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Articles

2017

The Delirium Brief: the magical deep state is here to save you
·429 words·3 mins
Articles Books Reviews
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross ⭐️️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ It’s hard not to love Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series as a concept. A clandestine government agency of computational demonologists defend the world from horrors beyond space and time, all while trying to keep up with their expense reports.
My faithful companion: mutt
··482 words·3 mins
Articles Email Assorted Geekery Personal
About a month ago, on a whim, I started an experiment where I stopped checking my personal email on my phone, or via the web. Instead, I moved all my personal email activity over to Mutt.
Star.Ships: Your ancestors were smarter than you think
··553 words·3 mins
Articles Reviews Books
Star.Ships by Gordon White ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ Gordon White’s exercise in using data analysis to speculatively reconstruct ancient belief systems is a mind-bending journey through our most ancient history. In this book, he tracks our species’ first departure from what we now call Africa, and the beginnings of both the Laurasian mythological “novel”, as well as the Gondwana “grandmother myths” that came with us.
Review of The Night Ocean
·487 words·3 mins
Articles Reviews Books
The Night Ocean by Paul La Farge ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️ / ⭐️️️️⭐️⭐️⭐️️️️⭐️ This is a book where my opinion of it has changed the longer I’ve been away from it. It’s a strange book, and honestly its structure was nearly its undoing for me.
River of Teeth, or why the hippo is my new spirit animal
·283 words·2 mins
Articles Books Reviews
River of Teeth In the early 20th Century, the United States government concocted a plan to import hippopotamuses into the marshlands of Louisiana to be bred and slaughtered as an alternative meat source.
Mandatory HTTPS for everyone
·310 words·2 mins
Articles Meta Encryption Networking Security Privacy
These days, encryption is more important than ever. You don’t need to look any farther than the national news for reasons why. Even small sites that don’t provide user accounts should consider it.
Now supporting JSON feeds and scheduled posts
··237 words·2 mins
Articles Meta Assorted Geekery Development Pelican
I’m happy to report that this site now produces a valid JSON feed for your consumption. If you are using one of the few feedreaders that support them, that is.
How Aikido can change the way you work
·2183 words·11 mins
Articles Aikido Martial Arts Business Conflict Self Improvement
It’s been close to eleven years since I last wore a gi and was thrown over someone’s hip, but I still practice Aikido every day. Not in a dojo, and not on a practice mat, but in the office and in my home.
Nine podcasts to help you escape the horror of our dying republic
··1026 words·5 mins
Articles Podcasts Culture Horror Gaming Writing Politics
Let’s face it. Things are bad right now. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, it’s hard to be happy about anything at the moment, unless you’re, I don’t know, a bridge troll, I guess?
Soaring with Pelican
·737 words·4 mins
Articles Personal Development Assorted Geekery Meta Python Pelican
Get Pelican: it’s good! There comes a time in every young man’s life when he begins to neglect his digital lawn, and the weeds grow so thick you wouldn’t think there was any home there at all.

2016

The View From Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
·132 words·1 min
Articles Space
The scientists learned much about the comet’s landscape. Dr. El-Maarry described its surface as very dark — reflecting just 3 to 4 percent of the sunlight that hits it. The darkness comes from a dearth of ice at the surface and an abundance of organic molecules.
Warren Ellis on Writing
·151 words·1 min
Articles Writing
This is the part of the job that doesn’t get talked about a lot, not least because it’s hard to talk about, but also because it doesn’t involve Productivity and Goals and The Magic Of Writering and The Grand Statement and all that good stuff in interviews.
M. John Harrison on the next five years in SF publishing
·119 words·1 min
Articles Writing Publishing Scifi Sff
I also suspect that we’ll see less fiction of all kinds. Everyone will have published their novel and discovered they aren’t going to get rich–or even noticed–by writing. The industry, especially in its middleclass form, ie traditional, paper-published litfic, saw peak remuneration in the 1990s and peak social status dividends in the first ten years of the new century.
Writing Excuses Shares Newton's Laws of Writing
·61 words·1 min
Articles Writing
A word count at rest will tend to stay at rest, and a word count in motion will tend to stay in motion. Word count = Motivation * Focus Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

2015

What Are You Doing Now?
·642 words·4 mins
Articles Personal
It’s easy to forget what’s important to you. It shouldn’t be. It should be easy to say “no” to the unimportant. It’s counterintuitive that we so easily set aside our priorities in the wake of the new shiny.
On Kindness as a Default
·916 words·5 mins
Articles Kindness Philosophy Culture
I’ve been thinking about kindness a lot lately. As anything, it’s the result of the juxtaposition of several events, but without a doubt I’ve been mostly thinking about it in the context of raising my daughter.
Chuck Wendig Critiques Your Story
·211 words·1 min
Articles Humor Writing
Chuck Wendig serves up a thoughtful and accurate critique of your current work in progress, which he has not read. While doing so, he highlights the key points of progression that should occur in a story.
A Minimum Wage of $70,000 a Year
·105 words·1 min
Articles Business Wages Culture Politics Economics
The New York Times reports that a Seattle-based company has announced that they will be increasing the minimum wage for all of their employees to $70,000 per year. “The market rate for me as a C.
NJ Legislator Who Sponsored Anti-swatting Bill Gets Swatted
·226 words·2 mins
Articles News Politics Feminism Gamergate
Swatting is the disturbing practice of calling in an anonymous police report in order to trigger a SWAT response to a person’s home. It’s been in the news more and more recently, with a number of prominent feminists in the tech industry being targeted in particular.
Sealioning Is Bad
·177 words·1 min
Articles Feminism Racism Privilege Gamergate
Tegiminis does a great job breaking down the issues behind sealioning in this article. However, it’s easy to ask a question in bad faith using reasoned, good faith practices. Neutral phrasing does not always guarantee a question is asked in good faith.