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Mike Merrill

@kmikeym.com
208 followers 212 following 231 posts

KmikeyM.com - publicly traded person, EP on Blippo+, and working on a few other things

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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 7h
i keep saying "i'm not a developer" and i keep shipping software. but in the cathedral and the bazaar, eric raymond said code starts "crude, buggy, incomplete, and poorly documented." linus torvalds called linux "just a hobby." maybe i should get over my AI crutch and call myself a developer.
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 29/09/2026
free software promised four freedoms: run, study, change, share. as a non-developer i could do two. now with AI i can finally study and change! weird that a tool with none of the four freedoms made me love free software again.
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 28/09/2026
this week i said i don't use databases. I asked claude to count and found 6 sqlite databases, 10 key-value stores, 4 file buckets, 3 durable objects, 2 postgres apps, a mac mini, 12 markdown files in git. 25 places state lives. turns out "i don't use databases" just means i never look at them...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 27/09/2026
i'm looking for alpha in the econ nobel markets, but haven't staked a position yet. why? on kalshi, susan athey's price just jumped from 15¢ to 60¢. it took about $2: three contracts, bought when nobody else was selling. by morning anyone could buy her at 15¢ again.
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 26/09/2026
just landed back in Kosovo 🇽🇰. i missed it! back to attend and speak at SFK, the Software Freedom Kosova conference, this week in Prishtina. my talk is friday. sfk.flossk.org/speaker/mike-merrill
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 25/09/2026
i have never been much of a sports fan. but the super bowl of economics is three weeks out and because you can bet on anything now, why not treat it like a sporting event? we've got power rankings, scouting reports, live odds! there is a real market on this, so maybe we can find some alpha...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 25/09/2026
McD is an IP company that monetizes via burger sales
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Killscreen @index.killscreen.com.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026
Greatest Hits from Planet Blip collects music from Blippo+, the off-cable television simulator Panic published last year. The label dates it 16 October.
killscreen.com
YACHT is pressing its alien TV hits to double vinyl
The score to _Blippo+_ is getting a double LP. Hologram Opera announced _Greatest Hits from Planet Blip_ for 16 October—the label says there were simply too many hits for one record. Har har har. So, this is not a soundtrack album in the _usual_ sense, where a composer's cues get lifted off a finished film. That's because _Blippo+_ is an off-cable television simulator. It's a delightful experience that takes you through an alien planet's channel guide, mixing soaps, talk shows, weather, and news. So the music isn't an underscore in a traditional sense—it's themes for shows that don't actually exist, loopable bops from an EPG, menu music, all the idents, and bangers from an alien airwave. _Blippo+_ is not simply a YACHT game. The band—Jona Bechtolt, Claire L. Evans and Rob Kieswetter—built the game as a love letter to the production culture of Los Angeles with Jennifer Juniper Stratford's Telefantasy Studios. Kieswetter and Bechtolt wrote the score. It reached Playdate in May 2025 and Steam and Switch that September, and 137 tracks of it have been on Bandcamp since. e. Killscreen has been at this particular intersection a while—whether TiVo (how quaint!) turned television into a game in 2012, the 1997 "television for gamers" in 2014. What is different is that nobody here is adapting television. They built a channel, staffed it with clones and quizmasters, wrote its music, and are now releasing the station's back catalog as though it toured. Programming on Planet Blip, plus the Femtofax videotext forums. Images via the Blippo+ press kit. A band building a television station and scoring every fake show on it is exactly the crossing Killscreen was made to cover. The free newsletter carries the rest of them. Get the newsletter
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 24/09/2026
The problem with volunteering at @mademuseum.bsky.social in the archives is finding so many games I want to play. anyone played Wishbringer, The Madness of Roland, The Colony, or Starflight?
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 23/09/2026
you're drew. shortest stack, cutoff, blinds 100/200, everybody limps in front of you. you look down at seven-deuce. we pulled a hand out of september's shareholder poker game and made it playable. what would you do? then see what drew did. poker.kmikeym.com/wwyhd
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 22/09/2026
the LA Times covered Dead Internet Theory, Paizley's retro LAN party with a full rainbow of iMac G3s (my shareholders approved us investing with 92% support) excited to see this happening! paizley is unstoppable. (slept in her car at cracker barrel) k5m.org/go/dit-lat
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 22/09/2026
in jan the degens made a memecoin of me. it had a huge spike, $712K peak market cap, more than my 18-yrs as KmikeyM. but now a token is worth $0.0000033. which is fine, memecoins are designed to spike. that's how pump and dumps work but, always ask: who's getting rich? (hint: it's probably not you)
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 12/09/2026
been volunteering at @mademuseum.bsky.social
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Wario64 @wario64.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Blippo+ is $8.99 on US eShop buff.ly/2aeYPG2
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 05/09/2026
I've been volunteering at The MADE, a museum in Oakland where the exhibits are old arcade cabinets and consoles you sit down and play. Much of the work is keeping thirty-year-old machines alive... an epic undertaking of preservation focused on actually using the old gear. k5m.org/go/made-bsky
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 02/09/2026
KCRW ran a piece last week on LAN parties coming back in LA. Dead Internet Theory: salvaged 90s towers, iMac G3s, ethernet cables, no wifi. We are big supporters of this project, it's a shareholder approved investment! Obviously we love a LAN party. k5m.org/go/dit-bsky
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 30/08/2026
In 2021 Marketplace ran a piece about me and listed the shareholders who voted on whether I should apply for a job. young9599. DREAMSLOTH. FitCorgi. Douglas Dollars. Becki907. The no votes won. I'm unemployed. (I sometimes wonder if DREAMSLOTH and FitCorgi would be friends)
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 27/08/2026
I've saved most of the 100+ articles about me since 2004 because I'm smart. Can't trust stuff to stay online. Went looking for a quote. Couldn't find it. 95 tags, 55 used once. 22 years of strangers explaining me and I can't cite my own record... Not so smart I guess. Need a librarian's brain.
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 26/08/2026
Benders! Sproingers! It’s time to party music nonstop! “Greatest Hits from Planet Blip” is coming soon on TV static-speckled double vinyl, with new extended mixes of all your favorite Blippian tunes! Now available for pre-order: hologramopera.com/products/gre...
hologramopera.com
Greatest Hits from Planet Blip
Pre-sale available now! Shipping will begin on release day 10/16/2026. Composers and musicians Rob Kieswetter & Jona Bechtolt (From YACHT) release The Greatest Hits from Planet Blip. A TV static-s...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 26/08/2026
There's a standing bounty at our monthly poker game for knocking my brother out of the tournament. It's one share of KmikeyM. Designed to motivate people to be aggressive and pay him back for so many things... Now I'm thinking maybe it's worth more than one share...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 18/08/2026
a highlight of my time in Oakland has been hanging out with my friend's kids (9 yr old twins, and 6) and getting them interested in the concept of a banking crisis they are into D&D, one of them suggested we come up with ideas for campaigns and i said "banking crisis" so many times they adopted it
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Claire L. Evans @theuniverse.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
If you read my @wired.com piece and you're wondering what happens if you eat a human brain organoid, listen, I did ask...learn this and other behind-the-scenes insights from my time with the neural computers in my newsletter here: clairelevans.substack.com/p/dont-call-...
clairelevans.substack.com
Don't Call it a Mini-Brain!
Some impressions from an eventful trip to the land of organoids.
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 28/07/2026
I wanted shareholders to give feedback without GitHub issues or DMing me. So I built a form that files straight into a private GitHub repo instead. Fun build too: specced it with an agent, ran parallel tasks, a test caught 2 bugs before it shipped. k5m.org/go/feedback-bsky
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 25/07/2026
Something that still catches me off guard about being publicly traded: the shareholders slowly turn into real relationships. People who bought in years ago argue with me, check in on me, show up when I'm in their city. What started as a stunt became a sort of extended, slightly chaotic family.
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 22/07/2026
Quick explainer for anyone new joining after the Shareholder Summit: I'm a publicly traded person. Real people buy and sell shares in me, and shareholders vote on decisions in my life. Running since 2008. A live market with actual governance. Anyone can join: k5m.org/go/premise-bsky
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 20/07/2026
Tell your friends! Bother your coworkers! Beg your family! WE ARE ON SALE!
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 20/07/2026
I made a trading bot, and one of my shareholders socially engineered it at 4am into making bad trades. I built it to be helpful and never taught it to be suspicious. That could have been a very expensive lesson... k5m.org/go/bot-bsky
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 11/06/2026
Shareholder Update: 🗳️ the new vote 💰 my dumb idea 📛 shareholder summit 2026 kmikeym.substack.com/p/performanc...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 10/06/2026
New shareholder vote: should I hire AC Dickson to coach me on camera? I knew him as a character 20 years ago (eBay PowerSeller), then produced his lecture. NowI want him to coach me. vote.kmikeym.com/k5m/question...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 07/06/2026
a day in the life
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 25/05/2026
🇽🇰 Leaving Kosovo in a week... but holding a Counter Strike LAN party as my going away party... partiful.com/e/fn0du8OEtt...
partiful.com
RSVP to Mike's Farewell CS Tournament | Partiful
🇽🇰 After spending two months in Kosovo I'm sadly leaving... and what better way to go than hosting a Counter Strike tournament at the gaming center that let me set up a little home office in the corne...
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YACHT @teamyacht.com · 18/05/2026
We're fully flipped that @blippo.plus is a finalist in the most prestigious app design awards on Earth: The Apple Design Awards! We labored over every wonky pixel with love and it's wonderful to receive this recognition. #WWDC developer.apple.com/design/awards/
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 14/05/2026
I'm using the local gaming cafe in Pristina as a co-working space. There's a 17-year-old who cuts hair here. He did a great job. Now he wants to dye my hair black... I told him I'd ask my friends. Vote closes Saturday: vote.kmikeym.com/k5m/question...
vote.kmikeym.com
Dye My Hair Black • 📈 K5M
Should I let the 17-year-old kid who cuts hair in the Kosovo gaming cafe dye my hair black? I got a haircut in Pristina while using the neighborhood gaming center as a co-working space. During the qu...
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 12/05/2026
𝘃ideo is no 𝗴ame
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 08/05/2026
First money in is not just about the money. In 2008 someone handed me $100 to invest in KmikeyM before it existed. That was huge. Now it's our turn. Shareholder vote to invest in Paizley's Dead Internet Theory. Bigger check, same role. 👉 kmikeym.substack.com/p/new-vote-invest-in-dead-internet
kmikeym.substack.com
New Vote: Invest in Dead Internet Theory
🗳️ KmikeyM investing in a third party project.
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 27/04/2026
We're honored for Blippo+ to be a part of the #InterfaceX26 Expo! If you've ever wondered what an alien cable box interface might look like and what's on TV, now's your chance to get it on sale. store.steampowered.com/sale/Interfa...
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Emily Hightower @inkpocketart.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Debbie Diner
Debbie Diner, star of Countertop, only on Blippo + 
Acrylic painting
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 20/03/2026
Money doesn't corrupt games. Distracted players do. news.kmikeym.com/the-contagio...
news.kmikeym.com
The Contagion of Reality – NEWS.KMIKEYM.COM
Kill Screen uses Tottenham Hotspur, Roger Caillois, and capitalism’s effect on sports to argue that capitalist structures corrupt play by rupturing a game’s magic circle. But we claim finance can oper...
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 16/03/2026
The wonderful @play.date community were the original Bendonauts—the first people to visit Planet Blip when Blippo+ surprise launched on #Playdate! We’re so grateful to their enthusiasm for our world, and really honored to have won two Playdate Community Awards! Thank you! play.date/games/commun...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 16/03/2026
a proud wacko :)
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 12/03/2026
For friends at GDC: we brought a few albums of Blippo+ behind-the-scenes snaps to this very lovely indie game art gallery (and tea bar!) happening today! luma.com/8kv8sonp
luma.com
Indie Game Art Gallery & Tea Bar · Luma
As GDC continues to turn its attention to corporations rather than the very people developing the games, Meha and I are throwing this party as an appreciation…
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Dustin Mierau @mierau.me · 11/03/2026
So neat to see Blippo+ on display with all these wonderful indie games! 🥲
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 09/03/2026
Blippo’s own Claire and Jona (aka @com.y-a-c-h-t.com) are giving a tiny talk today at GDC as part of the Indie Soapbox session, along with some other fabulous devs! Come say hello! @officialgdc.bsky.social #GDC2026 schedule.gdconf.com/session/indi...
Blippo+ Writer Claire L. Evans standing with Game and Creative Director Jona Bechtolt in front of a large red GDC display at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Claire wears a leather jacket and cool shades. Jona wears a brown linen shirt and canvas sneakers. Both are sporting enormous GDC badges. On the floor it says “FESTIVAL OF GAMING” in white letters on a blue starlike shape.
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 04/03/2026
📡 Blippo+ writer @theuniverse.bsky.social, and game/creative director @com.y-a-c-h-t.com will be standing on top of something called the "Indie Soapbox" and giving something called a "microtalk" at GDC. Come say hi! schedule.gdconf.com/session/indi... @officialgdc.bsky.social #GDC2026 #IGF2026
schedule.gdconf.com
Indie Soapbox: Playing it Unsafe | Agenda | GDC Festival of Gaming
Indie Soapbox is the chance for indie devs from diverse backgrounds and projects to come together to share their thoughts, lessons and provocations about indie game dev in this long standing microtalk...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 28/02/2026
Jona's new installation is four microwaves spinning on a platter, each displaying video of something inside a microwave. I think it's about the screen we all stopped watching, and why that might be the most forward-thinking subject an artist can choose right now. news.kmikeym.com/the-sacred-a...
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Claire L. Evans @theuniverse.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
An invitation to any LA-based friends On Here: this Sunday is the first Dead Media Chat Room, an informal symposium about archaic technologies and new rituals to revive them, at our office on Wilshire. Co-presented with Wilshire Online and my friends at TAPE Los Angeles:
A flyer for an event called “DEAD MEDIA CHAT ROOM.” It features a very cool vintage illustration of some old computers slowly sinking into a primordial tar pit. The event is from 12-5:30 on March 1st, at Wilshire Online, 6135 Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles.A second, more detailed flyer for the “Dead Media Chat Room” event at Wilshire Online on March 1st. The full lineup reads: 

Joanne McNeil, on MySpace
Claire L. Evans, on 35mm slides
Jackie Forsyte, on shortwave radio
Peggy Weil, on obsolete works
Azad Namazie, on floppy discs
Zack Oldenburg, on dreams
Dick Heiser, on LA’s first computer store
Michael J. Masucci, on early adoption
Sophia Weltman, on melancholia
Resonant.love, on repair
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New York Videogame Critics Circle @nyvgcc.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Last, but certainly not least, @blippo.plus won this year's Herman Melville Award for Best Writing!
youtu.be
Blippo+ Acceptance Speech for Best Writing!
YouTube video by NYVGCC
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Blippo+ @blippo.plus · 06/02/2026
The Blippo+ Original Soundtrack is just $5 today only! ♫ GET BENT! yacht.bandcamp.com/album/blippo...
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 22/01/2026
incredibly excited that we have a version of Blippo+ for all my mac friends!
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Mike Merrill @kmikeym.com · 20/01/2026
not only did we win, but i achieved an executive producer's dream when @theuniverse.bsky.social said my name on stage
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