general strike, today’s the day.
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(filed under politics, workplace, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Fertility Crisis? You’re Welcome!
- Has it ever occurred to New York Times columnists that wage slaves don’t breed well in captivity?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, capitalism, and rants) - Ticketmaster Delenda Est
- There’s nothing wrong with Ticketmaster that can’t be fixed by razing the corporation to the ground
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(filed under rants, music, politics, and antitrust) - Shadowbanned
- an extremely short flash fiction
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, flash fiction, and politics) - Holy Smoke
- Fuck censorship. Burn all book burners for great justice.
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(filed under books, politics, and rants) - RE: High Property Taxes Are Good, Actually
- commentary on Brock Whittaker’s post on interest rates and real estate speculation
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(filed under politics, taxation, and housing) - Roe v. Wade Was Overturned Today
- Never forgive. Never forget. All conservatives are scum and the government can only recognize rights we’ve always had.
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(filed under rants, politics, and Women’s Liberation) - COVID-19: One Megadeath Later
- a rant about the US’ collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic
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(filed under politics and rants) - RE: The Box of Doom
- commentary on Krad’s zine, The Box of Doom
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(filed under personal, politics, and identity) - Fuck Trump; Let’s Go Brandon
- Deference to authority is un-American. Fuck the President no matter who he is.
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(filed under recommended, politics, and rants) - RE: Thoughts on Silly Hats
- a reply to marginalia.nu’s post on fashion and subculture
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, and politics) - Is the Thought of an Incel a Real Thought?
- I don’t believe incels actually exist. I think their problems are self-inflicted, and I have no sympathy.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - The Cancellation of Emily Wilder by the Cowardly Associated Press
- I love the smells of conservative hypocrisy and butthurt in the morning.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Not This Shit Again; or, ACAB
- I’m tired of hearing about cops going full Dredd and summarily executing civilians.
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(filed under politics, rants, and ACAB) - Then I’m Against You
- Demanding that I choose a side will never work in your favor.
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(filed under rants, politics, and society) - The Wrong Kind of Diversity
- Diversity will be punished unless it can be exploited because under capitalism no lives matter.
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(filed under rants, politics, and workplace) - Unpleasant Truths About Culture Fit
- If somebody wants to discriminate against you when hiring without getting sued, this is the excuse they’ll use.
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(filed under rants, politics, and workplace) - Gina Carano Will Be Fine
- She has fuck you money, and she hasn’t actually been silenced.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Goddammit, Jon Schaffer
- Good thing I never mistook Iced Earth’s founding guitarist for a hero, let alone met the man in person.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, politics, and rants) - Parler Had It Coming
- Their management forgot that there is no cloud; it’s just some other asshole’s computer.
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(filed under technology, politics, rants, and parasocial media) - Thoughts on the Insurrection
- I am fucking sick of right-wingers and their bullshit.
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(filed under rants, politics, and news) - Aspects of Tyranny and Oppression
-
a beast with five faces: church, state, capital, society, and family
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(filed under politics) - I Voted By Mail
- Any public official who takes voting rights seriously should work toward making voting by mail the default.
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(filed under personal and politics) - Cobra Kai at Work
- a defense of wildcat strikes, legality be damned
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(filed under politics, class warfare, workplace, and rants) - Leftist Dating Advice Considered Harmful
- I’ve never gotten effective dating advice from a leftist on the internet. Have you?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - Egoism, Neutrality, and Zeal
- I hate getting the hard sell, especially when you’re trying to sell me a cause.
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(filed under politics, philosophy, and rants) - Bostock vs Clayton County, GA
- I’d like to see originalists shit themselves as they read this decision.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Gay Defiance, and rants) - The NoFap Hoax, by an Anonymous Psychology Professor
- I found this on Pastebin and wanted to preserve it.
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(filed under politics, psychology, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants) - Relevance Junkies
- I can’t be the only one sick of hearing about J. K. Rowling.
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(filed under rants, politics, and parasocial media) - On the Imperative of Niceness
- Stop tone-policing your fellow workers and start organizing general strikes.
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(filed under politics, workplace, and rants) - To the Democratic National Committee
- A little rant against the Democratic party leadership
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(filed under politics, elections, and rants) - I’m a Sodomite and I’m OK
- You’re probably one too, unless you’ve never had recreational sex.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - Real Sex Education
- Compared to what I got in the 1990s, PornHub was an improvement.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, and sexuality) - Containment, Social Media, and the Dangers of Imitation
- Deplatforming wasn’t a major issue before social media, and it still isn’t even though social media more often creates cacophony than community.
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(filed under recommended, politics, parasocial media, censorship, and rants) - On Allyship
- I’m nobody’s ally, but some of the things demanded of allies are easily granted, so why not?
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - The Truth About US Taxes?
- I’m not convinced that taxes are necessary to finance government.
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(filed under politics) - Worldbuilding: Mutual Aid vs the Welfare State
- I’m not an expert in economics or in political economy, but the more I tried to think things through the more impossible it became to justify writing a straightforward right-libertarian utopia.
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(filed under writing, politics, economics, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Post-IPO Facebook: Echoing the Dot-Com Boom
- From my archive, a prophecy that went unheard but not unfulfill’d: I saw Facebook’s enshittification coming, but didn’t think it would be this bad.
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(filed under recommended, technology, politics, and parasocial media) - Marriage Needs No Defense
- If it takes an act of Congress to preserve an institution, it’s already fucked.
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(filed under politics, marriage, and religion) - In the Hands of Strangers
- I'll admit that I've always been a bit skeptical of democracy, though not to Peter Thiel’s extent.
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(filed under politics, democracy and libertarianism) - One Nation Above God
- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
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(filed under politics, religion, atheism, secularism, and rants)
pornography
- Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
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(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Isabel Hogben: a Victim of Conservative Grooming
- She’s exactly Bari Weiss’ type: young, naïve, and receptive to authoritarian ideology.
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(filed under politics, rants, pornography, censorship, and sexuality)
posse
- Reconsidering POSSE
- in which the author introduces himself to people frequenting platforms like Bear Blog and Buttondown
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(filed under personal, indieweb, posse, and webcraft)
postapocalyptic
- Sally Wiener Grotta: The Winter Boy
- I had gotten a free copy in my World Fantasy Convention 2014 book bag and had the pleasure of meeting Sally Wiener Grotta and attending a reading.
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(filed under entertainment, books, Women’s Liberation, postapocalyptic)
privacy
- I Would Not Blog
- If I was becoming an adult in 2025, I would not run a personal website. My rebellion would take a different form.
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(filed under personal, privacy, technology, and parasocial media) - RE: On Email Addresses (Again)
- some thoughts and opinions about hiding one's contact details
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and privacy) - “I Know Where You Live...”
- I’ve gotten this threat despite not putting personal info online, though it’s been over a decade.
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(filed under personal, privacy, and security) - No Bottling the Genie Again
- As much as I sometimes want to become anonymous again online, I suspect that it’s too late for me. Learn from my mistakes.
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(filed under personal, technology, webcraft, privacy, and security) - Don’t Worry. I’m Still OK.
- I don’t believe anybody will care, but don’t be surprised if you don’t see me posting much here.
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(filed under personal, privacy, and security)
private-sector PSYOP
- Still Derisive About Marketing
- I’m an old techie and I still despise marketing and its practitioners.
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(filed under rants, marketing, bullshit, and private-sector PSYOP)
profanity
- Disdain for Profanity is a Luxury Belief
- prescriptivist boors and bores alike have been looking down on profanity in English since 1066
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(filed under recommended, language, profanity, and rants)
programming
- Who’s got a foreign key on this table?
- The need to identify dependencies in a database comes up fairly often at my day job.
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(filed under technology, programming, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and my day job) - RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Developer Experience: JSON vs XML
- Are XML feeds like RSS and Atom really that hard to work with in JavaScript?
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Cathedrals on Quicksand
- Some thoughts on a recent Minutes to Midnight blog post from the opposite perspective.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - RE: Makefiles for Fun and Profit
- commentary on a post by James Tomasino
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and programming) - Microservice Architecture is a Recipe for Pain
- You’d think that having grown up Catholic I’d be masochistic enough to like developing microservices.
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(filed under technology and programming) - Programmers and Grimoires
- Do not begrudge developers and system administrators their references unless you crave downtime, breakage, data corruption, and other dire consequences…
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(filed under technology and programming) - Learning Vue
- in which I set about adding another tool to my kit to stay employable
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Little Changes
- After inspiring more changes in Bradley Taunt’s pblog, I made further tweaks for my own use.
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(filed under webcraft and programming) - Creating YouTube Thumbnails with a Shell Script
- It’s almost as good as an embed, but without Google’s spyware.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, command line, shell scripting, and programming) - RE: Soft Deletion Probably Isn’t Worth It
- a reply to Brandur’s post about soft deletion in databases
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(filed under technology, databases, and programming) - Extending pblog
- Some of my extensions to Bradley Taunt’s pblog aren’t necessarily suitable for submission as a patch, but I wanted to document them here.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Using GNU Recutils to Generate a Playlist Feed
- I ended up not doing this, but I don’t want to delete this post.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, databases, and programming) - Going Dark (Building A Shinobi Site)
- documenting the process by which I rebuilt my website (yet again)
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, and programming) - Programmer Passion Considered Harmful
- I might have been drunk when I posted this on Medium, but I meant it and I stand by it today.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants)
Prometheus
- Prometheus Unconquered
- a hymn of defiance from the Titan's viewpoint, written on my birthday
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - Too Much Greek Mythology?
- Some recent reading inspired an outpouring of doggerel involving the trickster god Prometheus
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(filed under poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus)
prompts
- Writing Wonders: August 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Writing Wonders: July 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Writing Wonders: June 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin)
“Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”
- Psycho Cat Daddy
- Inspired by 'childfree.txt' by Xandra because, despite being a man, I sometimes find myself dealing with this bullshit, too.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Pronatalism is White Supremacy
- I had suspected it before; Richard Hanania’s support for this bullshit confirms it.
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(filed under politics, personal, rants, and “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”)
psychology
- All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Terminal First
- Inspired by a MelonLand forum post, I explain my design approach. I then go off on a tangent about smartphones, parasocial media, and the use of pop psychology to further fascists’ agendas.
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(filed under personal, technology, psychology, parasocial media, politics, and webcraft) - The NoFap Hoax, by an Anonymous Psychology Professor
- I found this on Pastebin and wanted to preserve it.
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(filed under politics, psychology, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
public domain
- “Ballade of Ladies and Times Gone By”
- a 15th century Middle French poem by François Villon
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(filed under poetry, 15th century, French, and public domain) - “Dregs”
- a late 19th century poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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(filed under poetry, 19th century, and public domain)
published
- The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
publishing
- I Finally Got Without Bloodshed Taken Down
- Most writers would lament the removal of their first novel from Amazon. For me it’s victory and liberation, but now I must decide what to do next.
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(filed under writing, books, publishing, and Without Bloodshed)
punishment
- Neil Gaiman
- The victims’ allegations should be investigated. He should stand trial. If convicted, he should lose everything but his life.
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(filed under crime and punishment)
rants
- Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
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(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Time Machine
- I can think of a few people we might remove from history...
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(filed under sci-fi, politics, and rants) - Give Conservatives Something to Cry About
- Calling them ‘Nazis’ or ‘fascists’ only encourages them. Let’s make ‘Republican’ a slur.
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(filed under politics and rants) - All Anti-Vaxxers Lie
- Even if vaccines did cause autism, I'd rather be autistic than dead.
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(filed under science and rants) - Weekend Work
- My day job already owes me for ten hours overtime for which it won’t ever pay, and I have real work to do this weekend.
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(filed under personal, workplace, and rants) - Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Substack, Freedom of Expression, and Tolerance for the Intolerant
- Substack founder and CEO Chris Best claims credit for helping muckrakers find their voice, but he does the same for Nazis, too.
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(filed under technology, politics, Substack, First Amendment, and rants) - These Men are No Mere Cowards
- I think Joan Westenberg is being charitable. Mark Zuckerberg is worse than a mere coward. Nor is he alone in his treasonous complicity.
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(filed under politics, ethics, fascism, authoritarianism, and rants) - Fuck Trump
- This man has no business being President again.
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(filed under politics and rants) - If Liking Some Pop Music is Gay, Then I’ll Be Gay.
- I want to blast Body Count’s “Cop Killer” while gunning down the masculinity police. (This time we get even!)
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(filed under personal, entertainment, music, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Read for Pleasure, or Not At All!
- If you need permission to put aside or refuse to read books that don’t appeal, you have mine.
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(filed under entertainment, books, reading and rants) - Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
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(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - RE: “I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life”
- Vinay Hiremath has a shitload of money and an existential crisis. He doesn’t know how to be content with more than enough.
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(filed under money, existentialism, philosohy, and rants) - I don’t blame Cathode Ray Dude at all, really.
- Making your own website IS hard. Modern tools are shit. I have no good answers.
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(filed under webcraft, UNIX®, rants, and technology) - Street Justice
- UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fucked around and found out. Too bad he didn’t get a fair trial first, but his abuses are not crimes under the law.
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(filed under politics, healthcare, class warfare, and rants) - Gun Control
- in which I prove (yet again) that opinions are like assholes
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(filed under politics, firearms, law, opinion, and rants) - Your Body, Your Choice, Forever
- Even an asshole like Nick Fuentes might sometimes manage to say something useful.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Wearing Bigotry On One’s Sleeve
- I won’t stop believing that hating people for their race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is fundamentally un-American. Except Nazis. Nazis can fuck right off.
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(filed under rants, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - A Shield of Silence
- There must be something I can do to help if we must endure a second Trump administration.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, and resistance) - Not This Asshole Again
- just what we need, a second term as President for America's bigoted uncle
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(filed under politics and rants) - I Voted (2024)
- Both parties are bad. One party is worse. I vote accordingly.
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(filed under personal, politics, and rants) - Freeing Time From Clocks
- Can some billionaire please bribe Congresscritters to abolish Daylight Savings Time?
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(filed under politics and rants) - RE: Finding the Authentic Web
- If you want to find the authentic web, you’ve got to think independently.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and rants) - Using a Personal Laptop at Work?
- It's not wrong. It's just stupid.
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(filed under rants, workplace, and security) - NVDA; or, The Punishment Detail
- It's called 'work' because all the other four letter words are taken.
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(filed under technology, workplace, webcraft, and rants) - Hitler’s Generals
- Trump wishes he had them. I almost agree, but for different reasons.
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(filed under politics and rants) - RE: The Static Site Paradox
- I think Loris Cro's first mistake is in assuming normal people have websites.
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(filed under rants and webcraft) - The (Plain Old) Web
- I don't need a POSSE, and whether you rebrand ActivityPub as 'the social web' or not, you can keep it.
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(filed under recommended, rants, technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - RE: The Right to Remain Silent
- I'm tempted to rebel against Kev Quirk's opinion, but it makes sense.
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(filed under politics, rants, and ACAB) - Psycho Cat Daddy
- Inspired by 'childfree.txt' by Xandra because, despite being a man, I sometimes find myself dealing with this bullshit, too.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - RE: You Should Go To Conferences
- I know Sophie at localghost is right, but I probably won't take her advice.
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(filed under rants, introversion, workplace, and webcraft) - Some Thoughtcrime for 9/11
- They say “never forget”, as if I could. I wasn’t there, but I saw it happen live on the Internet.
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(filed under personal, rants, memories, politics, and history) - Has the IndieWeb Become Irrelevant?
- No, it was always irrelevant if you had your own domain and site. Everything else is optional.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - Let's Talk About Whiteness
- As far as I'm concerned, being white has been more burden than privilege.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Techies Who Don't Read Fiction
- It sounds like a promo for Oprah Winfrey's old talk show, but worse horrors await within.
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(filed under rants, politics, Silly Con Valley, and ignorance) - Personal Websites are for Personal Use
- Commercial use — such as listing in Google, linking to from Reddit, or scraping for LLM training data — is not necessarily welcome.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Talking Shit About Harry Potter
- I had read these books because my wife was into the movies; being able to trash-talk them is merely a bonus.
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(filed under entertainment, books, politics, and rants) - robots.txt: the Nuclear Option
- Corporate scraping of personal websites has exceeded the Ripley Threshold.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Pronatalism is White Supremacy
- I had suspected it before; Richard Hanania’s support for this bullshit confirms it.
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(filed under politics, personal, rants, and “Oh, no! Moloch has a hungry!”) - Indecision 2024
- in which I gripe about electoral politics in the USA
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(filed under personal, politics, and rants) - No Glove, No Love
- I use an ad blocker for the same reason I wear condoms.
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(filed under technology, rants, and advertising) - On Loneliness
- another take on the ‘male friendship recession’ from a man sick of hearing about it
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(filed under personal, society, politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - A Modest Proposal for MAGA
- If you really want to make America great again, it’s time to eat the rich. Start with Trump.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Hacker News, Again
- What part of “my website, my rules” do some people find difficult to grasp?
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(filed under technology, politics, and rants) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - Your Site, Your Rules, Your Way
- This is me sticking up for the “soydevs” who don’t build their websites the way other people think they should, because tech prescriptivists who indulge in gatekeeping are authoritarian scum.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - Isabel Hogben: a Victim of Conservative Grooming
- She’s exactly Bari Weiss’ type: young, naïve, and receptive to authoritarian ideology.
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(filed under politics, rants, pornography, censorship, and sexuality) - RE: Why Are Websites Embarrassing
- some commentary on a post about egregiously bad web design by Robin Rendle and a rant about modern web development that you’ve probably read before
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(filed under rants and webcraft) - Tears in Rain
- I’ve been reading a dying man’s blog post about regret, and I have opinions with which I’d rather not directly burden him.
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(filed under recommended, personal, death, regrets, and rants) - Adam Winfield Needs a Mirror
- This little shit doesn’t realize that he’s one of the “small-souled bugmen” he claims to detest.
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(filed under politics, alt reich, and rants) - Cathedrals on Quicksand
- Some thoughts on a recent Minutes to Midnight blog post from the opposite perspective.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - Web Environment Integrity: Expectations, Reality, and Entitlement
- Google’s latest attempt to respectively exploit and protect its dominance in the browser and advertising markets puts the company’s effrontery on full display and cries out for the sort of antitrust enforcement not seen since Uncle Sam brought the hammer down on AT\&T.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, bullshit, and rants) - Silence Implies Consent
- My efforts to thwart commercial use of my website may come to nothing, but I will make them anyway for my own sake.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - They Abandoned Their Children to Fortnite
- If children are obsessed with video games to the point of throwing tantrums when they can’t play, I blame the parents. They failed their children, and these children will spend their lives paying the price of their parents’ negligence.
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(filed under recommended, rants, society, parenting, and gaming) - This is Not My Side Hustle
- I got an email from a guy who doesn’t understand why I’d run a website without trying to monetize it. My response became a manifesto. Oops.
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(filed under recommended, personal, rants, manifesto, and webcraft) - Zuck’s New Threads Are Lame
- Fuck Mark Zuckerberg and all of his works. Including his new parasocial network, Threads.
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(filed under rants and parasocial media) - RE: Acting Your Wage Will Atrophy Your Abilities
- commentary on a post by Ruby On Rails creator, 37signals founder, and professional idiot David Heinemeier Hansson
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(filed under rants, workplace, and bullshit) - They Came From Hacker News
- Going viral on aggregators like Hacker News and Reddit isn’t what it used to be.
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(filed under rants, parasocial media, and technofascism) - Would You Recommend Us to Your Friends?
- This question irks me, and if you’ve seen GoodFellas you know the answer.
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(filed under rants and marketing) - My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
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(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Not For Her Sake
- I had never heard of Alyssa Rosenweig until today, so it’s not for her sake that I vote against Republicans at every opportunity.
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Dammit, Apple
- If your content blocker is going to block images, it should block all images.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - RE: Mastodon Preview Cards
- regarding a post by Jeff Sikes
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(filed under webcraft, rants, and parasocial media) - Disdain for Profanity is a Luxury Belief
- prescriptivist boors and bores alike have been looking down on profanity in English since 1066
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(filed under recommended, language, profanity, and rants) - Florida Man Bans Abortion
- I don’t care that his real name is Ron DeSantis.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - Preventing LLM Scraping
- I don’t want my writing used to train a large language model.
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(filed under technology, rants, and webcraft) - First World Problems
- in which I gripe about self-inflicted annoyances I face as a webmaster
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(filed under webcraft and rants) - Companies Are Failing Everybody
- disputing findings in the most recent Women in the Workplace report
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, workplace, class warfare, and rants) - Fertility Crisis? You’re Welcome!
- Has it ever occurred to New York Times columnists that wage slaves don’t breed well in captivity?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, capitalism, and rants) - Ticketmaster Delenda Est
- There’s nothing wrong with Ticketmaster that can’t be fixed by razing the corporation to the ground
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(filed under rants, music, politics, and antitrust) - I Quit Mastodon Again
- Maybe this time it’ll be permanent…
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(filed under personal, rants, and parasocial media) - RE: Does a Blog Need to Integrate?
- blogs with RSS/Atom/JSON feeds are already interoperable
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(filed under recommended, technology, rants, and webcraft) - Salary Range or GTFO
- concerning pay transparency in tech recruiting and its lack thereof
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(filed under rants and workplace) - Things Do Not Have Friends
- a rant about the so-called male friendship recession
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(filed under rants, society, and Men’s Liberation) - Holy Smoke
- Fuck censorship. Burn all book burners for great justice.
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(filed under books, politics, and rants) - Still Derisive About Marketing
- I’m an old techie and I still despise marketing and its practitioners.
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(filed under rants, marketing, bullshit, and private-sector PSYOP) - An Archetypical Tech Recruiter
- I’m almost of sick of these people as I am of self-righteous terminally-online types.
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(filed under technology, workplace, and rants) - Paying Strangers to Watch Me Work?
- How stupid can the New York Times get when it comes to remote work?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - Roe v. Wade Was Overturned Today
- Never forgive. Never forget. All conservatives are scum and the government can only recognize rights we’ve always had.
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(filed under rants, politics, and Women’s Liberation) - COVID-19: One Megadeath Later
- a rant about the US’ collective response to the COVID-19 pandemic
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(filed under politics and rants) - Podcasts Have Always Sucked
- Transcript or GTFO. I can read faster than you assholes can talk.
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(filed under technology and rants) - A Reality Where HTML Never Existed
- Bradley Taunt thinks CSS and JavaScript were a mistake. I go further.
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(filed under rants and webcraft) - Fuck Trump; Let’s Go Brandon
- Deference to authority is un-American. Fuck the President no matter who he is.
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(filed under recommended, politics, and rants) - Literature Ain’t Burger King
- Want to have it your way? Write it yourself.
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(filed under recommended, writing, and rants) - Of Course I Worked There. So What?
- a rant about the New York Times’ anti-remote work propaganda
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(filed under rants, workplace, and remote work) - Advertising Will Never Be Great
- Shakespeare had the right idea. Never mind the lawyers. The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the advertisers.
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(filed under advertising, marketing, and rants) - Zoom is No Substitute for In-Person Interactions
- Victor Rotariu makes grandiose claims to justify always having your camera on in Zoom. I think his claims are arrant bullshit.
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(filed under personal, remote work, zoom, workplace, and rants) - The Cancellation of Emily Wilder by the Cowardly Associated Press
- I love the smells of conservative hypocrisy and butthurt in the morning.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Why Should I Go Back to the Office?
- Also, why do I always get nervous when somebody at work talks about ‘safe spaces’?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - Not This Shit Again; or, ACAB
- I’m tired of hearing about cops going full Dredd and summarily executing civilians.
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(filed under politics, rants, and ACAB) - Then I’m Against You
- Demanding that I choose a side will never work in your favor.
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(filed under rants, politics, and society) - Maybe I Don’t WANT To Be Reached?
- I have lots of reasons to avoid social media. Advertising is but one.
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(filed under recommended, rants, parasocial media, marketing, and advertising) - It’s Just Some Other Asshole’s Computer
- Is this the curse of knowledge, or merely pride?
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(filed under technology and rants) - The Wrong Kind of Diversity
- Diversity will be punished unless it can be exploited because under capitalism no lives matter.
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(filed under rants, politics, and workplace) - Unpleasant Truths About Culture Fit
- If somebody wants to discriminate against you when hiring without getting sued, this is the excuse they’ll use.
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(filed under rants, politics, and workplace) - Gina Carano Will Be Fine
- She has fuck you money, and she hasn’t actually been silenced.
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(filed under politics and rants) - Goddammit, Jon Schaffer
- Good thing I never mistook Iced Earth’s founding guitarist for a hero, let alone met the man in person.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, politics, and rants) - Parler Had It Coming
- Their management forgot that there is no cloud; it’s just some other asshole’s computer.
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(filed under technology, politics, rants, and parasocial media) - Thoughts on the Insurrection
- I am fucking sick of right-wingers and their bullshit.
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(filed under rants, politics, and news) - Cobra Kai at Work
- a defense of wildcat strikes, legality be damned
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(filed under politics, class warfare, workplace, and rants) - The Cop in My Head
- All cops are bastards, especially the one in your head.
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(filed under recommended, personal, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Leftist Dating Advice Considered Harmful
- I’ve never gotten effective dating advice from a leftist on the internet. Have you?
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(filed under personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, and rants) - Egoism, Neutrality, and Zeal
- I hate getting the hard sell, especially when you’re trying to sell me a cause.
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(filed under politics, philosophy, and rants) - Bostock vs Clayton County, GA
- I’d like to see originalists shit themselves as they read this decision.
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Gay Defiance, and rants) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants) - Relevance Junkies
- I can’t be the only one sick of hearing about J. K. Rowling.
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(filed under rants, politics, and parasocial media) - On the Imperative of Niceness
- Stop tone-policing your fellow workers and start organizing general strikes.
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(filed under politics, workplace, and rants) - The Racist H. P. Lovecraft vs. Self-Righteous Internet Leftists
- Throwing Lovecraft’s work down the memory hole only harms the living.
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(filed under entertainment, books, H. P. Lovecraft, writing, and rants) - To the Democratic National Committee
- A little rant against the Democratic party leadership
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(filed under politics, elections, and rants) - Vocabulary Lessons
- There are plenty of good reasons to avoid the use of ‘niggardly’ that online leftists don’t cite.
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(filed under writing and rants) - Why I’m Going to Block You
- I don’t need a reason, but people give me so many good excuses.
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(filed under rants and parasocial media) - Real Sex Education
- Compared to what I got in the 1990s, PornHub was an improvement.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, and sexuality) - Containment, Social Media, and the Dangers of Imitation
- Deplatforming wasn’t a major issue before social media, and it still isn’t even though social media more often creates cacophony than community.
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(filed under recommended, politics, parasocial media, censorship, and rants) - Proprietary Video Games
- a rant on deliberately crippled computers and software
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(filed under entertainment, gaming, and rants) - On Allyship
- I’m nobody’s ally, but some of the things demanded of allies are easily granted, so why not?
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Leaving the Cult; or, Getting Free of Toxic Tech Culture
- This post is absofuckinlutely brilliant and you should have read it last week.
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(filed under technology, workplace, and rants) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
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(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants) - I Know I’m Fat. Did You Know You’re An Asshole?
- I don’t want or need your acceptance. You can think whatever you want; just don’t make your prejudice my problem.
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(filed under recommended, personal, and rants) - Programmer Passion Considered Harmful
- I might have been drunk when I posted this on Medium, but I meant it and I stand by it today.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - Fighting the Crab Bucket Mentality
- I must have been feeling particularly self-righteous when I wrote this.
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(filed under rants) - I Know What I Need
- I dislike being commanded, and being told that I need to do something is particularly grating.
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(filed under workplace and rants) - Not In My Contract
- Do the job. Get paid. Socializing with coworkers costs extra, and your boss isn’t paying.
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(filed under workplace and rants) - One Nation Above God
- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
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(filed under politics, religion, atheism, secularism, and rants)
reading
- Read for Pleasure, or Not At All!
- If you need permission to put aside or refuse to read books that don’t appeal, you have mine.
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(filed under entertainment, books, reading and rants)
recommended
- GNU Emacs From Scratch
- in which our intrepid schmuck nukes his overly complex configuration in favor of one only slightly less recondite
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, configuration, and Emacs) - Your Body, Your Choice, Forever
- Even an asshole like Nick Fuentes might sometimes manage to say something useful.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Fortress of Solitude
- I’m not Superman, or even Doc Savage, but I still need one of my own.
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(filed under recommended, personal, introversion, and autism) - Twenty Years
- I never thought I'd be married, let alone stay that way this long
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(filed under recommended, personal, marriage, and memories) - Guys, Let's Talk About Periods
- If we're going to live with women, we can't dismiss this as a women's issue.
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(filed under recommended, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Speaking English on the Multilingual Web
- The Web is multilingual, even if I'm not, so it's on me to adapt.
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(filed under recommended, personal, language, philosophy, and indiewebcarnival) - Recursive Bulk File Renaming
- a HOWTO for renaming a bunch of files in a directory tree in a terminal with UNIX tools
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(filed under recommended, technology, and UNIX®) - Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
- Director Todd Phillips shows that Arthur Fleck can't live up to the legend he created.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, and movies) - The (Plain Old) Web
- I don't need a POSSE, and whether you rebrand ActivityPub as 'the social web' or not, you can keep it.
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(filed under recommended, rants, technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Let God Speak, Dammit
- She's a big God; She can use Her words and speak for Herself.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - The Substance (2024)
- Brilliantly written and directed by Coralie Fargeat, with killer performances by Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, movies, and Women’s Liberation) - Prometheus Unconquered
- a hymn of defiance from the Titan's viewpoint, written on my birthday
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - Fourth Dominion
- If there’s ever a remake of Nightbreed, this band should do the soundtrack.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Fourth Dominion) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair
- In your darkest hour, what saved you? What helped you find the strength to carry on?
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(filed under recommended, personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Transgressing the Law of Jante
- Affirmations for those who would defy a law that binds them but does not protect.
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, and society) - Has the IndieWeb Become Irrelevant?
- No, it was always irrelevant if you had your own domain and site. Everything else is optional.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - Behind the Mask
- I don't talk much about being autistic. I'm going to do that today.
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(filed under recommended, personal and autism) - Single? Looking? Why Not Make a /dating Page?
- Instead of using an app that makes more money if you stay single, why not use your website for online dating?
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(filed under recommended, personal, webcraft, memories, and online dating) - Footnotes: No Fun to Create, Either
- Tyler Sticka doesn't like reading footnotes online? Fair enough.
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - Matters of Faith, Problems of Evil
- It’s a good thing I don’t believe in Hell, for this post alone might earn me a seat.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Accessibility on the Personal Web
- Is it just about disability accommodation and WCAG/Section 508 compliance?
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and indiewebcarnival) - Personal Web, Personal Sovereignty
- I often feel like I’ve only ever been free on my own website.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, webcraft, manifesto, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Digital Relationships
- or, How I Met My Wife and Why I Might Not Try That Again
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, online dating, and indiewebcarnival) - Concerning Trans Rights
- Most of the rights transgender people want recognized are basic rights of individual self-determination, and I’m OK with that.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - HTML5 Needs a “partial” Element
- What good are web components if you can’t easily reuse them across multiple pages?
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - Your Site, Your Rules, Your Way
- This is me sticking up for the “soydevs” who don’t build their websites the way other people think they should, because tech prescriptivists who indulge in gatekeeping are authoritarian scum.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - Tears in Rain
- I’ve been reading a dying man’s blog post about regret, and I have opinions with which I’d rather not directly burden him.
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(filed under recommended, personal, death, regrets, and rants) - Cathedrals on Quicksand
- Some thoughts on a recent Minutes to Midnight blog post from the opposite perspective.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - They Abandoned Their Children to Fortnite
- If children are obsessed with video games to the point of throwing tantrums when they can’t play, I blame the parents. They failed their children, and these children will spend their lives paying the price of their parents’ negligence.
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(filed under recommended, rants, society, parenting, and gaming) - This is Not My Side Hustle
- I got an email from a guy who doesn’t understand why I’d run a website without trying to monetize it. My response became a manifesto. Oops.
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(filed under recommended, personal, rants, manifesto, and webcraft) - Flaming Telepaths
- hearing this song on the radio back in the day pulled me into Blue Öyster Cult fandom
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and Blue Öyster Cult) - They Too Are God’s Children
- a reply to Jeremy Sarber’s “The mission field is decorated with rainbow flags”
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(filed under recommended, politics, religion, and philosophy) - Burn the Mothers Down
- I finished my first run through Final Fantasy XVI yesterday, and it’s been a ride. Expect spoilers.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, Final Fantasy franchise) - My Manhood, My Property, My Way
- a rant and a meditation on biological sex, socially-defined gender, individual choice, and existentialism with music by Diamond Head, The Sisters of Mercy, Annihilator, and Frank Sinatra
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(filed under recommended, personal, political, rants, gender, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Make Them Reject You
- If you don’t ask for things, and you aren’t willing to simply reach out and take them, you’ll end up with nothing.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, philosophy, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - After 1989: A Trip To Freedom
- notes on the historical concept album by Minutes to Midnight
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and history) - Disdain for Profanity is a Luxury Belief
- prescriptivist boors and bores alike have been looking down on profanity in English since 1066
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(filed under recommended, language, profanity, and rants) - Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
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(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion) - Poem for a Mass Resignation
- the Great Resignation deserves a greater poet than I, but this might do for now
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, and workplace) - RE: Does a Blog Need to Integrate?
- blogs with RSS/Atom/JSON feeds are already interoperable
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(filed under recommended, technology, rants, and webcraft) - Creating YouTube Thumbnails with a Shell Script
- It’s almost as good as an embed, but without Google’s spyware.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, command line, shell scripting, and programming) - RE: The Linux Desktop is Hard to Love
- a reply to Bradley Taunt’s post about the inherent jankiness of desktop GNU/Linux
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - Party Like It’s 1989
- a Web Zero Manifesto
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto) - Playing as a Woman in Final Fantasy XIV
- Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like I don’t pretend to be a man in real life.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, gaming, Final Fantasy franchise, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Personal Websites as Self-Portraiture
- The personal website is both medium and message, a self-publishing technology and a new visual arts medium, and every website is its operator’s self-portrait.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto) - Questions for Your Cast
- a brief guide to character creation without prior worldbuilding
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(filed under recommended, writing, characterization, and worldbuilding) - Fuck Trump; Let’s Go Brandon
- Deference to authority is un-American. Fuck the President no matter who he is.
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(filed under recommended, politics, and rants) - Literature Ain’t Burger King
- Want to have it your way? Write it yourself.
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(filed under recommended, writing, and rants) - Hearing Rainfall
- Reflections on working from home, and why I don’t want to go back to onsite work
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(filed under recommended, workplace, and remote work) - Maybe I Don’t WANT To Be Reached?
- I have lots of reasons to avoid social media. Advertising is but one.
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(filed under recommended, rants, parasocial media, marketing, and advertising) - Parallel Transcoding from FLAC on Linux
- Using find and xargs can dramatically speed up the transcoding of large collections of FLAC files to formats like Ogg Vorbis or MP3.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and command line) - Glory and Blame
- In which I wax irreligious and take a whack at the problem of evil.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Goddammit, Jon Schaffer
- Good thing I never mistook Iced Earth’s founding guitarist for a hero, let alone met the man in person.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, politics, and rants) - My Wife Gave Me an AlphaSmart 3000 for Christmas
- I wasn’t expecting this, and it’s surprisingly handy now that I’ve gotten the hang of using it.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, hardware, writing, and word processing) - The Cop in My Head
- All cops are bastards, especially the one in your head.
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(filed under recommended, personal, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Making Meaning
- inspired by a Gemini post by Case Duckworth
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(filed under recommended, personal, existentialism, Men’s Liberation, and writing) - Choose Life?
- the problem with video games is that reality sucks
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, politics, Men’s Liberation, class warfare, and rants) - I’m a Sodomite and I’m OK
- You’re probably one too, unless you’ve never had recreational sex.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - Final Fantasy VII Relived
- better than I expected, with some unexpected twists, but don’t pay full price
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, sci-fi, and Final Fantasy franchise) - Real Sex Education
- Compared to what I got in the 1990s, PornHub was an improvement.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, and sexuality) - Containment, Social Media, and the Dangers of Imitation
- Deplatforming wasn’t a major issue before social media, and it still isn’t even though social media more often creates cacophony than community.
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(filed under recommended, politics, parasocial media, censorship, and rants) - I Want My BSD!
- my autobiography as a Unix fan, with apologies to Dire Straits…
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, technology, and UNIX®) - Turning Forty
- looking back from the top of the hill before I go over it
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(filed under recommended, personal, and memories) - The Definitive Count of Monte Cristo
- opinions on Robin Buss’ translation for Penguin Classics
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, and books) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants) - C.L. Moore: Queen of the Pulps
- one of the great 20th century originals and a worthy heir to Mary Shelley
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, and C. L. Moore) - I Know I’m Fat. Did You Know You’re An Asshole?
- I don’t want or need your acceptance. You can think whatever you want; just don’t make your prejudice my problem.
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(filed under recommended, personal, and rants) - Programmer Passion Considered Harmful
- I might have been drunk when I posted this on Medium, but I meant it and I stand by it today.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - You Should Listen to Galneryus
- This Japanese power metal act’s first three albums are tight.
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, music, and heavy metal 🤘) - Derelict by L. J. Cohen: a YA Worthy of Heinlein
- a review resurrected and expanded from the archives; I had bought the book and gotten my money’s worth
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, sci-fi, and young adult fiction) - Post-IPO Facebook: Echoing the Dot-Com Boom
- From my archive, a prophecy that went unheard but not unfulfill’d: I saw Facebook’s enshittification coming, but didn’t think it would be this bad.
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(filed under recommended, technology, politics, and parasocial media) - Just Married!
- I might have had doubts, but I don’t have any regrets.
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(filed under recommended, personal, and marriage)
regrets
- Tears in Rain
- I’ve been reading a dying man’s blog post about regret, and I have opinions with which I’d rather not directly burden him.
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(filed under recommended, personal, death, regrets, and rants)
relationships
- Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants)
religion
- All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Butt Thetans
- in which my wife reminds me through her choice of podcasts that Scientology still exists
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(filed under sci-fi, religion, and bullshit) - Let God Speak, Dammit
- She's a big God; She can use Her words and speak for Herself.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Matters of Faith, Problems of Evil
- It’s a good thing I don’t believe in Hell, for this post alone might earn me a seat.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Happy Easter
- I don’t really celebrate this holiday since I’m neither a little kid, a parent, or a devout Christian.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, Ghostbusters, religion, sci-fi, and shitposts) - A Cure for Atheism
- Why can’t you love God in Her bed?
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(filed under personal, sexuality, and religion) - They Too Are God’s Children
- a reply to Jeremy Sarber’s “The mission field is decorated with rainbow flags”
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(filed under recommended, politics, religion, and philosophy) - Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
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(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion) - Hellbound; or, Curse God and Live
- This K-drama got me thinking about existentialism and the problem of evil.
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(filed under entertainment, television, K-drama, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Glory and Blame
- In which I wax irreligious and take a whack at the problem of evil.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - On Religion as Blasphemy
- Suppose we’ve been putting words in God’s mouth the whole damn time?
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(filed under religion and history) - Marriage Needs No Defense
- If it takes an act of Congress to preserve an institution, it’s already fucked.
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(filed under politics, marriage, and religion) - True Love is Expressed
- A diatribe against Christian purity culture and virginity fetishism
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(filed under sex and religion) - One Nation Above God
- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
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(filed under politics, religion, atheism, secularism, and rants)
remote work
- Always Remote
- Regardless of the weather, I will always prefer remote work over on-site.
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(filed under personal, workplace, remote work, and class warfare) - Paying Strangers to Watch Me Work?
- How stupid can the New York Times get when it comes to remote work?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - Of Course I Worked There. So What?
- a rant about the New York Times’ anti-remote work propaganda
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(filed under rants, workplace, and remote work) - Hearing Rainfall
- Reflections on working from home, and why I don’t want to go back to onsite work
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(filed under recommended, workplace, and remote work) - Zoom is No Substitute for In-Person Interactions
- Victor Rotariu makes grandiose claims to justify always having your camera on in Zoom. I think his claims are arrant bullshit.
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(filed under personal, remote work, zoom, workplace, and rants) - Why Should I Go Back to the Office?
- Also, why do I always get nervous when somebody at work talks about ‘safe spaces’?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work)
resistance
- A Shield of Silence
- There must be something I can do to help if we must endure a second Trump administration.
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(filed under personal, rants, politics, and resistance)
Robot God
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
Romantic Satanism
- Then I shall make noise!
- If expressing myself online is narcissistic garbage, make the most of it and be damned to you.
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(filed under personal, writing, blogging, and Romantic Satanism) - Prometheus Unconquered
- a hymn of defiance from the Titan's viewpoint, written on my birthday
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - Storming Heaven
- What if defiance of nature is human nature?
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, rants, existentialism, Romantic Satanism, and indiewebcarnival) - Too Much Greek Mythology?
- Some recent reading inspired an outpouring of doggerel involving the trickster god Prometheus
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(filed under poetasting, Greek mythology, Romantic Satanism, and Prometheus) - silent defiance
- yet another bad haiku
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(filed under writing, poetasting, and Romantic Satanism)
SaGa franchise
- SaGa Emerald Beyond
- an introduction to Square-Enix’s weirder RPG franchise and its latest entry, based on the PlayStation 5 demo
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(filed under entertainment, games, JRPGs, and SaGa franchise)
Satan (UK band)
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
Saturday Scenes
- Saturday Scenes (2025-03-15)
- In which Morgan Cooper loses his shirt without setting foot in a casino.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, fragment, Saturday Scenes, and Starbreaker Saga) - Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes)
schooling
- The Self-Educated Soul
- I did not get what I wanted; I got what the school wanted me to have: not a true education, but schooling.
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(filed under education and schooling)
science
- All Anti-Vaxxers Lie
- Even if vaccines did cause autism, I'd rather be autistic than dead.
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(filed under science and rants) - Computer Says, “Fuck You”
- an unrealistically optimistic view of artificial general intelligence...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, flash fiction, and machine learning) - The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
science fantasy
- Computer Says, “Fuck You”
- an unrealistically optimistic view of artificial general intelligence...
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, flash fiction, and machine learning) - The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
published on , updated on
(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
sci-fi
- Saturday Scenes (2025-03-15)
- In which Morgan Cooper loses his shirt without setting foot in a casino.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, fragment, Saturday Scenes, and Starbreaker Saga) - Time Machine
- I can think of a few people we might remove from history...
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(filed under sci-fi, politics, and rants) - Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes) - Interactive Fiction?
- The operator of foreverliketh.is asked me if I had ever considered creating my own text-based games. This post is his fault.
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(filed under personal, technology, writing, sci-fi, and webcraft) - Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga) - Butt Thetans
- in which my wife reminds me through her choice of podcasts that Scientology still exists
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(filed under sci-fi, religion, and bullshit) - Star Trek: Section 31
- It was a romp, and it was fun to see Michelle Yeoh play the heavy, but it doesn't feel like Star Trek.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, sci-fi, and startrek) - Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley) - Computer Says, “Fuck You”
- an unrealistically optimistic view of artificial general intelligence...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, flash fiction, and machine learning) - TANELORN (Strike the Balance)
- lyrics for a fictional single by Crowley’s Thoth for use in my fiction
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(filed under writing, poetasting, lyrics, heavy metal 🤘, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Morgan Cooper: Dirty Work
- An attempt at a character study in a style similar to what David Simon used in his 1991 book, Homicide.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and characterization) - Heavy Time
- a cat helped me find a used paperback of this 1991 novel
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and C. J. Cherryh) - Happy Easter
- I don’t really celebrate this holiday since I’m neither a little kid, a parent, or a devout Christian.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, Ghostbusters, religion, sci-fi, and shitposts) - Viewpoint Limitations
- Writing Spiral Architect in first-person viewpoint might have been a mistake. There are elements that I could explain from another viewpoint that I can’t explain from Morgan Cooper’s.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and Spiral Architect) - Writing Wonders: August 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Spiral Architect: Patient Privilege
- I should be writing this chapter, but I’m not quite ready yet.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, plot, characterization, worldbuilding, and Spiral Architect) - Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
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(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning) - Spiral Architect: Little Sunshine and more…
- I had written this update late Sunday night, but forgot to upload it for several days.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, plotting, and Spiral Architect) - Spiral Architect, Chapter 5: Prima Donna
- a short progress update on my work in progress
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and Spiral Architect) - Writing Wonders: July 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Our Revels Now Are Ended…
- a bit of Shakespeare that’s been stuck in my head for years
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(filed under writing, music, sci-fi, and characterization) - Theme, Variations, Eternal Return
- I don’t know if I’ll use this in a Starbreaker story or if it’ll be another fragmentary outtake.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and worldbuilding) - Writing Wonders: June 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - Shadowbanned
- an extremely short flash fiction
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, flash fiction, and politics) - Street Cultivation
- I had recently read Sarah Lin’s novel on the basis of a recommendation on Reddit.
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(filed under entertainment, books, sci-fi, and opinion) - More Stuff I Might Use Later
- These might work in a new edition of Without Bloodshed.
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(filed under writing, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, sci-fi, Without Bloodshed) - Getting Back Into It
- But first I’ve got some background material to work out.
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(filed under writing and sci-fi) - What Really Caused Nationfall?
- It’s easier to write post-apocalyptic sf when the world isn’t collapsing around you.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Dragon Hunting; or, Helvetia delenda est
- An idea for a SF thriller that I probably won’t use
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Final Fantasy VII Relived
- better than I expected, with some unexpected twists, but don’t pay full price
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, games, sci-fi, and Final Fantasy franchise) - Richard Zane’s Fantasmagoria
- an absolutely gonzo indie novel by an author I knew from Google+
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(filed under entertainment, books, and sci-fi) - Derelict by L. J. Cohen: a YA Worthy of Heinlein
- a review resurrected and expanded from the archives; I had bought the book and gotten my money’s worth
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, sci-fi, and young adult fiction) - Worldbuilding: Mutual Aid vs the Welfare State
- I’m not an expert in economics or in political economy, but the more I tried to think things through the more impossible it became to justify writing a straightforward right-libertarian utopia.
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(filed under writing, politics, economics, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
published on , updated on
(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
secularism
- One Nation Above God
- “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
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(filed under politics, religion, atheism, secularism, and rants)
security
- Using a Personal Laptop at Work?
- It's not wrong. It's just stupid.
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(filed under rants, workplace, and security) - “I Know Where You Live...”
- I’ve gotten this threat despite not putting personal info online, though it’s been over a decade.
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(filed under personal, privacy, and security) - No Bottling the Genie Again
- As much as I sometimes want to become anonymous again online, I suspect that it’s too late for me. Learn from my mistakes.
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(filed under personal, technology, webcraft, privacy, and security) - a Phishing Attempt for PayPal Users
- Who falls for this? Are these assclowns even trying?
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(filed under security) - Nothing Like a Bad Phishing Attempt
- There’s been a phishing scam targeting M&T Bank customers via SMS since 2019.
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(filed under security and phishing) - Don’t Worry. I’m Still OK.
- I don’t believe anybody will care, but don’t be surprised if you don’t see me posting much here.
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(filed under personal, privacy, and security)
sex
- Sex Without Women? Fuck That Noise.
- regarding a recent opinion piece in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan
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(filed under personal, pornography, sex, relationships, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
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(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - A Cure for Atheism
- Why can’t you love God in Her bed?
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(filed under personal, sexuality, and religion) - Isabel Hogben: a Victim of Conservative Grooming
- She’s exactly Bari Weiss’ type: young, naïve, and receptive to authoritarian ideology.
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(filed under politics, rants, pornography, censorship, and sexuality) - The NoFap Hoax, by an Anonymous Psychology Professor
- I found this on Pastebin and wanted to preserve it.
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(filed under politics, psychology, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - I’m a Sodomite and I’m OK
- You’re probably one too, unless you’ve never had recreational sex.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - Real Sex Education
- Compared to what I got in the 1990s, PornHub was an improvement.
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(filed under recommended, rants, politics, and sexuality) - True Love is Expressed
- A diatribe against Christian purity culture and virginity fetishism
published on , updated on
(filed under sex and religion)
sexuality
- Libertinism as Protest, Sodomy as Praxis
- We might not be able to fuck our way of capitalism or fascism, but we can damn well have some fun trying.
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, politics, capitalism, fascism, sexuality, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and rants) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - A Cure for Atheism
- Why can’t you love God in Her bed?
published on , updated on
(filed under personal, sexuality, and religion) - Isabel Hogben: a Victim of Conservative Grooming
- She’s exactly Bari Weiss’ type: young, naïve, and receptive to authoritarian ideology.
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, rants, pornography, censorship, and sexuality) - The NoFap Hoax, by an Anonymous Psychology Professor
- I found this on Pastebin and wanted to preserve it.
published on , updated on
(filed under politics, psychology, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - I’m a Sodomite and I’m OK
- You’re probably one too, unless you’ve never had recreational sex.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, personal, politics, sexuality, and Men’s Liberation) - Real Sex Education
- Compared to what I got in the 1990s, PornHub was an improvement.
published on , updated on
(filed under recommended, rants, politics, and sexuality)
shell scripting
- Creating YouTube Thumbnails with a Shell Script
- It’s almost as good as an embed, but without Google’s spyware.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, command line, shell scripting, and programming)
shitposts
- Something Short...
- ...for a change. Thank or blame FlamedFury.
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(filed under shitposts) - Conservatives at a Casino
- You’ve got to let them play, because this is America, but never let them deal.
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(filed under politics and shitposts) - Humbuggin’
- Don't mind me; I'm just getting my Scrooge on a bit early this year.
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(filed under shitposts) - How About Some Toast and Eggs
- You know, to go with this spam?
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(filed under shitposts) - Happy Easter
- I don’t really celebrate this holiday since I’m neither a little kid, a parent, or a devout Christian.
published on , updated on
(filed under entertainment, movies, Ghostbusters, religion, sci-fi, and shitposts) - A Cat Meets the Emacs Doctor
- a bit of Monday silliness; apparently Smudge figured out M-x doctor
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(filed under Emacs and shitposts) - The Magician and the Parrot
- a joke that came out of my UNIX fortune program
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(filed under shitposts) - How to Ruin a Date
- all it takes is one word
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(filed under shitposts) - Entries for a New Devil’s Dictionary
- inspired by the original Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
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(filed under shitposts) - Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles) - The Kingslayer Worm
- a fake news article attributed to Bob Abooey; or, how I snuck a Howard Stern reference into a Randroid forum
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(filed under fiction shitposts)
short stories
- The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
published on , updated on
(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
side hustles
- Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles)
Silly Con Valley
- Techies Who Don't Read Fiction
- It sounds like a promo for Oprah Winfrey's old talk show, but worse horrors await within.
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(filed under rants, politics, Silly Con Valley, and ignorance)
society
- On Seeking Community
- Been there, done that, still got the therapy receipts from the capitalist death panel...
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(filed under personal, society, community, and loneliness) - Transgressing the Law of Jante
- Affirmations for those who would defy a law that binds them but does not protect.
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(filed under recommended, personal, philosophy, and society) - On Loneliness
- another take on the ‘male friendship recession’ from a man sick of hearing about it
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(filed under personal, society, politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - They Abandoned Their Children to Fortnite
- If children are obsessed with video games to the point of throwing tantrums when they can’t play, I blame the parents. They failed their children, and these children will spend their lives paying the price of their parents’ negligence.
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(filed under recommended, rants, society, parenting, and gaming) - Things Do Not Have Friends
- a rant about the so-called male friendship recession
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(filed under rants, society, and Men’s Liberation) - Then I’m Against You
- Demanding that I choose a side will never work in your favor.
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(filed under rants, politics, and society) - Aspects of Tyranny and Oppression
-
a beast with five faces: church, state, capital, society, and family
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(filed under politics) - The Alpha Male Myth
- Alpha wolves don’t exist in the wild, only in captivity. Research has shown this. If alpha men exist at all, it’s because we’ve made a prison of our society.
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(filed under society and Men’s Liberation)
The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin
- A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin)
software
- Using Sublime Text in 2025
- I don’t use it, but other people still do. More power to ‘em.
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(filed under technology, software, and Emacs)
spam
- Spamtoberfest
- Man, Digital Ocean really didn’t think this through.
published on , updated on
(filed under spam and bullshit)
Spiral Architect
- Viewpoint Limitations
- Writing Spiral Architect in first-person viewpoint might have been a mistake. There are elements that I could explain from another viewpoint that I can’t explain from Morgan Cooper’s.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and Spiral Architect) - Spiral Architect: Patient Privilege
- I should be writing this chapter, but I’m not quite ready yet.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, plot, characterization, worldbuilding, and Spiral Architect) - Spiral Architect: Little Sunshine and more…
- I had written this update late Sunday night, but forgot to upload it for several days.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, plotting, and Spiral Architect) - Spiral Architect, Chapter 5: Prima Donna
- a short progress update on my work in progress
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, and Spiral Architect)
SQL
- Who’s got a foreign key on this table?
- The need to identify dependencies in a database comes up fairly often at my day job.
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(filed under technology, programming, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and my day job)
Starbreaker Saga
- Saturday Scenes (2025-03-15)
- In which Morgan Cooper loses his shirt without setting foot in a casino.
published on , updated on
(filed under writing, sci-fi, fragment, Saturday Scenes, and Starbreaker Saga) - Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes) - Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga) - Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley) - The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
startrek
- Star Trek: Section 31
- It was a romp, and it was fun to see Michelle Yeoh play the heavy, but it doesn't feel like Star Trek.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, sci-fi, and startrek)
Substack
- Substack, Freedom of Expression, and Tolerance for the Intolerant
- Substack founder and CEO Chris Best claims credit for helping muckrakers find their voice, but he does the same for Nazis, too.
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(filed under technology, politics, Substack, First Amendment, and rants)
suicide prevention
- Power Underneath Despair: Roundup
- Not all of my respondents had a single darkest hour; some still haven't come out the other side yet.
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(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair: Last Call!
- This is the last call for September 2024 IndieWeb Carnival/Suicide Prevention Month submissions.
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(filed under personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - The Power of Satan Compels Me
- People used to blame heavy metal for youth suicides in the 1980s, but it saved me.
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, abuse, music, heavy metal 🤘, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival) - Power Underneath Despair
- In your darkest hour, what saved you? What helped you find the strength to carry on?
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(filed under recommended, personal, suicide prevention, and indiewebcarnival)
tactics
- Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga)
taxation
- RE: High Property Taxes Are Good, Actually
- commentary on Brock Whittaker’s post on interest rates and real estate speculation
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(filed under politics, taxation, and housing)
techbros
- Shite Hustle (No Revenue)
- an affectionate parody of Alestorm’s “Shit Boat (No Fans)”
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(filed under entertainment, music, lyrics, parody, techbros, shitposts, and side hustles)
technofascism
- They Came From Hacker News
- Going viral on aggregators like Hacker News and Reddit isn’t what it used to be.
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(filed under rants, parasocial media, and technofascism)
technology
- CSS Naked Day 2025
- Don’t panic. You are not experiencing technical difficulties.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, HTML, CSS, and minimalism) - Can You Spell ‘Anomie’ Without AI?
- random thoughts while reading blogs and listening to goth rock
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(filed under personal, philosophy, anomie, ai, and technology) - Interactive Fiction?
- The operator of foreverliketh.is asked me if I had ever considered creating my own text-based games. This post is his fault.
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(filed under personal, technology, writing, sci-fi, and webcraft) - RE: Blogging for traffic not design
- WordPress’ continued prevalence on the commercial Web does not prove its quality or suitability for personal blogging.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Popovers in HTML
- This is a little experiment with new web tech.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Notes on Email Filtering
- Do I need many filters, or just the right filters?
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(filed under technology and email) - Substack, Freedom of Expression, and Tolerance for the Intolerant
- Substack founder and CEO Chris Best claims credit for helping muckrakers find their voice, but he does the same for Nazis, too.
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(filed under technology, politics, Substack, First Amendment, and rants) - Unplatform
- a new guide to exiting social media, because you have no voice on those platforms and they doesn’t deserve your loyalty
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(filed under technology, parasocial media, and webcraft) - Feeds Update
- a brief note concerning my RSS and JSON feeds
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(filed under technology, feeds, and webcraft) - Using Sublime Text in 2025
- I don’t use it, but other people still do. More power to ‘em.
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(filed under technology, software, and Emacs) - Blogging is Dead: Just Like God and Rock 'n Roll
- People keep saying that blogging is dead, and I keep doing it anyway, as do many others.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Free Our Feeds? Oh, Please.
- Saving social media from “billionaire capture” doesn’t mean much when nation-states, corporations, and billionaires already control the Internet itself.
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(filed under technology) - Why I Don’t Use AI, Particularly Lex
- An answer to Lex’s 2024 letter, “Why Don’t More Writers Use AI?”
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(filed under writing, technology, ethics, and machine learning) - I Would Not Blog
- If I was becoming an adult in 2025, I would not run a personal website. My rebellion would take a different form.
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(filed under personal, privacy, technology, and parasocial media) - RE: Blog Questions Challenge
- Kev Quirk didn’t summon me for this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Why not, right?
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(filed under personal, technology, blogging, and webcraft) - Running GNU Emacs in the Linux Console
- Only one thing stopped me from doing this before, but no longer.
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(filed under personal, technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - Terminal First
- Inspired by a MelonLand forum post, I explain my design approach. I then go off on a tangent about smartphones, parasocial media, and the use of pop psychology to further fascists’ agendas.
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(filed under personal, technology, psychology, parasocial media, politics, and webcraft) - GNU Emacs From Scratch
- in which our intrepid schmuck nukes his overly complex configuration in favor of one only slightly less recondite
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, configuration, and Emacs) - I don’t blame Cathode Ray Dude at all, really.
- Making your own website IS hard. Modern tools are shit. I have no good answers.
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(filed under webcraft, UNIX®, rants, and technology) - Who’s got a foreign key on this table?
- The need to identify dependencies in a database comes up fairly often at my day job.
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(filed under technology, programming, SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and my day job) - RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Gimme Back My Headphone Jack!
- I probably won't accept another iPhone unless Apple makes one with a 3.5mm stereo port.
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(filed under personal, technology, audio, and music) - RE: Finding the Authentic Web
- If you want to find the authentic web, you’ve got to think independently.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and rants) - NVDA; or, The Punishment Detail
- It's called 'work' because all the other four letter words are taken.
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(filed under technology, workplace, webcraft, and rants) - Sharing Optional
- I once said that integration is not a webmaster's problem. Neither is discoverability.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Recursive Bulk File Renaming
- a HOWTO for renaming a bunch of files in a directory tree in a terminal with UNIX tools
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(filed under recommended, technology, and UNIX®) - The (Plain Old) Web
- I don't need a POSSE, and whether you rebrand ActivityPub as 'the social web' or not, you can keep it.
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(filed under recommended, rants, technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - A Day with a Kensington Expert Mouse
- It's First World Problems all the way down, because even in the future nothing works.
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(filed under technology and hardware) - RE: Software Should Cost Money
- I thought it already did. Maybe the real question is 'who should pay'?
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(filed under technology and politics) - RE: On Email Addresses (Again)
- some thoughts and opinions about hiding one's contact details
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and privacy) - Email is Still Useful
- Well, I still find it useful, but I put in the work to make it useful.
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(filed under technology and email) - Has the IndieWeb Become Irrelevant?
- No, it was always irrelevant if you had your own domain and site. Everything else is optional.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - A Place for Every Page and Every Post in Its Place
- a guide to creating your website's directory structure, and thus the URLs of your pages and posts
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, filesystem, webcraft, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Personal Websites are for Personal Use
- Commercial use — such as listing in Google, linking to from Reddit, or scraping for LLM training data — is not necessarily welcome.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Blocking Unwanted Referrers with .htaccess
- This is something I've wanted to do for a while now, but I thought I couldn't on Nearly Free Speech. Turns out I could, after all.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, class warfare, and commercial use) - Something for the Smol Web Newbies
- If you need this, if you’re dealing with imposter syndrome because of a misplaced notion of purity, then it’s there for you.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and affirmations) - starbreaker.org and the Holy Grail Layout
- I’ve been making some changes to the layout for visitors using laptops and desktops.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, CSS, and announcements) - robots.txt: the Nuclear Option
- Corporate scraping of personal websites has exceeded the Ripley Threshold.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Proprietary Social Media Tags Considered Contemptible
- To suggest that use of Open Graph and Twitter Cards metadata is harmful would be an exercise in belaboring the obvious.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Developer Experience: JSON vs XML
- Are XML feeds like RSS and Atom really that hard to work with in JavaScript?
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Footnotes: No Fun to Create, Either
- Tyler Sticka doesn't like reading footnotes online? Fair enough.
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - Providing JSON Feeds in Addition to RSS
- I spent my Saturday night doing this instead of relaxing like a sensible person.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - No Glove, No Love
- I use an ad blocker for the same reason I wear condoms.
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(filed under technology, rants, and advertising) - CSS Naked Day
- This website’s gonna rock out with its markup out.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Is Reggaeton at 9am Really That Bad?
- This techie in Argentina seems to think so. He should be grateful it’s not Babymetal at 8am.
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(filed under technology, audio, and housing) - B. Bergeron on Progressive JPEGs
- I would do so if WebP, AVIF, or JPEG XL were not available and (in the first two cases) well-supported.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, and image processing) - Things to Do in April 2024
- Here’s a todo list for my website; will I get to do it all?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Accessibility on the Personal Web
- Is it just about disability accommodation and WCAG/Section 508 compliance?
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and indiewebcarnival) - Personal Web, Personal Sovereignty
- I often feel like I’ve only ever been free on my own website.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, webcraft, manifesto, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Reset, Part Two
- I didn’t quite go through with my original plan after all. Here’s what I did instead.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
- Dan Luu digs deep into how a lot of current web tech just doesn't work on phones commonly available in poor countries.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Hacker News, Again
- What part of “my website, my rules” do some people find difficult to grasp?
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(filed under technology, politics, and rants) - Robb Knight on Using Eleventy
- Should I be frightened because this makes sense to me?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Reset
- Here we go again. I might actually redo this site again this month.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - HTML5 Needs a “partial” Element
- What good are web components if you can’t easily reuse them across multiple pages?
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - Your Site, Your Rules, Your Way
- This is me sticking up for the “soydevs” who don’t build their websites the way other people think they should, because tech prescriptivists who indulge in gatekeeping are authoritarian scum.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - Dictionary Integrations
- adventures in integrating GNU Emacs with dictionary apps on macOS and GNU/Linux
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and Emacs) - RE: A Key Feature of NFTs Has Completely Broken
- I’m laughing my ass off as I read this tech in The Verge. But my laughter is angry laughter. People really should know better, dammit.
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(filed under technology, griftocurrency, and bullshit) - RE: Red Meat Friday: Why Vim?
- This is a post about UNIX text editors. You are not expected to understand this, or to care.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and text editing) - Cathedrals on Quicksand
- Some thoughts on a recent Minutes to Midnight blog post from the opposite perspective.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - Web Environment Integrity: Expectations, Reality, and Entitlement
- Google’s latest attempt to respectively exploit and protect its dominance in the browser and advertising markets puts the company’s effrontery on full display and cries out for the sort of antitrust enforcement not seen since Uncle Sam brought the hammer down on AT\&T.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, bullshit, and rants) - Silence Implies Consent
- My efforts to thwart commercial use of my website may come to nothing, but I will make them anyway for my own sake.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - No Bottling the Genie Again
- As much as I sometimes want to become anonymous again online, I suspect that it’s too late for me. Learn from my mistakes.
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(filed under personal, technology, webcraft, privacy, and security) - RE: The syndicate
- I generally agree with Jeremy Keith at adactio, but I want to go a bit further.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Reworking My Blogroll
- I’ve been tinkering again instead of writing sf, and remembering how to write XSL transforms.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - RE: Makefiles for Fun and Profit
- commentary on a post by James Tomasino
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and programming) - Microservice Architecture is a Recipe for Pain
- You’d think that having grown up Catholic I’d be masochistic enough to like developing microservices.
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(filed under technology and programming) - Programmers and Grimoires
- Do not begrudge developers and system administrators their references unless you crave downtime, breakage, data corruption, and other dire consequences…
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(filed under technology and programming) - A Well Known URL for Your Resume/CV
- Jim Nielsen came up with a well-known URL for avatars, but why not one for resumes and CVs?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - RE: Date and Time with a Static Site Generator
- I was tempted to just email Jim Nielsen with my answer, but decided to blog it instead.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and webcraft) - Fun with Dates and Emacs
- a note to myself about creating RSS and Atom friendly dates for posts in Emacs
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - Your Screen Is Tasty
- I see no reason why this website shouldn’t eat it all. (om-nom-nom)
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Dammit, Apple
- If your content blocker is going to block images, it should block all images.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - Preventing LLM Scraping
- I don’t want my writing used to train a large language model.
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(filed under technology, rants, and webcraft) - RE: Stop Using Custom Web Fonts
- I got over custom web fonts a long time ago, but I’m no designer.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - RE: All You May Need is HTML
- comments on Fabien Sanglard’s post about how to build a website
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(filed under technology, HTML, and webcraft) - RE: Does a Blog Need to Integrate?
- blogs with RSS/Atom/JSON feeds are already interoperable
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(filed under recommended, technology, rants, and webcraft) - RE: Static Site Generators
- Easier to use depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Gloomy Monday Thoughts About Computers
- half-baked and not thoroughly thought-through bathroom musings about computers as weapons in search of civilian applications
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(filed under technology and luddism) - Learning Vue
- in which I set about adding another tool to my kit to stay employable
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - An Archetypical Tech Recruiter
- I’m almost of sick of these people as I am of self-righteous terminally-online types.
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(filed under technology, workplace, and rants) - Building a Site for My Fiction with ‘pblog’
- thinking out loud, building in public
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Creating YouTube Thumbnails with a Shell Script
- It’s almost as good as an embed, but without Google’s spyware.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, command line, shell scripting, and programming) - RE: Soft Deletion Probably Isn’t Worth It
- a reply to Brandur’s post about soft deletion in databases
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(filed under technology, databases, and programming) - RE: Really Getting Started with Hugo
- a reply to Bryce Wray’s post about Hugo’s quickstart instructions
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and webcraft) - Crypto Direct Deposit? WTF?
- The more I learn about cryptocurrency the more closely it resembles a comic book supervillain’s revenge on a world that allowed him to be dateless on prom night.
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(filed under technology and griftocurrency) - RE: The Linux Desktop is Hard to Love
- a reply to Bradley Taunt’s post about the inherent jankiness of desktop GNU/Linux
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - RE: Thoughts on RSS
- a reply to Matt Rickard’s thoughts on RSS and the problems it faces
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Extending pblog
- Some of my extensions to Bradley Taunt’s pblog aren’t necessarily suitable for submission as a patch, but I wanted to document them here.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Blocking Crap with a Hosts File
- If you can get your hands on /etc/hosts, it’s a good way to block the worst of the web.
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(filed under technology and UNIX®) - There Goes Your Feed (Again)
- Because I often break shit while tinkering…
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Podcasts Have Always Sucked
- Transcript or GTFO. I can read faster than you assholes can talk.
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(filed under technology and rants) - Party Like It’s 1989
- a Web Zero Manifesto
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto) - Using GNU Recutils to Generate a Playlist Feed
- I ended up not doing this, but I don’t want to delete this post.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, databases, and programming) - Going Dark (Building A Shinobi Site)
- documenting the process by which I rebuilt my website (yet again)
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, and programming) - About My Ad Blocker
- It’s your fault I block ads. You chose to use adtech, and adtech is malware.
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(filed under technology and ad blocking) - Personal Websites as Self-Portraiture
- The personal website is both medium and message, a self-publishing technology and a new visual arts medium, and every website is its operator’s self-portrait.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto) - Installing Devuan 3.1 and Migrating to Ceres
- notes I compiled for future reference or in case they help others
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - It’s Just Some Other Asshole’s Computer
- Is this the curse of knowledge, or merely pride?
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(filed under technology and rants) - Parallel Transcoding from FLAC on Linux
- Using find and xargs can dramatically speed up the transcoding of large collections of FLAC files to formats like Ogg Vorbis or MP3.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and command line) - XTerm: Because Worse is Better
- It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to work.
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(filed under technology and UNIX®) - Parler Had It Coming
- Their management forgot that there is no cloud; it’s just some other asshole’s computer.
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(filed under technology, politics, rants, and parasocial media) - My Wife Gave Me an AlphaSmart 3000 for Christmas
- I wasn’t expecting this, and it’s surprisingly handy now that I’ve gotten the hang of using it.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, hardware, writing, and word processing) - RE: Naming Computers
- a reply to dctrud’s gemlog
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and networking) - Text Mode Weekend, Part Deux
- in which I continue to experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - What if Internal Wifi Was a Mistake?
- When was the last time you did anything with your computer offline?
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(filed under personal and technology) - Text Mode Weekend
- in which I experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - Macbook Necromancy
- I resurrected an old aluminum unibody Macbook from 2009, and installed Debian.
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(filed under technology and GNU/Linux) - I Want My BSD!
- my autobiography as a Unix fan, with apologies to Dire Straits…
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, technology, and UNIX®) - Leaving the Cult; or, Getting Free of Toxic Tech Culture
- This post is absofuckinlutely brilliant and you should have read it last week.
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(filed under technology, workplace, and rants) - Programmer Passion Considered Harmful
- I might have been drunk when I posted this on Medium, but I meant it and I stand by it today.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - Post-IPO Facebook: Echoing the Dot-Com Boom
- From my archive, a prophecy that went unheard but not unfulfill’d: I saw Facebook’s enshittification coming, but didn’t think it would be this bad.
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(filed under recommended, technology, politics, and parasocial media)
terminal
- Text Mode Weekend, Part Deux
- in which I continue to experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - Text Mode Weekend
- in which I experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments)
text editing
- RE: Red Meat Friday: Why Vim?
- This is a post about UNIX text editors. You are not expected to understand this, or to care.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and text editing)
The Cure
- 2024 in rock
- Commentary on albums released in 2024 that I bought over the year. Mostly rock.
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(filed under entertainment, music, albums, heavy metal 🤘, Cemetery Skyline, Cloud People, delving, Demon (UK band), Disco Freaks, Ember Belladonna, Fourth Dominion, Judas Priest, Kydia, Lucifer (band), Mega Colossus, Robot God, Satan (UK band), and The Cure)
theodicy
- Let God Speak, Dammit
- She's a big God; She can use Her words and speak for Herself.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Matters of Faith, Problems of Evil
- It’s a good thing I don’t believe in Hell, for this post alone might earn me a seat.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Hellbound; or, Curse God and Live
- This K-drama got me thinking about existentialism and the problem of evil.
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(filed under entertainment, television, K-drama, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Glory and Blame
- In which I wax irreligious and take a whack at the problem of evil.
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(filed under recommended, personal, religion, existentialism, and theodicy)
translation
- Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
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(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants)
trans rights
- Wearing Bigotry On One’s Sleeve
- I won’t stop believing that hating people for their race, religion, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc. is fundamentally un-American. Except Nazis. Nazis can fuck right off.
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(filed under rants, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - The Right to Change Sex
- A long, interesting article in New York Magazine that references Judith Butler and raises a pressing question: why in Hypatia’s holy name are we still pretending that conservatives have valid arguments?
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - Concerning Trans Rights
- Most of the rights transgender people want recognized are basic rights of individual self-determination, and I’m OK with that.
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(filed under recommended, personal, politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and trans rights) - You Are Not Normal
- I’m a little tired of people who do a better job of conformity than I claiming to be normal. They are no such thing.
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(filed under affirmations and trans rights) - Not For Her Sake
- I had never heard of Alyssa Rosenweig until today, so it’s not for her sake that I vote against Republicans at every opportunity.
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights) - On Allyship
- I’m nobody’s ally, but some of the things demanded of allies are easily granted, so why not?
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(filed under politics, rants, Women’s Liberation, and trans rights)
Troy
- The Song of Achilles
- reactions to and opinions on the novel by Madeline Miller
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(filed under entertainment, books, Greek mythology, Homer, and Troy)
television
- Hellbound; or, Curse God and Live
- This K-drama got me thinking about existentialism and the problem of evil.
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(filed under entertainment, television, K-drama, religion, existentialism, and theodicy) - Amazon’s The Wheel of Time
- Blind Guardian did a better adaptation with a ten-minute power metal song.
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(filed under entertainment and television)
UNIX®
- Running GNU Emacs in the Linux Console
- Only one thing stopped me from doing this before, but no longer.
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(filed under personal, technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - I don’t blame Cathode Ray Dude at all, really.
- Making your own website IS hard. Modern tools are shit. I have no good answers.
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(filed under webcraft, UNIX®, rants, and technology) - RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Self-Care or Self-Indulgence?
- Buying posters and tinkering with Debian GNU/Linux could be either.
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(filed under personal and UNIX®) - Recursive Bulk File Renaming
- a HOWTO for renaming a bunch of files in a directory tree in a terminal with UNIX tools
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(filed under recommended, technology, and UNIX®) - A Place for Every Page and Every Post in Its Place
- a guide to creating your website's directory structure, and thus the URLs of your pages and posts
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, filesystem, webcraft, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - B. Bergeron on Progressive JPEGs
- I would do so if WebP, AVIF, or JPEG XL were not available and (in the first two cases) well-supported.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, and image processing) - Dictionary Integrations
- adventures in integrating GNU Emacs with dictionary apps on macOS and GNU/Linux
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and Emacs) - RE: Red Meat Friday: Why Vim?
- This is a post about UNIX text editors. You are not expected to understand this, or to care.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and text editing) - RE: Makefiles for Fun and Profit
- commentary on a post by James Tomasino
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and programming) - RE: Date and Time with a Static Site Generator
- I was tempted to just email Jim Nielsen with my answer, but decided to blog it instead.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and webcraft) - Fun with Dates and Emacs
- a note to myself about creating RSS and Atom friendly dates for posts in Emacs
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, command line, and Emacs) - RE: The Ultimate Linux ARM64 Workstation
- comments on Jason Eckert’s post about running Asahi Linux on a Mac Studio
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(filed under UNIX® and hardware) - Creating YouTube Thumbnails with a Shell Script
- It’s almost as good as an embed, but without Google’s spyware.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, command line, shell scripting, and programming) - RE: Really Getting Started with Hugo
- a reply to Bryce Wray’s post about Hugo’s quickstart instructions
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and webcraft) - RE: The Linux Desktop is Hard to Love
- a reply to Bradley Taunt’s post about the inherent jankiness of desktop GNU/Linux
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - Blocking Crap with a Hosts File
- If you can get your hands on /etc/hosts, it’s a good way to block the worst of the web.
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(filed under technology and UNIX®) - Using GNU Recutils to Generate a Playlist Feed
- I ended up not doing this, but I don’t want to delete this post.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, databases, and programming) - Going Dark (Building A Shinobi Site)
- documenting the process by which I rebuilt my website (yet again)
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, and programming) - Installing Devuan 3.1 and Migrating to Ceres
- notes I compiled for future reference or in case they help others
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and GNU/Linux) - Parallel Transcoding from FLAC on Linux
- Using find and xargs can dramatically speed up the transcoding of large collections of FLAC files to formats like Ogg Vorbis or MP3.
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(filed under recommended, technology, UNIX®, and command line) - XTerm: Because Worse is Better
- It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to work.
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(filed under technology and UNIX®) - RE: Naming Computers
- a reply to dctrud’s gemlog
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and networking) - Text Mode Weekend, Part Deux
- in which I continue to experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - Text Mode Weekend
- in which I experiment with Slackware without X11 as a desktop OS
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, terminal, command line, and experiments) - I Want My BSD!
- my autobiography as a Unix fan, with apologies to Dire Straits…
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(filed under recommended, personal, memories, technology, and UNIX®)
veganism
- Reasons I Refuse to Go Vegan
- In which I rationalize what is fundamentally an emotional stance because I do not find the ethical, environmental, and health arguments for being vegan persuasive...
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(filed under personal, politics, food, diet, ethics, ecology, and veganism)
video
- How to Ruin Your Franchise
- “How to Train Your Dragon” needs a remaster, not a live-action remake.
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(filed under entertainment, movies, and video) - The Sword: “Locomotive Breath”
- This cover’s a pleasant surprise from a band I thought broken up.
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(filed under entertainment, music, and video) - Jesus He Knows Me
- Ghost is covering Genesis, and they picked Easter to drop this video.
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(filed under recommended, music, video, heavy metal 🤘, Ghost, Genesis, and religion) - Scarlet Dorn
- discovering a new (to me) band from Germany
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - Tina Guo
- Classical instruments, heavy metal, and fetishwear? Yes, please.
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(filed under entertainment, music, heavy metal 🤘, and video)
viewpoint
- Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley)
violence
- Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga)
virtual reality
- The Milgram Battery (a Starbreaker story)
- Inspired by Stanley Milgram’s shady psychology experiments at Yale, it’s a final ordeal for those seeking to join the Phoenix Society’s elite corps of attorneys at war: the Adversaries.
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(filed under fiction, métal hurlant, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, psychology, virtual reality, anthologized, published, short stories, and Starbreaker Saga)
warfare
- Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga)
webcraft
- About Last Night
- Seems I need to clarify a couple of things for people who are worried about me.
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(filed under personal, webcraft) - Until We Meet Again
- It need not be forever, but I must away for a time.
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(filed under personal, writing, webcraft, and health) - CSS Naked Day 2025
- Don’t panic. You are not experiencing technical difficulties.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, HTML, CSS, and minimalism) - Reconsidering POSSE
- in which the author introduces himself to people frequenting platforms like Bear Blog and Buttondown
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(filed under personal, indieweb, posse, and webcraft) - Interactive Fiction?
- The operator of foreverliketh.is asked me if I had ever considered creating my own text-based games. This post is his fault.
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(filed under personal, technology, writing, sci-fi, and webcraft) - RE: Blogging for traffic not design
- WordPress’ continued prevalence on the commercial Web does not prove its quality or suitability for personal blogging.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Popovers in HTML
- This is a little experiment with new web tech.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Unplatform
- a new guide to exiting social media, because you have no voice on those platforms and they doesn’t deserve your loyalty
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(filed under technology, parasocial media, and webcraft) - Feeds Update
- a brief note concerning my RSS and JSON feeds
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(filed under technology, feeds, and webcraft) - Blogging is Dead: Just Like God and Rock 'n Roll
- People keep saying that blogging is dead, and I keep doing it anyway, as do many others.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - I’ll Read It
- Need a reason to build your own website? I can help.
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(filed under webcraft) - Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
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(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - RE: Blog Questions Challenge
- Kev Quirk didn’t summon me for this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Why not, right?
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(filed under personal, technology, blogging, and webcraft) - Terminal First
- Inspired by a MelonLand forum post, I explain my design approach. I then go off on a tangent about smartphones, parasocial media, and the use of pop psychology to further fascists’ agendas.
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(filed under personal, technology, psychology, parasocial media, politics, and webcraft) - An Apology to the Subscribers
- Given all of the unread posts people pulling my feed will see, I think one’s due.
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(filed under webcraft) - I don’t blame Cathode Ray Dude at all, really.
- Making your own website IS hard. Modern tools are shit. I have no good answers.
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(filed under webcraft, UNIX®, rants, and technology) - RE: Topic Blockers
- Why can’t we filter the web by keywords, anyway?
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, command line, Emacs, censorship, and programming) - Blogging Collectives
- Leon Paternoster is curious as to why there aren’t more of these.
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(filed under webcraft and parasocial media) - RE: Finding the Authentic Web
- If you want to find the authentic web, you’ve got to think independently.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and rants) - NVDA; or, The Punishment Detail
- It's called 'work' because all the other four letter words are taken.
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(filed under technology, workplace, webcraft, and rants) - Sharing Optional
- I once said that integration is not a webmaster's problem. Neither is discoverability.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - RE: The Static Site Paradox
- I think Loris Cro's first mistake is in assuming normal people have websites.
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(filed under rants and webcraft) - The (Plain Old) Web
- I don't need a POSSE, and whether you rebrand ActivityPub as 'the social web' or not, you can keep it.
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(filed under recommended, rants, technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - RE: You Should Go To Conferences
- I know Sophie at localghost is right, but I probably won't take her advice.
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(filed under rants, introversion, workplace, and webcraft) - RE: On Email Addresses (Again)
- some thoughts and opinions about hiding one's contact details
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and privacy) - Has the IndieWeb Become Irrelevant?
- No, it was always irrelevant if you had your own domain and site. Everything else is optional.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - A Place for Every Page and Every Post in Its Place
- a guide to creating your website's directory structure, and thus the URLs of your pages and posts
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, filesystem, webcraft, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Single? Looking? Why Not Make a /dating Page?
- Instead of using an app that makes more money if you stay single, why not use your website for online dating?
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(filed under recommended, personal, webcraft, memories, and online dating) - Personal Websites are for Personal Use
- Commercial use — such as listing in Google, linking to from Reddit, or scraping for LLM training data — is not necessarily welcome.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Blocking Unwanted Referrers with .htaccess
- This is something I've wanted to do for a while now, but I thought I couldn't on Nearly Free Speech. Turns out I could, after all.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, class warfare, and commercial use) - People and Blogs
- I was recently asked to contribute to Manuel Moreale’s interview series.
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(filed under personal and webcraft) - Something for the Smol Web Newbies
- If you need this, if you’re dealing with imposter syndrome because of a misplaced notion of purity, then it’s there for you.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and affirmations) - starbreaker.org and the Holy Grail Layout
- I’ve been making some changes to the layout for visitors using laptops and desktops.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, CSS, and announcements) - robots.txt: the Nuclear Option
- Corporate scraping of personal websites has exceeded the Ripley Threshold.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - Proprietary Social Media Tags Considered Contemptible
- To suggest that use of Open Graph and Twitter Cards metadata is harmful would be an exercise in belaboring the obvious.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Limited Fediverse Integration
- I don’t own/operate Bridgy Fed or ShareOpenly so use them at your own risk.
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(filed under webcraft and parasocial media) - mailto links in RSS
- Do great programmers steal, too, or just artists?
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(filed under webcraft) - Developer Experience: JSON vs XML
- Are XML feeds like RSS and Atom really that hard to work with in JavaScript?
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Making a Grimoire
- I’ve wanted to do this for a while, and I finally made a decent start of it.
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(filed under webcraft) - Footnotes: No Fun to Create, Either
- Tyler Sticka doesn't like reading footnotes online? Fair enough.
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - Providing JSON Feeds in Addition to RSS
- I spent my Saturday night doing this instead of relaxing like a sensible person.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - It’s Not Your Feed Reader
- If my posts are showing up as new in your app, it’s my fault.
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(filed under webcraft) - JS Naked Day
- This website wasn’t wearing much to begin with...
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(filed under webcraft) - CSS Naked Day
- This website’s gonna rock out with its markup out.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - B. Bergeron on Progressive JPEGs
- I would do so if WebP, AVIF, or JPEG XL were not available and (in the first two cases) well-supported.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, webcraft, and image processing) - Things to Do in April 2024
- Here’s a todo list for my website; will I get to do it all?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - IndieWeb Carnival 2024: Accessibility on the Personal Web
- Is it just about disability accommodation and WCAG/Section 508 compliance?
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and indiewebcarnival) - Personal Web, Personal Sovereignty
- I often feel like I’ve only ever been free on my own website.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, webcraft, manifesto, and 32bit Cafe Code Jam) - Reset, Part Two
- I didn’t quite go through with my original plan after all. Here’s what I did instead.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - How web bloat impacts users with slow devices
- Dan Luu digs deep into how a lot of current web tech just doesn't work on phones commonly available in poor countries.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Robb Knight on Using Eleventy
- Should I be frightened because this makes sense to me?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Reset
- Here we go again. I might actually redo this site again this month.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - HTML5 Needs a “partial” Element
- What good are web components if you can’t easily reuse them across multiple pages?
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(filed under recommended, technology, HTML, and webcraft) - Your Site, Your Rules, Your Way
- This is me sticking up for the “soydevs” who don’t build their websites the way other people think they should, because tech prescriptivists who indulge in gatekeeping are authoritarian scum.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and rants) - The Last Post for This Version
- I should have written this over a month ago, but I’m building a new version of starbreaker.org
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(filed under webcraft and announcements) - RE: Why Are Websites Embarrassing
- some commentary on a post about egregiously bad web design by Robin Rendle and a rant about modern web development that you’ve probably read before
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(filed under rants and webcraft) - Web Environment Integrity: Expectations, Reality, and Entitlement
- Google’s latest attempt to respectively exploit and protect its dominance in the browser and advertising markets puts the company’s effrontery on full display and cries out for the sort of antitrust enforcement not seen since Uncle Sam brought the hammer down on AT\&T.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, bullshit, and rants) - Silence Implies Consent
- My efforts to thwart commercial use of my website may come to nothing, but I will make them anyway for my own sake.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, rants, and commercial use) - No Bottling the Genie Again
- As much as I sometimes want to become anonymous again online, I suspect that it’s too late for me. Learn from my mistakes.
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(filed under personal, technology, webcraft, privacy, and security) - This is Not My Side Hustle
- I got an email from a guy who doesn’t understand why I’d run a website without trying to monetize it. My response became a manifesto. Oops.
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(filed under recommended, personal, rants, manifesto, and webcraft) - RE: The syndicate
- I generally agree with Jeremy Keith at adactio, but I want to go a bit further.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Reworking My Blogroll
- I’ve been tinkering again instead of writing sf, and remembering how to write XSL transforms.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Now I Have a Mailing List
- It’s not what you think; this mailing list allows discussion, not just broadcast.
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(filed under webcraft) - More Cleanup
- documenting more changes for future references
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(filed under webcraft, CSS, and image processing) - A Bit of a Cleanup
- in which this website’s operator documents some changes he’s made for himself if nobody else
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(filed under webcraft) - A Well Known URL for Your Resume/CV
- Jim Nielsen came up with a well-known URL for avatars, but why not one for resumes and CVs?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - RE: Date and Time with a Static Site Generator
- I was tempted to just email Jim Nielsen with my answer, but decided to blog it instead.
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and webcraft) - Your Screen Is Tasty
- I see no reason why this website shouldn’t eat it all. (om-nom-nom)
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Dammit, Apple
- If your content blocker is going to block images, it should block all images.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - RE: Mastodon Preview Cards
- regarding a post by Jeff Sikes
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(filed under webcraft, rants, and parasocial media) - Preventing LLM Scraping
- I don’t want my writing used to train a large language model.
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(filed under technology, rants, and webcraft) - First World Problems
- in which I gripe about self-inflicted annoyances I face as a webmaster
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(filed under webcraft and rants) - RE: Stop Using Custom Web Fonts
- I got over custom web fonts a long time ago, but I’m no designer.
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - RE: All You May Need is HTML
- comments on Fabien Sanglard’s post about how to build a website
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(filed under technology, HTML, and webcraft) - RE: Does a Blog Need to Integrate?
- blogs with RSS/Atom/JSON feeds are already interoperable
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(filed under recommended, technology, rants, and webcraft) - Hello Again, World
- restarting my blog on a new domain
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(filed under webcraft) - RE: Static Site Generators
- Easier to use depends on who you ask, doesn’t it?
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - Learning Vue
- in which I set about adding another tool to my kit to stay employable
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - Little Changes
- After inspiring more changes in Bradley Taunt’s pblog, I made further tweaks for my own use.
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(filed under webcraft and programming) - Building a Site for My Fiction with ‘pblog’
- thinking out loud, building in public
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - RE: Really Getting Started with Hugo
- a reply to Bryce Wray’s post about Hugo’s quickstart instructions
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(filed under technology, UNIX®, and webcraft) - RE: Thoughts on RSS
- a reply to Matt Rickard’s thoughts on RSS and the problems it faces
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and parasocial media) - Extending pblog
- Some of my extensions to Bradley Taunt’s pblog aren’t necessarily suitable for submission as a patch, but I wanted to document them here.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, and programming) - There Goes Your Feed (Again)
- Because I often break shit while tinkering…
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(filed under technology and webcraft) - A Reality Where HTML Never Existed
- Bradley Taunt thinks CSS and JavaScript were a mistake. I go further.
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(filed under rants and webcraft) - Party Like It’s 1989
- a Web Zero Manifesto
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto) - Using GNU Recutils to Generate a Playlist Feed
- I ended up not doing this, but I don’t want to delete this post.
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, databases, and programming) - Going Dark (Building A Shinobi Site)
- documenting the process by which I rebuilt my website (yet again)
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(filed under technology, webcraft, UNIX®, and programming) - Personal Websites as Self-Portraiture
- The personal website is both medium and message, a self-publishing technology and a new visual arts medium, and every website is its operator’s self-portrait.
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(filed under recommended, technology, webcraft, and manifesto)
When You Don’t See Me
- Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley)
Without Bloodshed
- I Finally Got Without Bloodshed Taken Down
- Most writers would lament the removal of their first novel from Amazon. For me it’s victory and liberation, but now I must decide what to do next.
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(filed under writing, books, publishing, and Without Bloodshed) - More Stuff I Might Use Later
- These might work in a new edition of Without Bloodshed.
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(filed under writing, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, sci-fi, Without Bloodshed)
word processing
- My Wife Gave Me an AlphaSmart 3000 for Christmas
- I wasn’t expecting this, and it’s surprisingly handy now that I’ve gotten the hang of using it.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, hardware, writing, and word processing)
workplace
- Weekend Work
- My day job already owes me for ten hours overtime for which it won’t ever pay, and I have real work to do this weekend.
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(filed under personal, workplace, and rants) - Using a Personal Laptop at Work?
- It's not wrong. It's just stupid.
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(filed under rants, workplace, and security) - NVDA; or, The Punishment Detail
- It's called 'work' because all the other four letter words are taken.
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(filed under technology, workplace, webcraft, and rants) - RE: You Should Go To Conferences
- I know Sophie at localghost is right, but I probably won't take her advice.
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(filed under rants, introversion, workplace, and webcraft) - Good Enough; or, Never Give Your Best At Work
- You get paid the same whether you meet expectations or exceed them.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, and indiewebcarnival) - Cathedrals on Quicksand
- Some thoughts on a recent Minutes to Midnight blog post from the opposite perspective.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - RE: Acting Your Wage Will Atrophy Your Abilities
- commentary on a post by Ruby On Rails creator, 37signals founder, and professional idiot David Heinemeier Hansson
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(filed under rants, workplace, and bullshit) - Make Them Reject You
- If you don’t ask for things, and you aren’t willing to simply reach out and take them, you’ll end up with nothing.
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(filed under recommended, personal, workplace, philosophy, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Poem for a Mass Resignation
- the Great Resignation deserves a greater poet than I, but this might do for now
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(filed under recommended, poetasting, and workplace) - Companies Are Failing Everybody
- disputing findings in the most recent Women in the Workplace report
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(filed under politics, Women’s Liberation, Men’s Liberation, workplace, class warfare, and rants) - The Ides of March
- If you ever wanted to have a public toga party while staging a general strike, today’s the day.
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(filed under politics, workplace, Women’s Liberation, and Men’s Liberation) - Always Remote
- Regardless of the weather, I will always prefer remote work over on-site.
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(filed under personal, workplace, remote work, and class warfare) - Salary Range or GTFO
- concerning pay transparency in tech recruiting and its lack thereof
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(filed under rants and workplace) - An Archetypical Tech Recruiter
- I’m almost of sick of these people as I am of self-righteous terminally-online types.
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(filed under technology, workplace, and rants) - Paying Strangers to Watch Me Work?
- How stupid can the New York Times get when it comes to remote work?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - Of Course I Worked There. So What?
- a rant about the New York Times’ anti-remote work propaganda
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(filed under rants, workplace, and remote work) - Hearing Rainfall
- Reflections on working from home, and why I don’t want to go back to onsite work
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(filed under recommended, workplace, and remote work) - I Still Don't Have a Career
- I saw this post on Hacker News that struck a nerve, and thought I'd comment on it here.
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(filed under personal and workplace) - Zoom is No Substitute for In-Person Interactions
- Victor Rotariu makes grandiose claims to justify always having your camera on in Zoom. I think his claims are arrant bullshit.
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(filed under personal, remote work, zoom, workplace, and rants) - Why Should I Go Back to the Office?
- Also, why do I always get nervous when somebody at work talks about ‘safe spaces’?
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(filed under personal, rants, workplace, and remote work) - The Wrong Kind of Diversity
- Diversity will be punished unless it can be exploited because under capitalism no lives matter.
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(filed under rants, politics, and workplace) - Unpleasant Truths About Culture Fit
- If somebody wants to discriminate against you when hiring without getting sued, this is the excuse they’ll use.
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(filed under rants, politics, and workplace) - Cobra Kai at Work
- a defense of wildcat strikes, legality be damned
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(filed under politics, class warfare, workplace, and rants) - On the Imperative of Niceness
- Stop tone-policing your fellow workers and start organizing general strikes.
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(filed under politics, workplace, and rants) - Leaving the Cult; or, Getting Free of Toxic Tech Culture
- This post is absofuckinlutely brilliant and you should have read it last week.
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(filed under technology, workplace, and rants) - Programmer Passion Considered Harmful
- I might have been drunk when I posted this on Medium, but I meant it and I stand by it today.
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(filed under recommended, technology, programming, workplace, and rants) - I Know What I Need
- I dislike being commanded, and being told that I need to do something is particularly grating.
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(filed under workplace and rants) - Not In My Contract
- Do the job. Get paid. Socializing with coworkers costs extra, and your boss isn’t paying.
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(filed under workplace and rants) - Have Mind, Will Travel
- Regardless of the connotation people place upon the word, there can be honor in being a mercenary...
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(filed under workplace)
worldbuilding
- TANELORN (Strike the Balance)
- lyrics for a fictional single by Crowley’s Thoth for use in my fiction
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(filed under writing, poetasting, lyrics, heavy metal 🤘, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Writing Wonders: August 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Spiral Architect: Patient Privilege
- I should be writing this chapter, but I’m not quite ready yet.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, plot, characterization, worldbuilding, and Spiral Architect) - Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
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(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning) - Writing Wonders: July 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Theme, Variations, Eternal Return
- I don’t know if I’ll use this in a Starbreaker story or if it’ll be another fragmentary outtake.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and worldbuilding) - Writing Wonders: June 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - Questions for Your Cast
- a brief guide to character creation without prior worldbuilding
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(filed under recommended, writing, characterization, and worldbuilding) - More Stuff I Might Use Later
- These might work in a new edition of Without Bloodshed.
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(filed under writing, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, sci-fi, Without Bloodshed) - What Really Caused Nationfall?
- It’s easier to write post-apocalyptic sf when the world isn’t collapsing around you.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Dragon Hunting; or, Helvetia delenda est
- An idea for a SF thriller that I probably won’t use
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
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(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants) - Worldbuilding: Mutual Aid vs the Welfare State
- I’m not an expert in economics or in political economy, but the more I tried to think things through the more impossible it became to justify writing a straightforward right-libertarian utopia.
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(filed under writing, politics, economics, sci-fi, and worldbuilding)
writing
- Until We Meet Again
- It need not be forever, but I must away for a time.
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(filed under personal, writing, webcraft, and health) - Saturday Scenes (2025-03-15)
- In which Morgan Cooper loses his shirt without setting foot in a casino.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, fragment, Saturday Scenes, and Starbreaker Saga) - All That I Leave Unwritten
- Though this is a personal website, there is a lot I don’t share. I have my reasons.
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(filed under personal, writing, memories, sex, Men’s Liberation, psychology, religion, and philosophy) - Saturday Scenes (2025-03-08)
- This used to be something writers would do on Google+.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, morgancooper, fragment, Starbreaker Saga, flash fiction, and Saturday Scenes) - Interactive Fiction?
- The operator of foreverliketh.is asked me if I had ever considered creating my own text-based games. This post is his fault.
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(filed under personal, technology, writing, sci-fi, and webcraft) - Counter-Thaumaturgy
- An exercise from the viewpoint of one of the Starbreaker saga’s more hard-bitten characters, Eddie Cohen
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(filed under writing, fiction, sci-fi, magic, tactics, violence, warfare, fragment, and Starbreaker Saga) - Why I Don’t Use AI, Particularly Lex
- An answer to Lex’s 2024 letter, “Why Don’t More Writers Use AI?”
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(filed under writing, technology, ethics, and machine learning) - Social Media Has Been Worthless for Years
- I published my first novel over 12 years ago. Most of my sales came via my website, not social media.
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(filed under writing, business, marketing, advertising, webcraft, parasocial media, and rants) - Then I shall make noise!
- If expressing myself online is narcissistic garbage, make the most of it and be damned to you.
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(filed under personal, writing, blogging, and Romantic Satanism) - Letting Christabel Crowley Speak for Herself
- Writing from the viewpoint of a character I don’t typically use as a viewpoint character...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, experiment, viewpoint, Starbreaker Saga, When You Don’t See Me, and Christabel Crowley) - Computer Says, “Fuck You”
- an unrealistically optimistic view of artificial general intelligence...
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, sciencefantasy, flash fiction, and machine learning) - TANELORN (Strike the Balance)
- lyrics for a fictional single by Crowley’s Thoth for use in my fiction
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(filed under writing, poetasting, lyrics, heavy metal 🤘, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Impact
- Brace yourselves. This could get heavy.
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(filed under personal, memories, writing, books, and indiewebcarnival) - Morgan Cooper: Dirty Work
- An attempt at a character study in a style similar to what David Simon used in his 1991 book, Homicide.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and characterization) - Writing with Large Language Models
- LLMs were not made with my needs or best interests as a writer or a programmer in mind.
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(filed under writing and machine learning) - Concerning Age-Appropriate Content
- This started out as a Mastodon post in response to a #WordWeavers prompt.
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(filed under entertainment, books, writing, parenting, personal, memories, sexuality, and censorship) - Viewpoint Limitations
- Writing Spiral Architect in first-person viewpoint might have been a mistake. There are elements that I could explain from another viewpoint that I can’t explain from Morgan Cooper’s.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and Spiral Architect) - I Finally Got Without Bloodshed Taken Down
- Most writers would lament the removal of their first novel from Amazon. For me it’s victory and liberation, but now I must decide what to do next.
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(filed under writing, books, publishing, and Without Bloodshed) - Writing Wonders: August 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Spiral Architect: Patient Privilege
- I should be writing this chapter, but I’m not quite ready yet.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, plot, characterization, worldbuilding, and Spiral Architect) - Stormageddon, Fluffgoddess of the Next Apocalypse
- a bit of flash fiction featuring Claire Ashecroft and an AI “on the fritz”.
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(filed under writing, flash fiction, sci-fi, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, and machine learning) - Spiral Architect: Little Sunshine and more…
- I had written this update late Sunday night, but forgot to upload it for several days.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, plotting, and Spiral Architect) - Spiral Architect, Chapter 5: Prima Donna
- a short progress update on my work in progress
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and Spiral Architect) - Writing Wonders: July 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - Our Revels Now Are Ended…
- a bit of Shakespeare that’s been stuck in my head for years
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(filed under writing, music, sci-fi, and characterization) - Theme, Variations, Eternal Return
- I don’t know if I’ll use this in a Starbreaker story or if it’ll be another fragmentary outtake.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, characterization, and worldbuilding) - Writing Wonders: June 2023
- I thought I’d answer this month’s questions in one place, and make them accessible outside of parasocial media.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, and characterization) - smile, he said
- it isn’t just women who hear this
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(filed under writing, poetasting, and Women’s Liberation) - silent defiance
- yet another bad haiku
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(filed under writing, poetasting, and Romantic Satanism) - A Seed of an Ending for Soft Doctrines
- Isaac Magnin has nobody to blame but himself. This was the best possible outcome of his endgame.
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(filed under writing, prompts, sci-fi, worldbuilding, characterization, entertainment, music, video, and The Soft Doctrines of Isaac Magnin) - Shadowbanned
- an extremely short flash fiction
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, flash fiction, and politics) - Web3 is Coming For Authors
- A ‘crypto revolution’ re-imagining books? Count me out.
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(filed under writing, griftocurrency, and bullshit) - Questions for Your Cast
- a brief guide to character creation without prior worldbuilding
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(filed under recommended, writing, characterization, and worldbuilding) - Literature Ain’t Burger King
- Want to have it your way? Write it yourself.
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(filed under recommended, writing, and rants) - My Wife Gave Me an AlphaSmart 3000 for Christmas
- I wasn’t expecting this, and it’s surprisingly handy now that I’ve gotten the hang of using it.
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(filed under recommended, personal, technology, hardware, writing, and word processing) - More Stuff I Might Use Later
- These might work in a new edition of Without Bloodshed.
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(filed under writing, dialogue, characterization, worldbuilding, sci-fi, Without Bloodshed) - Getting Back Into It
- But first I’ve got some background material to work out.
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(filed under writing and sci-fi) - Making Meaning
- inspired by a Gemini post by Case Duckworth
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(filed under recommended, personal, existentialism, Men’s Liberation, and writing) - The Racist H. P. Lovecraft vs. Self-Righteous Internet Leftists
- Throwing Lovecraft’s work down the memory hole only harms the living.
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(filed under entertainment, books, H. P. Lovecraft, writing, and rants) - What Really Caused Nationfall?
- It’s easier to write post-apocalyptic sf when the world isn’t collapsing around you.
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Dragon Hunting; or, Helvetia delenda est
- An idea for a SF thriller that I probably won’t use
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(filed under writing, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Vocabulary Lessons
- There are plenty of good reasons to avoid the use of ‘niggardly’ that online leftists don’t cite.
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(filed under writing and rants) - Finding the Sweet Spot: Purple Prose and Fire Emblem Fates
- What if purple prose, used in moderation, wasn’t the aesthetic atrocity that style fascists and writers even more pretentious than I am make it out to be?
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(filed under recommended, writing, translation, localization, characterization, worldbuilding, entertainment, games, and rants) - Worldbuilding: Mutual Aid vs the Welfare State
- I’m not an expert in economics or in political economy, but the more I tried to think things through the more impossible it became to justify writing a straightforward right-libertarian utopia.
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(filed under writing, politics, economics, sci-fi, and worldbuilding) - Weaving the World’s Dreams
- The world needs a hero. Not a hero to save the world from itself, but one who can inspire man to rise up, take responsibility for his fate, and create his own salvation.
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(filed under writing)
young adult fiction
- Derelict by L. J. Cohen: a YA Worthy of Heinlein
- a review resurrected and expanded from the archives; I had bought the book and gotten my money’s worth
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(filed under recommended, entertainment, books, sci-fi, and young adult fiction)
zine
- starbreaker.org NOW: February 2025
- the starbreaker.org /now page, archived as a web zine in February 2025
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(filed under zine) - starbreaker.org NOW: January 2025
- the starbreaker.org /now page, archived as a web zine in January 2025
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(filed under zine) - starbreaker.org NOW: December 2024
- the starbreaker.org /now page, archived as a web zine in December 2024
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(filed under zine) - starbreaker.org NOW: November 2024
- the starbreaker.org /now page, archived as a web zine in November 2024
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(filed under zine)
zoom
- Zoom is No Substitute for In-Person Interactions
- Victor Rotariu makes grandiose claims to justify always having your camera on in Zoom. I think his claims are arrant bullshit.
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(filed under personal, remote work, zoom, workplace, and rants)