iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I do not understand why we can't restrict Amazon searches to what we're actually searching for and not something else, and I really don't understand why we can't use a minus sign to eliminate bad results.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

No Conodont, spelling bee? Conodont sad

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Also, in a pinch, you can strike sparks off pyrite using flint. That's why it's called pyrite.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Just go Settings > Autocorrect > Canadian.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Possibly not AI and rather "marketing team desperately, desperately wants to be marketing anything other than this cutesy game, and the developer let them get away with it."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Er, I may be going overboard with dialogue choices here. But that's the attractive fantasy, isn't it? Some days feel like the main choice is 'what should I eat from the fridge first?'

A Twine dialogue tree with eight possible paths coming out of one node.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Boy, Dylan Faden sure feels guilty for all those people he made explode with his mind. But come on, get over it. I mean, who hasn't?

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye's dream. I hid behind the theater seats in front of me and peeked through the between the two of them. I was six.

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Reposted by Alex Epstein

Toiya Kristen Finley Available for Consulting and Editing! @toiya.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Hello Editors and Writers: I'll be hosting a new workshop at the end of the month! Give and Take: The Art of Feedback for Editors and Writers 📅 Oct. 24, 1–5 PM Central 🎟️ $250 + $9.74 booking fee ✍️ For all experience levels + all kinds of stories Register: www.ticketsource.com/schnoodlestu...

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Also, the manga-style animation is fresh and incredible.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I have visions of "AI vendors" with, like, the wrong number of arms.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I wonder if they considered having you play as murder-Dylan -- making you kill people -- so the player has some ownership of his past. Just hearing about it makes it more intellectual than felt. It's tough to make the player do something they don't wanna, but there are ways to make it work.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I'm intrigued by I Play Rocky. I'm a little worried by the trailer, which is what you already knew: "Sly writes a script, but they don't want an unknown to play Rocky, they throw money at him, he turns it down even though he's broke." His full story is *way* more impressive than just that.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The Forgotten Island is wonderful. Please go see it before it drops out of theaters. It's one of those Dreamworks animation movies that pretends to be for kids, but *really* hits you in the feels if you're grown up. (Hmmm, I need to give Inside Out a rewatch.)

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Hey, Amazon, if I search for AA batteries, maybe don't sneak AAA batteries into the search results? That's not helpful.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The only constraint is my time. The reader doesn't know how many branches there are. So long as each playthrough is a reasonable length (80,000 words?), the game itself can be 200,000 words or 1,200,000. (But 1,200,000 will give more of a feeling of player agency.)

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Oh, I got to put in the story about teaching the monkey to talk.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Oh, I've already done the immersive Dune experience in LA. It was called "the Santa Anas are blowing in from the desert."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I am struggling valiantly not to write every possible branching dialogue choice on my Viking interactive fiction novel, but it is just so much fun. I don't get writers who hate writing. I love writing. Writing is my happy place.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Even going back to 1940, in Philadelphia Story, Katherine Hepburn throws herself at Jimmy Stewart, and he turns her down because "you're drunk, and there are rules about that sort of thing."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Police don't determine bail, do they? Judges do.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Lisa is doing an experiment, and so far, it seems to be easier to catch flies with vinegar.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Get some 1 x 4's and nail them onto the back. Won't happen again.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"And that was how I knew I needed to become an archeologist."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

After two months eating Irish cuisine in Galway, my then wife went to an Indian restaurant in Somerset, England, and asked for the hottest thing on the menu. They cooked accordingly.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

At this rate, Zohran's going to get an airport named after him, if we're still making airports 70 years from now. (Maglev port? Spaceport? Teleport port?)

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

She's ure qnhtugre AND ure fvfgre!

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

People have been destroying themselves gambling since time out of mind, though, haven't they? Can you really say it's not normal, when we're all hardwired to seek dopamine?

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Oh for heaven's-- "aslan" is just Turkish for "lion."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can tear down kingdoms.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

(We do a lot of Darmok and Jilad in this house. I like to quote "Francis throws all his Oscars out the window. Some of them are broken"* to her when she's convinced she's not writing well.) *from Eleanor Coppola's book about Apocalypse Now.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Lisa claims I've been whining about not having it, and kept quoting me the Leland Palmer / Anthony Holland scene in All That Jazz, "He does the same thing every time..."

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Cracked the middle half of the IF I'm writing talking with Lisa last night. I had a lot of the events, but not the why of them. Huge relief.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Semantic echo (Or "a wasted opportunity for character revelation". Or "stub dialog" since it needs replacing.)

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Best video game podcasts in Québecois?

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Had a lovely time talking to a friend for his future podcast. To sum it all up: tell your truth. If you tell your truth, you never have to worry about being original, because no one else is you.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Knives are already out for Vance in the 2028 GOP nomination, which means R's think there will be an election in 2028. So that's hopeful. That wasn't a gimme a year ago.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Who else is going to the ACTRA/WGC/AFBS party in Old Montreal on the 6th? (If there's free food, I go. That's the first thing they tell you in screenwriter's school.)

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The left's failings come from too much empathy. The right's, from not enough empathy. Which might explain why so many on the right regularly project their own motives onto other people. They can't imagine people thinking differently than themselves.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Erika is a really great, professional voice actor, probably one of the top ten in LA.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I'm looking through visual novels. So many of them don't seem to start with explicit conflict...

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

There is really no reason to have a White House pool in the first place. The WH does not answer questions in good faith.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I got on the Discord, checking it out.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Using horrid tactics on innocent, harmless people is, on the other hand, an excellent way to radicalize them, their family and their friends, and turn them all into the thing you were scared of. Which is a way to give yourself job security, if your job is in security.

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Alex Epstein @alexmakesstuffup.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I really want to watch the new Resident Evil movie, but I have concerns it may be scary.

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