Writer: science fiction and fantasy, personal finance, and Esperanto
That s the only thing that a podcast is. If it s not an RSS feed, or if doesn t link to MP3 files, it s not a podcast. Most especially, a YouTube channel is not a podcast. There are a lot of reasons for that, but here s the biggest: And now, our YouTube channel—with 26,000 subscribers—will be disabled [ ]
It rained yesterday, but not all the time. I was able to get Ashley out in the gaps pretty well. After raining all night, it seemed it was going to rain all morning as well. I offered Ashley a chance to go out on the patio, and she declined. A bit later, after she indicated [ ]
I really like summer. I even like the heat, but I especially like long, sunny days. However, even for me, the longest days of summer are kinda. . . . long. What s perfect is the day length in, let s say, July. When the sun rises no later than 6:00 AM, there s daylight to wake me [ ]
I ve been warning about the current stagflation since the beginning of last year. It s good to see others are catching up. Stagflation, the Scourge of the 1970s, Is Back by Phillip Braun One point the opinion piece makes is that the one bright spot in the economy—the stock market—is actually (in line with what I ve [ ]
Some years ago, I wrote an article on living off capital and published it as a guest post on another financial blog. The old link to it is dead, and a google search doesn t turn it up any more, so I thought I d go ahead and repost it, hosted here on my own blog. People [ ]
I m a little surprised people are still studying this, since it s been studied before with the same results: After 12 weeks, researchers found no meaningful differences in weight gain, body composition, or cholesterol levels between people following the low-dairy diet and those eating three servings of dairy each day. Participants consuming more dairy, however, showed [ ]
That s not what I learned in 4th grade.
If, like me, you had any sort of reasonably balanced portfolio at the beginning of the year (or the beginning of last year), it s worth observing that it is almost certainly way, way out of balance. If so, this is your reminder to rebalance your portfolio. Doing so is admittedly really hard to do. If [ ]
My brother just got email asking if he d ever thought about upgrading his website with an engaging video to explain what you do? My reply was: Ooh! An engaging video!! I never thought of that! I figured I d go with either a tedious video or an annoying one. That s what everybody else does. Steven pointed [ ]
Light exposure is good for you. All the different frequencies are good for you. This has led many people to try to tweeze them apart: tanning beds, red-light panels and masks, therapy lights, etc. It turns out, sunlight is best consumed whole, just like food. I should mention that by inclination, I m rather vulnerable to [ ]
A guy I follow on micro.blog, after having to go through four or five steps just to read a Substack post, posted Substack? What are you for? To which I replied: As near as I can tell, it’s there to monetize the writing of Nazis, with enough non-Nazis to provide some cover for the firm. [ ]
AI firms are on the ropes, having spent way too much money building infrastructure for tools that are valuable, but not nearly valuable enough to support the money already spent, let alone what they re planning to spend over the next two or thee years. This is bound to come to a bad end. As Jerry [ ]
It was a very nice day today—moderate clouds, not too hot, no rain—so I decided to go for a run. I haven t actually compared it to other runs this summer, but I m pretty sure it s my longest and my fastest. 4.88 miles in 1h 18 min. I really mean to do two runs a week, [ ]
A few weeks ago, back before the Iran war heated back up, The Economist wrote a mia culpa, explaining why they d gotten it wrong about the war being an economic disaster. Briefly, while the MOU was holding up, I was tempted to write my own. Like The Economist editors, I had thought back in April [ ]
On Saturday my local HEMA group, Tempered Mettle Historical Fencing, had a guest instructor come to teach a one-day class aimed at underrepresented groups. The guest instructor was Kaethe Dundon, a Chicago-based queer nerd whose major interests are in history, art, and textiles, and of course historical martial arts. The class was pitched thus: The [ ]
The notion that SpaceX s ambition to put data centers in space makes more sense than putting them in North Dakota, Alaska, Siberia, and maybe Tierra del Fuego or the Falkland Islands suggests that a bunch of people have no sense at all.
I m using AI here in the older sense, rather than the newer sense where it s just another way to say LLM. In this older sense, I don t have anything against AI (even though I generally try to avoid LLMs). So, I thought I d talk a little about the things I actually object to, when it [ ]
My brother asked me today, Which author do you think best immanentizes the eschaton? Not being a moron, I immediately replied, Obviously it s Charlie Stross. Before I could finish typing that, he suggested a Mastodon poll to ask people, to which I replied, The poll should be After Charlie Stross, what author next best immanentizes [ ]
Do you use an activity tracker? I have an Oura ring, a Google Pixel watch, and a phone which runs Google Fit. All of those count my steps, and each one does some additional activity or sleep tracking. I find them all fun and interesting, so I m always amused when yet another article comes out [ ]
If your website has a See more link, I assume that indicates that the rest of the article or site is unimportant or uninteresting, so I basically never click on it. Why would I? Now, if you share 20 or more full posts and then have an Older posts link at the bottom, that s different. [ ]
I ve started to get comments on this blog that I figure are probably AI-written spam, but are sufficiently well-written and sufficiently on-topic that I can t tell for sure. I hate the idea of giving spam a place on my site. But I used to really enjoy the discussions in my comment space, back when people [ ]
The result is going to be a recession, very possibly a severe recession, and one that goes on for a very long time. It’s not obvious yet, because businesses are still spending huge amounts of money on things like AI infrastructure, but a lot of that spending is illusory, so it will vanish all at once, rather than gradually.
I ve talked about artist s dates many times, so I won t go on about those, except to say that on Jackie s birthday we went to the Krannert Art Museum. Jackie particularly wanted to see the crocheted coral reef exhibit. I neglected to get a picture of the whole thing, but I did get a picture of [ ]
Appreciate these day lily flowers with rain drops, and this wet dog (which smells like a wet dog, but that is not captured in the photo).
As someone who uses at least two wearables that gather all manner of biometric data about me, I have considerable concern about just how that data is used. I was pretty pleased with Oura s old privacy policies; I m not sure how much their most recent changes have compromised them. I m not so sure about Google s [ ]
I was out walking Ashley this morning when I saw this painting on top of the recycling bins near my house in Winfield Village. I immediately thought of a guy (probably this guy) who would buy thrift-store landscape paintings and then add a monster to them. I shared the image above with Steven, who immediately [ ]
Steven commented while he was visiting on how much fun vole-watching on my patio was. Ashley thinks so too. Ashley has caught three voles that I know of (because she was on-leash when she caught them). She may have caught some others on the patio when she was out there off-leash. One thing that surprised [ ]
I m always on the lookout for books that take a more balanced view of sun exposure than skin cancer bad, and this looks to be a good one: In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure by Rowan Jacobsen From a review in Nature Briefing: One study he mentions analysed the skin of [ ]
As you ll know if you subscribe to my newsletter (sign up in the sidebar), my brother and I are attending SFWA’s Nebula Award Conference in Chicago. Today Steven had SFWA board stuff all day, so after breakfast I went to the hotel fitness center for a workout. Normally I always do a full warmup before [ ]
Have you ever seen a more pleasant garden spot than this sterile bit of lawn, concrete, and pavers at the Crowne Plaza O Hare? There is no seating at all. There are some walls you can sit on, if you re reasonably tall, but even the lowest bit of wall is too tall for me to balance [ ]
At Aspen Tap House with @stevendbrewer. I m drinking a Destihl ILL-IPA. He has an Emancipation Plowhorse.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I d made two changes to my morning routine: I had quit wearing my earbuds (and listening to podcasts) during my first two walks in the morning, and had started sitting down to write as soon as I got home from the second walk. I am pleased to report [ ]
People with substantial cryptocurrency holdings face grave personal danger, and the physical attacks on their person grow bolder, more violent, and more sadistic by the day. Source: Pluralistic: Hold on for dear life (28 May 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow Apropos nothing in particular, I just wanted to mention that I own [ ]
My toot reminding people about RSS feed readers got some attention, so I thought I d re-up this thing I wrote thirteen years ago: Finding a great writer is way better than finding a great post. Source: Great writers versus great posts Philip Brewer However wonderful it is to find a great post, it s much [ ]
My brother and I think alike about many things, and differently about many other things. We also sometimes disagree about what it is that we disagree about, which is kind of funny all by itself. Although we agree about many things, we sometimes actually come at things from quite different perspectives. Source: Retiring to… Something [ ]
A while back someone among our local group shared a link to a set of books they d found on the internet, with interpretations and drills for Meyer s Art of Fencing. Word among the local group was that the people behind the books publish stuff based on interpretations that are subject to debate, and suggest taking [ ]
I ve gotten back to writing regularly, for the first time in too long. I ve made two changes to my daily routine to make this happen. The first is that I m avoiding listening to podcasts during my first two dog walks. This lets me use that time walking outdoors to get into the headspace of whatever [ ]
First tick of the season. I wasn t even out in the brush! Just walking along in Winfield Village and in Dohme Park! Doesn t portend well for the rest of spring and the summer.
This is my long run for the week. It s very short because my previous long run (of a bit over 4 miles) left me worn out for 6 days. Assuming I recover okay from this one, it ll start the new standard I can build on for ramping up long runs over the summer. Came to [ ]
“Higher Gas Prices Are Hitting Lower-Income Americans the Hardest” —Latest headline from the Petroleum Institute’s economics journal “Duh!”
All over Europe, farmers are parking their tractors on bridges, in front of fuel depots, and across from government offices, to protest government policies that are making the economics of being a farmer completely untenable. It s not happening so much in the U.S. At least not yet. I guess, as long as people are willing [ ]
Sorry not to have gotten a picture of the dog. Run was 2.94 miles. Kinda slow, even for me. (That is, I m a very slow runner, but running with the dog I m even slower, because she needs to stop and sniff, and stop and pee.) Still, very pleasant, and no doubt good cardio.
Blue corn battered black cod with brown rice. Batter is half blue corn, half all-purpose flour, and has paprika, black pepper, thyme, and just a touch of cayenne pepper.
I have been meaning for a while to write about how I seem to need more recovery from exercise now than I did five or six years ago. Back in 2020 I could do a hard workout one day, take one rest day, and then come back and do another hard workout. This year I [ ]
Prompted by EFF, I sent the following message to my representative: I strongly oppose government surveillance of U.S. citizens, so I m asking you to please vote no on any bill that includes a clean reauthorization of Section 702. Real reform is possible and has more support than ever. Several bills would do much to rein in [ ]
For no reason I can understand, markets seem to think that (with the cease fire with Iran) things are going to return more or less to normal, more or less immediately. This is false. It is not just false, it is so far from the truth that I don t understand why way more people aren t [ ]
Most members of my HEMA club have painted their fencing masks in some way that s meaningful to them. I had long wanted to do so, but the thing I wanted to paint—the face of a sloth—was going to require at least three shades of brown, which I feared might be difficult to find. But when [ ]
Recent news is that a contingent of ground forces have arrived in Iran. The markets still seem expect that Trump will chicken out (which seems likely) and that things will return to normal in the Gulf (which seems very, very unlikely). My most hopeful guess at this point: All my other guesses are similar, except [ ]
The U.S. has supposedly provided a 15-point plan to Pakistan which has supposedly passed it on to Iran. I have no idea what s in that plan, nor what Iran s reaction has been. But I do have some ideas about what would be a reasonable response by Iran. If I were in their shoes, this would [ ]
Just a few days after the equinox, and already you can see that the sun is rising north of due east.