iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Ooh ooh if you're interested in playing "a direct descendant of Portal" (according to the wise words of @eblong.com), may I humbly recommend Neurocracy?

neurocracy.site

Neurocracy

Solve a murder in the future by diving into its Wikipedia

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 14h

"Roguepersogue", abbreviating the Latin "rogator per se rogator".

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Zeno Rogue @zenorogue.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

And a moving version.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 25/09/2026

I have not in fact seen Hadestown

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 25/09/2026

:) I'm glad the word keeps getting around.

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Jo Walton @bluejo.eurosky.social · 25/09/2026

Letter to Mike Ford: Still. It's the twenty year anniversary of the death of John M. Ford. New poem on my Patreon www.patreon.com/bluejo/posts...

patreon.com

Letter to Mike Ford: Still | Jo Walton

I think of you at every station. I still talk to you in my head. I have to talk about you in past tense. I still choke on "was". In Minneapo

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 25/09/2026

I've been quoting bits of John M. Ford, who died twenty years ago this morning. blog.zarfhome.com/2026/09/twen... “There's not the time to stand still in the corridor / waiting for life to make sense after all.”

blog.zarfhome.com

Twenty years without a Christmas card

I wasn't blogging in 2006, but I was a regular commenter on the Nielsen Haydens' blog Making Light in the year and on the morning that I read "Mike Ford is gone." I found the comment which I posted tw...

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 24/09/2026

hip bone connected to da knee bone...

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 24/09/2026

“Spock,” Kirk said, “Spock.” Then, from the heart, “*Spock.*” He held out his arms. "Somebody give the captain a *pie!*” (From _How Much for Just the Planet?_)

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 24/09/2026

I do this when I'm, like, blanching a vegetable and I need it in the boiling water for 45 seconds. Small strainer, submerge, wait, lift.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 24/09/2026

Turns out, China *also* has a central bank. The only way to avoid it is to go back on the gold standard, at which point you've outsourced the job to a bunch of South African gold-mine barons.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

If there's both high inflation *and* high unemployment, they have the unpleasant choice of which problem to ignore while fighting the other one. This is why central bankers are supposed to be apolitical. They get stuck with choices that voters hate both of.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

Traditionally (2007 made this messy) the central bank has exactly one dial, which trades off unemployment vs inflation. Their entire job is to decide which of those problems is worse right now.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

Congress decides how much the government taxes and spends, which determines (by definition) how much the government borrows. The central bank decides how fast money circulates *outside* the government.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

It's actually a completely separate problem from taxation. Well, not "completely separate" (everything in the economy is connected) but it is a different question.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

(From _The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues_)

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

"Eventually, inform that player that his character is in fact the imaginary friend of one of the other Troubleshooters, but don’t say which one. Let them ponder this for a while.”

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 23/09/2026

"... Except that guy. Don’t give that guy his character sheet. Pretend not to hear when he asks for it, or why he doesn’t have one.

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Dave Gilbert @wadjeteyegames.com · 22/09/2026

Nighthawks is OUT! When the sun sets, outcasts rise. Gather new friends, face old prejudices, and prepare to seize the night in Nighthawks, the vampire RPG where the secret is out... but the hunt continues. Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/1221950/... GOG: www.gog.com/en/game/nigh...

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Alan Hazelden @alanhazelden.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

As Order of the Sinking Star is coming out next month, in advance of review coverage coming in I wanted to add one thing to my last statement about the game: bsky.app/profile/drak... (note: at that time I didn’t have a separate personal account)

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 18/09/2026

Yay, 20 More Somehow Even Smaller Mazes.

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Popcornbender Spatch @spatch.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Thanks to the Somerville Library's online newspaper archive I discovered other businesses in the Hobbs Building when the Somerville Theatre opened Some we knew about, like the bowling alley and the auditorium/ballroom, but nobody knew about the undertaker who maybe worked where theaters 2 and 3 are

A column of ads from June 12, 1914, a month after the theater opened. Three of the four are for Hobbs Building businesses: the Hobbs Bowling Alley, which featured six of the "latest type loop the loop alleys" and 4 pool/billiard tables and a "special provision for ladies"; the Somerville Auditorium (which IIRC would later be renamed Hobbs' Crystal Ballroom) advertising "glide and modern dancing parties" every Wednesday and Saturday evening; and one Alfred E. Mann, Undertaker.

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Elizabeth Sandifer @eruditorumpress.com · 17/09/2026

But more to the point it obscures what is, in 2026, the key fact about the rationalists, which is that all Yudkowsky's ideas about AI that have filtered out so massively into the American tech industry are complete horseshit and he doesn't know what he's talking about.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 16/09/2026

It is indeed a good book.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 15/09/2026

Some recent mystery and puzzle games. (Okay, _This Bed We Made_ is from a couple years back.) - The Mermaid Mask - This Bed We Made - Cognition Method - He Who Watches blog.zarfhome.com/2026/09/late...

blog.zarfhome.com

Late summer mysteries

Three mysteries... or games which are mystery-shaped, at least. Plus one which doesn't fit the theme but does fit the symmetry group. The Mermaid Mask This Bed We Made Cognition Method He Who Watches ...

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Dave Gilbert @wadjeteyegames.com · 14/09/2026

The "Adults Only" ranking has been removed from Nighthawks! Everything is set for launch on the 22nd! Phew. What a roller coaster. Thank you everyone for your amazing support while we got this sorted. If you weren't able to wishlist before, now you can! store.steampowered.com/app/1221950/...

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 14/09/2026

If Apple were consistent, they would put as much engineering effort into smell suppression as sound suppression. Right?

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 14/09/2026

Funny every time: The fans in my M3 iMac are so silent that when I run a real CPU-hog of a task, I can only tell by the *smell*. (You know that warm dust / motherboard smell. Coming out of the iMac's bottom vents. Silently.)

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Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I did a somewhat deep dive into the recent OpenAI and Anthropic "hacks" for an upcoming interview. IMO, the AI companies are better off running with the "rogue AI" story because the real story is actually pretty embarrassing. Like making your Wi-Fi password "wifi" embarrassing. 🧵

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Dave Gilbert @wadjeteyegames.com · 13/09/2026

If anyone has contacts at Valve who can help expedite this, we certainly wouldn't say no to the help. In the meantime, I'll be here swimming in cortisol.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 11/09/2026

We also did laser-etched cork coasters once. Those were surprisingly nice. More expensive than bookmarks, though. Printed cardboard coasters would be cheaper, though less nice.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 11/09/2026

Pogs. (...Look, we handed out adventure-game Pogs at our conference a couple of years ago, and people loved them. Well, some people did. Some people were confused. We considered this a win.)

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 05/09/2026

That's the first thing that came to my mind, too. Stross dabbled as well, before the Laundry books sold better. Karl Schroeder was in there. For a while we were calling it Scottish Hard SF. Not seriously (and Reynolds is Welsh anyhow), but people recognized the term.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 04/09/2026

Also, I promise I will read _Inventing the Renaissance_ now.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 04/09/2026

Following up my speculations about the Hugo "Best Game” finalists, now that the winners are out. Turns out _Clair Obscur_ won handily. Good for the game! Bad if you're looking for finely-sliced statistical commentary. blog.zarfhome.com/2026/09/hugo...

blog.zarfhome.com

Hugo Award stats, 2026

Back in April I took a look at the Hugo Award finalists, with an eye to seeing how the votes might divide up. I did this because the 2025 Best Game voting showed an interesting split between "indie" a...

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 04/09/2026

INTELLIGENT QUBE "PERFECT"

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Popcornbender Spatch @spatch.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

at the opening of dollywood some reporter piped up and asked if instead of putting handprints in cement she'd be putting her breasts and she said oh no honey I couldn't I'd be afraid a small child would fall in and hurt themselves and that is how you do it

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Jasmine Otto @jazztap.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Multiplayer Twine is in live alpha! Sign up now to get a link. It's like Docs for IF, but fully open-source and self-hostable. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... h/t @chrisklimas.com for this awesome collaboration!

A screenshot of the twinejs editor labelled "Multiplayer Twine"

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 22/08/2026

Thoughts on Servant of the Lake, the latest Rusty Lake game; and the HIdden Town series, which is basically a Rusty Lake knock-off but I have no problem with that. blog.zarfhome.com/2026/08/rust...

blog.zarfhome.com

Rusty Lake and Hidden Town

I am always happy to see another Rusty Lake game. It's not a high-velocity studio, but they're reliably high-quality and enjoy experimenting with their chosen form. (Co-op gameplay! Short film!) I am ...

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Robin Ward @eviltrout.com · 21/08/2026

I wrote up tips for saving and loading games durably in Godot. It's stuff I wish I'd known before shipping games on PC: eviltrout.com/blog/2026-08...

eviltrout.com

Tips for Saving Game Data in Godot

How we made save games in The Roottrees are Dead and The Incident at Galley House resilient to full disks and failing hard drives.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 21/08/2026

I've updated all the Visible Zorker pages to include a search field. You can search for objects, routines, variables, and game text. blog.zarfhome.com/2026/08/visi... Yes, the word “Zork" is temporarily swamped in gaming news due to some FromSoftware article. Big deal.

blog.zarfhome.com

Visible Zorker search feature

Apparently today is the worst possible day to post about Zork the text adventure? See articles about Duskbloods if you don't follow FromSoftware news, which, to be clear, I don't. Spoiler: everybody's...

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 20/08/2026

In fact I did not know that dictionary definition when I started using the handle.

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Reposted by Andrew Plotkin

Sam Barlow 🔥 @mrsambarlow.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Being found in this list is like the complete opposite of showing up in the Epstein files gist.github.com/Hipnosis183/... (h/t @eblong.com's blog here about the fool and his money blog.zarfhome.com/2026/07/the-...)

gist.github.com

The Fool and his Money - Keygen and Decompilation

The Fool and his Money - Keygen and Decompilation. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

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Andrew Plotkin @eblong.com · 19/08/2026

Despoilers of the Golden Empire (Randall Garrett)?

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