2024-11-28: Bluesky is a retreat What are the major sources of left-liberal ideas and activism in the U.S.? Academia, the labor …
2024-11-15: It’s not the economy, stupid For almost a decade now, U.S political commentators have been vainly searching for the answer to one …
2024-11-13: The Last Doomscroll In the spring of 2006, I was detached—from following politics, from my coursework at college, from …
2024-10-25: The last paragraph of Gary Indiana’s Five O’Clock Somewhere (screenshot by Ryan Ruby)
2024-10-07: Andreas Malm and Wim Carton in Overshoot: And what was the world capitalism built? An overheated …
2024-10-03: From Stephen King’s The Gunslinger: The eyes were damned, the staring, glaring eyes of one who sees …
2024-09-26: The falling leaves reveal the shape of the wind. Its breath blows its disguise by sucking their life …
2024-09-26: The Last Unicorn, 1982
2024-09-25: The leaping and creeping ritual in Gulliver’s Travels—where contestants jump over or duck under a …
2024-09-24: What is sound? What is sound? Yes, it’s noise—but scientifically it’s changes in air pressure caused by vibration. …
2024-09-11: Becoming a fountain pen guy. This is the Jinhao Shark, a $2 pen that’s refillable via cartridge, …
2024-06-30: A perfect album. It gets a better “surround sound” effect from 1967-era analog stereo panning than …
2024-05-15: The Prince of Persia art for Super Famicom is super different than the Super Nintendo equivalent
2024-05-14: Star Wars: A New Hope on Video CD, a pre-DVD format that was most successful in Asia. Think …
2024-04-29: Amazing set for only $30: 5x Super Audio CD (SACD) with 5.1 mixes 2x Blu-ray Pure Audio with one …
2024-04-26: Made an all-organic matcha latte: organic powder, oat milk, and sugar used an electric milk frother …
2024-03-02: That Dark Souls feeling when you approach a place you’ve been before, but from an unfamiliar angle, …
2024-02-03: NaNoWriMo Part 2: Pitchfork This is the belated follow-up to my earlier NaNoWriMo post. – The old house once removed and …
2024-02-01: I remember the day I bought this album, on an impromptu afternoon walk through gray rains to a …
2023-11-01: NaNoWriMo Part 1: Joseph and I discuss CD indexing I’m trying National Novel Writing Month this November! Not sure if I’ll be able to get …
2023-10-27: That oily sweat-tingling feeling from unexpected autumn warmth—when it’s hot out but oughta be cold, …
2023-10-18: Two screaming album covers for albums without much screaming on them
2023-10-10: Some throwback listening 💿
2023-10-09: Basking in the fall sunlight
2023-10-07: Even my 🐈 enjoys Super Turrican: Director’s Cut, a restored genuine Super Nintendo game that’s …
2023-10-05: Some cassette tape listening
2023-10-05: Diet culture, exposed: the legacy of Requiem for a Dream “I’m thinking thin!” In the 2000 film Requiem for a Dream, that’s the hopeful refrain from Sara …
2023-10-02: There’s so many reasons to hate “obesity” discourse, including how it makes eating less fun by …
2023-09-29: Collection of Super Famicom games
2023-09-25: Amazing that Tactics Ogre came out in 1995 for the Super Famicom. The depth of its gameplay is way …
2023-09-23: This morning’s listening:
2023-09-21: Unless you exert conscious effort, you’ll deem the music of your youth as the “greatest” ever. …
2023-09-21: There’s a lot of media hype about Wegovy that doesn’t grapple with how at its core the drug seems to …
2023-09-21: Three versions of Pink by Boris: 2006 🇺🇸 CD 2006 🇺🇸 LP (different sequence, longer versions of 3 …
2023-09-17: The Analogue Pocket has 100x (not a typo) the resolution of a Nintendo Game Boy Color (GBC). Here’s …
2023-09-11: The agony and the Ear-X-Tacy Sometime in the mid 1990s, I saw it for the first time—the bumper sticker reading “Ear X-Tacy,” on a …
2023-09-10: Don DeLillo, on the last day of summer in Underworld: “It is all part of the same thing, the feeling …
2023-09-05: Like a 🐅 camouflaged in the jungle
2023-09-05: Some ☕️ and 🌈
2023-09-02: Bright red tomatoes from my backyard garden
2023-08-31: “The economy” isn’t real—but your perceptions are One of the inescapable meta-narratives of the Biden era had been centrist and center-left writers 1 …
2023-08-30: Essential reading
2023-08-29: Saw this red bird earlier on top of my 🍅 cages
2023-08-23: The past isn’t quaint while you’re in it Many once-ubiquitous customs and behaviors have become so obsolete that it’s puzzling to anyone who …
2023-08-14: The Old New Memories Sometimes, events from many years ago can feel much closer to the present than much more recent …
2023-08-12: 🐝 🌼
2023-08-11: It was so tough to quit Twitter even in the Musk era, because it felt like a news source unique in …
2023-08-11: If I had to propose just one cause of 🇺🇸 ‘s current ills, it’d be cars—not only due to the …
2023-08-10: Now we’re all gamblers in the ESPN casino ESPN—yes, the U.S. cable sports network—once offered a mobile phone plan. In late 2005, the company …
2023-07-29: Watched Daddy Longlegs by the Safdie brothers. Tense, terrifying, and yet funny in their distinctive …
2023-07-29: Today’s morning listens: In Stormy Nights by Ghost: This vinyl edition of this psychedelic band’s …
2023-07-27: Batteries not included (or required) AirPods seem like such a fixture of our world that it’s weird to think they debuted only seven years …
2023-07-27: Really excited to dive into this. I like that they had the courage to pick Donkey Kong Country 2: …
2023-07-27: 🌺 blooming
2023-07-14: Dragonflies
2023-07-12: Miserable adventures in Threads land I was among the first few thousand Facebook users 1. Some time in the summer of 2004, my dad 2 …
2023-07-12: Limited Run Games announced it was reissuing the two SNES/NES/Game Boy Jurassic Park games for …
2023-07-09: My grandpa had a grove of Chinese 🌰 trees. They yielded lots of fruit, and were very compact. In …
2023-07-08: Same location 30 minutes apart in Lombard, IL
2023-07-07: 🦋 🐝 photos from around the garden
2023-07-06: Some light reading while almost sweating to death the other day
2023-07-05: Snagged this picture of a monarch butterfly on the milkweed before it flew over to the neighbor’s …
2023-07-04: Some very KJV-like language from Colson Whitehead in Zone One: They would force a resemblance upon …
2023-07-04: 🐝🌸
2023-07-03: Second painting from yesterday. Super C, 8x10, acrylic on canvas. Name inspired by the NES game of …
2023-07-02: First of three paintings I completed today. Lively lemons, 8x10, acrylic on canvas
2023-07-01: Got this Apple Extended Keyboard II the other day and it’s a joy to type on, with lots of travel and …
2023-07-01: The bald truth about baldness cures Death, taxes, and baldness—they all loom like anxiety-inducing storm clouds that (usually) aren’t as …
2023-06-30: The state bird of Illinois (and six other states) keeping watch over someone’s Amazon package
2023-06-30: Weird DVD facts: They don’t have square pixels, and the pixels have different non-square shapes for …
2023-06-29: She likes this toy from 🇯🇵
2023-06-28: Thirsty 🐈 I thought of this segment from Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott: She lives with little joy …
2023-06-28: The Super Mario Bros. Movie was better than I expected: Fast-moving: I’d forgotten the joy of a …
2023-06-27: This beer manages to taste smooth and almost sweet despite being 9.5% ABV.
2023-06-26: Glimpsed this faint🌈 over Super H Mart last night
2023-06-25: These Chicago-style hotdogs were really good: poppy seed bun dill pickle spear neon green sweet …
2023-06-24: A handful of Game Boy games can, when connected to a Super Nintendo/Famicom (SNES/SFC) via a Super …
2023-06-23: Loved this tree at my doctor’s office.
2023-06-22: What is Dolby Atmos? Dolby Atmos is having a moment. Although the immersive audio format dates back to the first term of …
2023-06-21: My original 1998 cart of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX for Game Boy, running on an …
2023-06-21: Nap time
2023-06-20: The long refactor In 2000, I took a high-school computer science class (“Computer Applications” was the …
2023-06-20: Went out for a walk in the neighborhood, wind was blowing briskly enough to have all these spinners …
2023-06-19: Little squirrel keeping watch
2023-06-18: iPod Syndrome and the FOMO machine Staring at a blank page in Microsoft Word1 can be a traumatic experience. Not only is it empty, but …
2023-06-18: Saw this little one while watering the plants in the backyard
2023-06-17: Apple Vision Pro reuses the Vision branding of its 90s CRT displays. A Q&A page for one is still …
2023-06-17: Latest Play-Asia haul: Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection Switch blue light screen protector …
2023-06-16: Part of The Grouch by Menander. The speech is about how both the affluent and the destitute can see …
2023-06-15: Afternoon relaxation
2023-06-14: I bought this complete DVD box of Space Ghost Coast to Coast in 2013, and am glad to have it now …
2023-06-14: Test post EDIT: Appears to work just fine. I updated a bunch of pages in my blog’s custom theme to …
2023-06-14: Robin perched on the fence, looking at another robin out of frame. They’re regulars in our backyard.
2023-06-13: The only way to win is not to play In 1999, I rented Final Fantasy III1 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Immediately …
2023-06-13: My nephew’s trying to learn Mario Paint, seen here running off of the original cart in 1080p, 8:7 …
2023-06-12: The Attic Greek word for water is ὕδωρ, which is a fitting root of the English word hydrangea1. …
2023-06-12: Colson Whitehead imagining the post apocalyptic device landscape in Zone One: His parents were …
2023-06-12: Micro Monday! Brandon’s Mid-Life Reset by @BrandonWrites, a nice blend of topical content and posts …
2023-06-12: Why print encyclopedias still matter: a little voice in the back of my head reasoned that it would …
2023-06-11: Faded gnome (used to have a red cap) keeping watch over the garden
2023-06-10: Ensuring text accessibility is a key part of my day job, and it’s influenced my personal life, too. …
2023-06-10: Plants and books basking in Saturday sunlight from open windows
2023-06-10: The first game I ever had on CD was King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. Its copy protection …
2023-06-09: The joy of posting Substack has no public API. That means that if you want to post anything there, you must use the …
2023-06-09: The Nintendo DS was a haven for point-and-click adventure games: Again even featured full-motion …
2023-06-08: Circa 1996, I needed a lot of thick proprietary cords and power supplies to run all the games on …
2023-06-08: Hollywood killed two and almost three super reliable cash cows—cable TV, DVDs, and theaters—because …
2023-06-07: Is the Vision Pro the next: Lisa?: A $$$ precursor to a genuine breakthrough 1 …
2023-06-07: Bird on a wire
2023-06-06: Living in the age of captions and subtitles Closed captioning for TV is relatively ancient technology. The NTSC analog TV specification, …
2023-06-06: Why “content creator” is such a bad term: Union shops such as the Directors Guild have long fought …
2023-06-05: Drinking some really yummy margaritas next to the interstate feeder road 🍹🚗
2023-06-05: The magic cloud computing button When I worked for a content marketing agency 1, we added Shutterstock photos to our lightly …
2023-06-05: When something has ads, I’m tempted to look for an ad-free alternative. Did so with: Google: Kagi …
2023-06-04: Most important WWDC for Apple since the 1990 one that featured a VHS tape with a conference …
2023-06-04: SNES edition of the New Nintendo 3DS XL, with purple Panasonic earbuds whose purple hue matches the …
2023-06-04: The red queen has ruled Out not having colorblindness After seeing this scene and decreeing It …
2023-06-03: Anything called “content” is in danger, b/c that term centers the platform owner—not the artist. And …
2023-06-03: So much depends On an orange cat Brushed by breeze By the also-orange bricks
2023-06-03: Milkweed coming along nicely
2023-06-02: Retreat? Retreat! Attic Greek has two words with substantially different meanings that both translate into English as …
2023-06-02: When you call everything content you treat it as: interchangeable capable of being made by a …
2023-06-02: Drive My Car was exceptional—my favorite movie of the 2020s so far.
2023-06-02: The U.S. Constitution and conservative sophistry Conservatives love to say they’re “originalists” who’re just upholding the …
2023-06-02: Hello world! 1 Trying it out here to see if I might like it. Here’s my cat helping me paint. …