iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 19/09/2026

Been working on prep for the #StarWars RPG I run for my niece and nephew. Found my notes for the achievement awards I had them vote on at the end of season one.

Group nominations for achievements
R2 Problem Solver - for consistently figuring out the right way forward, even if nobody listened
Obi-Wan’s Dice - for the best dice rolls. Turns out there is such a thing as luck
Roleplayer Extraordinare - for bringing your character to life
No More Imperial Entanglements - for all those times when there were stormtroopers when there didn’t need to be stormtroopers, yeah thanks for that
Secret Sith - for always keeping up that dark side energy
Rebel with a Cause - who’s most committed to the Rebellion
Best One Liner - ‘cause Star Wars is all about the quotes
Best Jedi Mind Trick - best use of persuasion (with the Force or without)
Most Likely to get Eaten by a Rancor - maybe just bad luck, or maybe bad decisions, who’s to say?
Rebel Spec Ops MVP - who’s contributed most to the group’s success
Kylo Killed the Past - most interesting backstory

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 10/09/2026

I collect nerd-adjacent coffee table books. Most recent pickup:

Closeup of the cover of the Art of Star Wars Andor

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 11/08/2026

Your last saved meme is now your moral philosophy

Jojo Mart on fire: "all you had to is pay us enough to live. There goes your inventory."

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 12/05/2026

Megan thankfully supplying me with regular photo updates on Sunny while I'm here in Durham.

Yellow beagle and a pug sitting on a deck in the sun.

Closeup of a beagles head lying on a striped blanket, looking forlorn.

Beagle hound lying in the sun on a wooden deck, with a brown wooden chair in the background.

Beagle dog lying in the grass in front of wooden steps.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 10/05/2026

If you're working 100 hours a week, how do you have time to use more than one home?

“When these people are successful, and they become a managing director after working 100 hours a week and they’re making real money, these governments are going to crush that person,” he added.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/05/2026

What is your fandom, they ask me

a hooded man with long hair (Jaquen H'gar from Game of Thrones) looks decisively down, above the words "A man has no fandom"

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 25/04/2026

Sunny and Clyde having a nice day in the sun, back at home. Miss them puppers.

A yellow and white beagle hound lays on a deck in the sun, with a cream colored pug with a black face sitting up on a dog bed and yawning behind her.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 24/04/2026

Cheers! Got mine around the same time.

Close up of my left shoulder, centered on a (somewhat fading) tattoo of the gonzo fist.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 15/04/2026

Starting to pack for Durham. My current shortlist of physical media that is making the trip with me.

A stack of dvds. A mix of modern sci-fi, xennial cult classics, and animated favorites. Full series of The Expanse and Batman the Animated Series.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 07/04/2026

Perfect example of Vancian moral flexibility. He supported limited strikes after he was totally opposed to any strikes but before he supported striking with overwhelming force.

The vice president thought a regime-change war with Iran would be a disaster. His preference was for no strikes at all. But knowing that Mr. Trump was likely to intervene in some fashion, he tried to steer toward more limited action. Later, when it seemed certain that the president was set on a large-scale campaign, Mr. Vance argued that he should do so with overwhelming force, in the hope of achieving his objectives quickly.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 28/03/2026

Dude loves the Tea Party so much it's in his byline.

Jeremy Pete's byline, in which the Tea Party is the only noteworthy "influential American political movement" he covers.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 28/03/2026

Pic from about 1/3 back in the crowd at Emmet Park. #NoKings #Savannah

Crowd holding signs with a stage in the distance, below Spanish moss-draped trees.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 24/03/2026

I am getting new lungs. 🫁❤️‍🩹

Message from Duke hospital formally requesting I relocate to Durham to begin pulmonary rehab in preparation for a lung transplant.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 14/03/2026

Going away for a week to Durham, and I'm gonna miss this little doggo.

Close up of Sunny, a yellow beagle, leaning over my shoulder in the front seat of a car.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 11/03/2026

Matt Yglesias helpfully points out that people like him love to pretend they didn't support the Iraq War. h/t @parkermolloy.com

Matthew Yglesias: “They say that defeat is an orphan while victory has a thousand fathers.”

“So even though the invasion of Iraq was extremely popular in 2003, you rarely meet someone who’ll own up to having supported it at the time. Both that war and the one in Afghanistan shook out so badly that their architects have been retrospectively cast as a team of buffoons.”

“Looking At The Situation…” by Matthew Yglesias, personal blog, March 31, 2002:

I think the administration has things exactly wrong in trying to solve the Israel situation as a precursor to moving on Iraq. The only way a negotiated settlement will be possible there is if Arafat feels that his position is weakening. The only way for that to happen is for the other Arab leaders to start becoming less supportive of him. The only way for that to happen is for our Arab "allies" to recognize that US-Saudi, US-Egyptian, US-Qatari, etc. relations are two way streets, not just an endless dialogue about what we need to do to prop up their regimes.

What better way to show that than to go do something they really, really don't want us to do like, say, invade Iraq?

Plus, if we invade Iraq, we can create at least one reasonable regime in the area. If some "moderate" government get toppled (or just become outright hostile) as the worriers always worry, then we can just topple them again and set up some more supportive regimes.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 11/03/2026

👁 if you see this, post an eye 👁

Sgt. Apone (Aliens), played by Al Matthews, pointing to his eye with a cigar in hand. Dude was a legit USMC NCO, held thirteen combat awards and decorations, including two purple hearts. He was the first black Marine in the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam to be meritoriously promoted to the rank of sergeant.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 09/03/2026

Anyone checked in with Pam Bondi?

“The Dow is over 50,000 right now,” Bondi said in sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee after Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., slammed her and the Department of Justice for the lack of indictments of possible co-conspirators of the convicted sex predator Epstein.

The S&P 500 is also up and the Nasdaq is “smashing records,” while Americans’ retirement accounts are “booming,” Bondi said after celebrating the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gains. “That’s what we should be talking about.”

Democrats balked at the rhetoric, but Bondi doubled down.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 27/02/2026

Happy Friday from Cobra Commander.

Cobra Commander, sitting on a big snake throne. He says "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you don't know about. Attack them. Now they're fighting two battles."

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 20/02/2026

Came across this posting on LinkedIn for 29 AI jobs and all I could think was that 27 of them won't exist in six months. Good luck to the applicants though I guess.

Twenty-nine job listings for AI from a post on LinkedIn.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 18/02/2026

The body of Star Wars creative work is large enough that Sturgeon's Law applies. This has been true for several decades at least.

A pie chart where 90% is "crap" and 10% is "not crap"

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 18/01/2026

I heard there was an opportunity to re-share this classic.

The famous post about geek fandom and right-wingers not getting what they are about. "X-Men is about civil rights. If you don't get that, you didn't get X-Men" etc

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 15/01/2026

Post a game you remember playing that nobody else remembers. www.zombs-lair.com/spaceship-wa...

90's-era graphics showing a crew of alien space pirates. In front is a human guy with an eye patch and twin pistols.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 15/01/2026

Bunch of celebs who should know better pitching a PAC on tiktok that raises money from progressive donors to pay Marc Elias' consulting firm. If you see ads for State & Local Elections Alliance, it's Norm Eisen's group which had a 54% overhead last cycle.

Excerpt from influencewatch.org about State Democracy Defenders PAC showing that 54% of expenditures in 2024 went to overhead, the bulk of which went to Marc Elias' consulting group.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 10/01/2026

There's also a chance of Clyde.

A somber looking pug lies on a springy dog bed on a wooden deck with some foliage and grass visible in the background. It's my yard.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 10/01/2026

Good afternoon from Savannah where it is currently Sunny and 77 degrees.

A white and gold beagle is lying on the deck in the sun.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 01/01/2026

I am entering 2026 with Anakin Skywalker energy.

Anakin Skywalker (Hayden christenson) in four successively more evil headshots, says "I hope 2026 brings you peace, freedom, justice, and security to your new empire"

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 23/12/2025

Sunny, blissfully unaware that she is about to go to the vet.

Sunny the yellow and gold beagle sits on top of a quilt on my bed looking down and to the right.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 09/12/2025

just had an incredible idea to safely smuggle drugs into the US

Trump boat. The kind owned by the biggest asshole you've ever met. It looks like it's going to sink from the weight of Trump flags alone. He would never blow it up.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/12/2025

Here's Sunny chasing a squirrel up a tree.

A white and yellow beagle is climbing in between the split trunk of a medium sized tree next to a brown fence.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/12/2025

When I graduated, Andy bought me a six-volume hardcover edition of Edward Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I remember as he gave it to me, he said something poignant about the timelessness of the human heart.

Inside cover of a book, handwritten in ink:

To Michael-

Scholar, journalist, friend.

In honor of his graduation.

April 2007

Andy Robins

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/12/2025

My friend Andy Robins passed away. The best boss I ever had. Took a chance on me and stood by me every time I screwed up. A talented journalist with the highest integrity, a kind human, and a great friend. We are poorer for having lost him. His retirement announcement, not even four years ago.

Andy Robins retires from WMUK, January 2022. He worked at the station for 36 years. The announcement noted the numerous journalism awards won by the station under Andy's leadership.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 27/11/2025

My mom has a collection of artifacts from a trip taken by my great x 3 grandma to visit the grave of her son, who died fighting in WWI. Incredible stuff.

Very old photographs, documents, and a passport sit in an open suitcase. The photos are black and white, displaying a man in a WWI era uniform, and a mother posing next to a grave marked with a cross.

A typewritten card, marked Identity Card for an American Pilgrimage for gold star mothers to France. Lists her hotel and instructions for the trip

A certificate in memory of my distant relative who died in service of his country, as part of the American Expeditionary Forces, WWI

A framed photograph of the US Republic, on a pilgrimage to France, 1930

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 24/11/2025

In King's Quest II on the Apple IIe, this monk refuses to acknowledge or interact with you, and if you get frustrated an type "hit monk" into the parser, the game responds: "Anyone who would hit a man of the cloth does not deserve to play this game," followed by a HARD SYSTEM RESET.

a pixelated, 16-color graphic of the interior of a church. a pixel-y guy walks up the between the pews towards an altar, where a monk kneels praying before a golden cross.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 23/11/2025

Drunk on the Karl Rove Kool aid.

Quote from the Bush 43 era, widely attributed to Karl Rove. Guys like [Ron Suskind] operate in the "reality based community." The gist is that Rove thinks by being president you create reality by acting, and everyone else is just watching. Textbook proto-fascism.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 21/11/2025

The next paragraph is somehow even more wrong.

"She was sort of a modern-day political version of hunter s Thompson (gonza?)..."

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 17/11/2025

Probably not the first game of hers I played, but I spent a lot of Tass Times in Tonetown. I was learning guitar at the time and I loved that guitar picks were the currency. Hard game too!

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 12/11/2025

ah yes the verbal tic that incels can't hide.

Quark from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, looking skeezy, with "ffeeeemales" in white text above his head.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 05/11/2025

A deliberate choice here to exclude PC responses from the text scroll. Helps with readability but leads to some disjointed flows.

Some text from a conversation in Citizen Sleeper 2. Paragraph one references a sister, the PC says "you have a sister?" Then he responds "I did, yeah". You can see here that the text scroll doesn't include the PC response.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/11/2025

CS2 also does a better job of communicating the relative urgency of things to the player. Kept the cycle wheel indicators from the first game (effectively a countdown), but the narrative and the art better reinforce it. This water hauler is visibly leaking, only a few cycles to repair it.

A large white and gold spacecraft is venting small particles of water out its front end. The user interface shows several options for the player to help repair the ship.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/11/2025

Your character sheet. 🤩

An illustration of a genderless humanoid, clearly artificial, floating in zero-g. Some of their internal mechanical organs are exposed, and they are dressed in a mish mash of loose fitting clothes and accessories. Their arms are out of their jacket sleeves, with one hand adjusting a cybernetic interface extruding from their head, and another operating a floating tablet. Their eyes are closed. On either side of the character are menus showing the gameplay attributes of the character that affect skill checks and dice rolls.

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Michael Rader @theoryof.games · 04/11/2025

I am choosing to be circumspect with this guy. He may have saved my ass, but I also have memory loss and he's just cutting me loose.

One of CS' famous character illustrations by artist Guillaume Singelin. A young man with blue pants and boots and an open orange jacket appears to float in zero-g, a sling bag over his chest. Some text on the side explains he's ditching us (temporarily) to try to find some work.

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