iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I do like the (barely subtextual) subtext of "be more charitable, you stingy motherfucker," though

Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Belatedly weighing in on the whole "is it okay to be a Harry Potter fan in 2026?" thing, I chose violence: 1999ad.blogspot.com/2026/09/fand...

1999ad.blogspot.com

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Kind of inspired by the blog bandwagon about names, except I already wrote the piece I would've written about that two years ago so this time I just meandered off onto various tangentially related subjects: 1999ad.blogspot.com/2024/03/how-...

1999ad.blogspot.com

How to Name Things: A Case Against Conlangs

I've been thinking about constructed languages a bunch since reading Manvir Singh's excellent New Yorker piece about Dune and conlangs; I ...

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Forgot to share yesterday but I wrote more about naming characters etc. in SF, thinking (shallowly) about the future of human societies/cultures, what languages your monolingual English-speaking readers will most struggle with, and so forth: 1999ad.blogspot.com/2026/09/name...

1999ad.blogspot.com

Names for the Future

I've written before about naming things in fiction (or worldbuilding, if you will), and I've written, albeit somewhat narrowly about a coup...

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Thinking about how to make an alien biosphere in the vein of Scavengers Reign on the fly in a game like #MothershipRPG: 1999ad.blogspot.com/2026/09/popu...

1999ad.blogspot.com

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

doesn’t know the difference between muses and medusas smdh

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

(yes I know she's still alive and still writing)

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I read some more books, and stand at the doorstep of my "Melissa Scott was a genius unrecognized in her own time" advocacy era: 1999ad.blogspot.com/2026/09/book...

1999ad.blogspot.com

Bookpost #6

I know, #5 was only like four posts ago, but it's been many months in the interim! Thankfully, my drive to read is not as repressible by b...

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I have deliberately misunderstood the 38 posters assignment and voted for people who are especially influential on MY enjoyment of this dumb app and nobody else’s. Oh, nine other people already voted for you? You’re too big for your britches. Sure, I liked your old stuff. Before you sold out!

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Ahhhhh @nerdjpg.com · 03/09/2026

If you miss the “house” thing of Harry Potter spend time figuring out what kind of communist you are instead. Simple as

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Which is to say that dumb opinions about "y'all" or "you all" or whatever are old as dirt. I don't need to hear it from Iowans, and I sure as shit don't need to hear it from the perfidious English. Incidentally, I ended up transferring to and graduating from UVA, where I was happy. Wahoowa.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I grew up (in DC) saying "you all" and thinking of it as a two-word phrase. At 18, on moving to the Midwest for college, I had a whole bunch of Iowans and Minnesotans tell me things like, "Wow, I didn't know you Southerners (?!) actually said yawwwwwl like that." I was not saying "yawwwwwl."

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

After a six-month intermission (better late than never!), more backgrounds for a #Cairn game set somewhere and somewhen like 19th-century Eastern Europe, à la Beyond the Pale: 1999ad.blogspot.com/2026/08/back...

1999ad.blogspot.com

Backgrounds for Early Modern Cairn, Part 2

More backgrounds for a Cairn campaign set, like Beyond the Pale, in something very much like early modern Europe . We are now two-thirds of ...

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It’s a very fun read! Here’s hoping more of Djuna’s work gets translated to English.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

"Is this the most corrupt World Cup ever?" ask a bunch of Americans who were only dimly aware that the tournament existed before 1994 and then paid no attention to it until it returned to our shores this year. Go read about 1934 and 1978!

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pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” @pixelatedboat.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I can’t explain how but I think this would fix me

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play by post @playbypost.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

What white people think of as the most common working class: White guy who is 43 with an oversized wrench in overalls saying 'git er done' What is actually more representative: Single mother WOC doing eldercare and gig work in the gaps who ironically lacks healthcare herself

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Platner's constituency was a group that should be marginal but unfortunately still holds most of the cards: Wealthy, educated white men who think the answer to every political problem is to appeal more to a mythical white proletarian whom they longingly see as the absolute pinnacle of masculinity.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Piker took the same agnostic position Bouie did: Good platform, untrustworthy man, too many red flags to stand behind. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party machine did line up behind Platner, however reluctantly, in a way they don't for insurgent leftist candidates who aren't folksy-seeming white boys.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Yeah, Rashida Tlaib endorsed. Oops! She's the exception, though. Mamdani never endorsed. AOC didn't. Ilhan Omar didn't. Summer Lee sure as hell didn't. DSA never endorsed Platner! Jamelle Bouie didn't. Hasan Piker didn't, for all the heat he in particular has been catching for this.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

…even Chuck Schumer (who could never bring himself to endorse Zohran Mamdani but jumped on the Platner train as soon as Mills conceded). What unites Platner's early supporters and later defenders isn't ideology, it's that 1) they were almost all men and 2) they were almost all white.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

In all the finger-pointing about Platner, it's frustrating to see "the left" take so much heat. Platner had plenty of support from leftists and progressives, but he had as much or more support from liberals and moderates: Ruben Gallego and Martin Heinrich, the Pod Save America guys…

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DFW Support Committee @dfwsupportcommitt.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

please read this statement written by Benjamin "Champagne" Song and share as far and wide as you can: prairielanddefendants.com/defendant…

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The Onion @theonion.com · 16/06/2026

Why Politicians Fail To Understand The Elaborate Mythical Realm I’ve Made Up In My Head

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

the universe is playing the long game, setting him up to throw some meatballs as a position-player pitcher in a blowout three years from now

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

here's hoping that when President Mamdani nationalizes MLB in 2033, he appoints Michael Baumann Supreme God-Emperor of Amateur Player Acquisition

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

We’ve reached such a low point for political participation and engagement that there are more disaffected apolitical dudes hyped to support this macho man they just learned about who’s making all the nerds and [various slurs] uncomfortable than there are people actually paying attention

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

If it’s before noon, you are eating breakfast. You can spend your lunch hour eating breakfast, I guess, but I you should be ashamed of yourself. Also, you’re going to get POWERFULLY sleepy during the long unbroken hours of the afternoon.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

In olden times, there were only like five or six new books each year, and every single one of them was a banger. If you tried to publish a book without being a Dumas or a Tolstoy, they just killed you right away. But we can't do that anymore, because Woke. So now people keep writing bad books. Sad.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

"If you go to the bookstore […] if you were to randomly sample some of the books being promoted, chances are most of them will suck." Incredible observation. This has never been true before at any point in human history, and can only be explained by the insidious phenomenon of Woke.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

we're going to "jeff thinks the beans need to take turns" our way into geopolitical irrelevance and I think that's beautiful

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Amazing that in the national divorce the libs are getting the NFL, butter and cooking oil, being attracted to adult women, standup comedy, Bud Light, and now also Catholicism

Mike Nellis
@MikeNellis
"I'M NO LONGER CATHOLIC!" Hannity
ABANDONS HIS FAITH for Trump
NELLIS
X.com
•
+*+

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

"The NEJM refuses to publish my article about how smoking weed is better for cancer patients than chemotherapy!" Gee, I wonder why.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

"It's much easier to get something published in JAMA or the NEJM if it's supportive of gender-affirming care." Yeah it's also easier to get shit published that's in favor of vaccinations.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

I remain stupid, truculently resistant to promoting anything or I do or even cross-posting stuff from my little blog but I'm TRYING to break the habit, I swear. Here, I wrote this! People liked it! 1999ad.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-...

1999ad.blogspot.com

The Importance of Being Earnest

Valeria made a great observation in her recent review of Daggerheart : TTRPGs have utterly failed to communicate how lighthearted this hobby...

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

my "it's not that they think LLMs have thoughts and personalities, it's that they think human beings don't" theory stays winning

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

My hot hot Oscars take is that 2025 was just not a good year for film. I missed The Secret Agent, which maybe should've won best picture, AND No Other Choice, which probably should've been nominated, so what do I know, but the stuff I did see was either mid (OBAA, Train Dreams, Sinners) or bad.

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

I'm torn between how funny it would be see these chuds get walked off by the Canadians and how satisfying it'll be to see them get mercy ruled by the Dominicans

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Gorbachev’s choices made it increasingly inexorable, but at the time he came to power? Could easily have taken different courses (more like China, for instance)

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

If you’re too ignorant to recognize Korean OR a Palestinian flag AND too lazy/incurious/incompetent to look these things up, how did you even find yourself on bluesky? You should be learning how to tie your shoes, not posting

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Michael @1999ad.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Or where WW2 is over almost as soon as it begins (with Germany easily defeated by France and allies). Or where the USSR doesn’t collapse. At bottom, most people, even well educated people, seem essentially to think that everything important that ever happened was literally inevitable. It’s weird!

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