iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 25/09/2026

I mean: Carol Kaye, full stop. But if you need more names ... Debbie Googe, Janet Wygal, Kira, Cait O'Riordan, Sara Lee, Aimee Mann. Oh, and Tracy Pew, why not.

000

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 20/09/2026

An especially enjoyable Field Notes this week; I really liked trying to follow along on a satellite map as I read.

063

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 09/09/2026

Communication expert: "If I use your name 4-5 times in a conversation, you will like me even if I don't like you." Keep giving that advice, supposed expert! Because wow is that so grating, when someone keeps repeating my name. Instant salesman (derogatory) tell.

030

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 08/09/2026

Sixty years of Star Trek. I have not kept up with the franchise beyond dipping in from time to time to see where they've taken it. But that show, in all its goofy and yet sometimes moving splendor--ground zero for the sf media fandom explosion--was vitally important to me as a kid.

030

Reposted by Richard Butner

Evan Dorkin @evandorkin.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Anyway, fuck Warren Ellis is still on, and I guess so is fuck Image.

314111

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 01/09/2026

I have consumed the ice cream created in honor of astronaut and engineer Christina Koch at her (and my) alma mater, and found it to be delicious (cheesecake w/ blueberries, raspberries, and graham crackers).

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 25/08/2026

Yr required reading for the day is Anya DeNiro writing about Christopher Brown's first novel, about what science fiction can do, about this strange place we find ourselves in.

021

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 03/08/2026

Neko Case, getting it done re: G. Hansard.

0287

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 03/08/2026

I saw the new Spider-Man movie a few hours ago and the main thing I remember about it was that the person sitting next to me was wearing a scent I can only describe as Vanilla Musk Explosion. And not a fancy Vanilla Musk Explosion. We're talking dollar store Vanilla Musk Explosion.

000

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 22/07/2026

Thanks to a friend I got a ticket & ride to the Cat Power show last night in Saxapahaw. Dear ol' Chan is still in possession of all her mighty powers, even when dealing with cyclosporiasis! And still the kind of person who made sure all the little kids up front got set lists after.

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 16/07/2026

What a monster of a song, "Lost Boys" by Phoebe Bridgers. I had missed this video when it came out a couple weeks ago. Crushing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KXn...

youtube.com

Phoebe Bridgers - Lost Boys (Official Video)

YouTube video by PhoebeBridgersVEVO

110

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 14/07/2026

The Uncanny Magazine Kickstarter is live. You know what do do.

149

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 13/07/2026

Sitting at Logan waiting on a delayed plane. I am full of gratitude for Readercon and the folks there: good friends, friendly acquaintances, and all the folks working behind the scenes to make it happen. Always nice to find a pocket universe where words and books matter.

060

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 06/07/2026

My Readercon 35 schedule is simple: I'm reading Thursday night at 8, stop on by! Other than that I am looking forward to hanging with friends and friendly people.

1102

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 09/06/2026

Maybe you watched this a few dozen times when it was released. Maybe it's time to do that again.

youtube.com

Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (Official Video)

YouTube video by Talking Heads

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 04/06/2026

It is absolutely amazing that Hillary Dawa Sherpa crawled down from the Yellow Band and through the Khumbu Icefall after they'd taken out the ladders. This story is only just beginning to come out. www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

Mount Everest: Sherpa guide found alive after going missing for six days

Cleaners found Dawa Sherpa crawling towards Base Camp six days after he went missing at a higher altitude.

100

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 28/05/2026

If your site just got upgraded to WordPress 7.0 and you don't want to fiddle with ssh and config files and so on to turn off the Those Two Letters junk, this plugin does what it says: wordpress.org/plugins/turn...

031

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 27/05/2026

I wish that I could use "House of Eats, Shoots & Leaves" as the title of the story I'm working on, but sadly I cannot. Saving it for later.

120

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 06/03/2026

It'd be nice if Bluesky implemented blocking the way Discord does, so you could click a Show control to see a post that a friend of yours is responding to but you've got blocked (and you don't know why). Probably there's a downside to this that I'm not thinking of, shrug.

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 27/02/2026

For decades my favorite headline has been "Drink Beer, Lose Weight!" but now I see in the NYT "A Creamy Salad Dressing That Will Change Your Life" and that's a strong second place. Probably would've taken top honors with an exclamation point.

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 21/02/2026

The absolute first one was probably Sidney Aptekar aka Thomas Mario, but it was Paul Harrington's HotWired columns in the mid-90s that really cracked open the world of drinks writing for me.

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 06/02/2026

Two hotshot Islay stillmen hide their growing passion for each other while competing to produce whisky with the highest possible phenolic PPM. Peated Rivalry.

020

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 02/02/2026

Make a List of the 150 People You Feel Most Closely Connected To Dunbar's Number Challenge!

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 28/01/2026

When the legend becomes fact, print the fact and also print an extensive historiography of the legend, with footnotes.

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 19/01/2026

I was thinking about watching this new show "Landman," but honestly that sounds pretty boring, a superhero with all the powers of a plot of land.

020

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 18/01/2026

I wonder if Eudora Wetly is already taken as a burlesque/drag name...

130

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 15/01/2026

Words I just typed and sent to some friends: "God = rock. Christ = scissors. Holy Ghost = paper."

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 03/01/2026

How old were you when you realized that "the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing" were mostly tedious assholes?

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 28/12/2025

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice In Chains

The cover of the Moon Pix album by Cat Power, Chan Marshall in a jean jacket amidst flowers

060

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 24/12/2025

The Society of the Continuous Portable Micro-Spectacle

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 20/12/2025

It is well worth a couple minutes of your time to read "Linus Shows Up," by Scott Huler. precedenteddays.substack.com/p/linus-show...

precedenteddays.substack.com

Linus Shows Up

Which Turns Out to Be Pretty Much the Whole Deal

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 16/12/2025

Sure, 20. Also, for at least ten of these, I could write a post about how they're still worth using. (Also, as my pal Monica pointed out: MIX TAPE not mixed tape.)

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 26/11/2025

You'll be visited by 3 spirits The three spirits

Three witches, two in dresses and one in a tailcoat tuxedo, dance in a dimly lit ballroom with a mystic octagram painted on the floor.

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 07/11/2025

Lotsa Small Beer Press books (including mine) 25% off for the rest of 2025 when you use coupon code SBP25 at Indiepubs. smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journa...

smallbeerpress.com

Indiepubs Sale: 25% off these titles | Small Beer Press

From now until the end of the year with this coupon on Indiepubs: SBP25

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 01/11/2025

It strikes me that some of y'all might not have seen the video for "I Do the Rock" lately. Time to remedy that. "It's very stimulating." www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXPC...

youtube.com

Tim Curry Official Music Video - I Do The Rock

YouTube video by Tim Curry

011

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 26/10/2025

"You may choose one person to tell you The Aristocrats joke"

Samuel Beckett staring grimly into the camera

010

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 21/10/2025

Most interesting (in a not-good way) part of the AWS outage was that none of the affected sites and services I saw put up any kind of "we are experiencing an outage" notice. Things ... just ... didn't ... work. That's as bad or worse than the outage itself.

110

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 14/10/2025

Thinking about an alternate timeline where Ted Nelson's vision of hypertext and permanent attributions caught on. As opposed to the Berners-Lee implementation and "info wants to be free," which begat some good things, sure. But also enabled LLMs and disenfranchised creators.

000

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 14/10/2025

This is my mechanical keyboard. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. Is it my best friend? No. Is it my life? Also no. But it is pretty handy, and I'll take mechanical keys and a wire over chiclet keys and Bluetooth any day.

020

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 01/10/2025

Why yes, I am pondering the utility of adding the fox/hedgehog dichotomy to the ol' pirate/ninja and dwarf/elf matrix.

000

Reposted by Richard Butner

Karen Meisner @whatnext.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

antifa literally means anti-fascist. that's all it means. it's a descriptor, not a group. declaring yourself against "antifa" means you are the other thing

0144

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 15/09/2025

I talked to podcaster/writer/human extraordinaire Scott Edelman about all kinds of stuff. Give it a listen!

071

Reposted by Richard Butner

Scott Edelman @scottedelman.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Coming next month on my Eating the Fantastic podcast — you're invited to join @karenheuler.bsky.social and @richardbutner.com at their Readercon lunches as we discuss how they do what they do and manage to do it so well. I hope you'll subscribe to be among the first to eavesdrop. pod.link/1083737796

Karen and Richard across their tables from me at their respective lunches. Karen Heuler is smiling while holding up the pav from her cheesy pav bahji, and Richard is looking at me warily while holding up his plate of fish tacos and fries.

041

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 25/08/2025

A daily question: Do I have outrage fatigue or outrage fatigue fatigue?

040

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 25/08/2025

A list of good books you can buy and read. For pleasure, even.

011

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 18/08/2025

"captive on a carousel of time"

000

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 06/08/2025

Help keep this historic tradition going: the Fantastic Fiction reading series at KGB Bar.

021

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 22/07/2025

Christopher Priest, Inverted World

020

Richard Butner @richardbutner.com · 21/07/2025

Lunch with Scott Edelman was one of several high points for me at this year's Readercon. Really glad that I returned (my 25th anniversary of first attending) and hope to get back there more frequently. Great to see all y'all who I saw, sad that I missed plenty of others.

141