Shadowrun Subverted? A First Look at Subversion RPG
Remember the “This is the world liberals want!” meme? Subversion is the game they’d be talking about, and I mean that as high praise. While it has the requisite cyberpunk trappings of economic dystopia and extreme power imbalances, it flips Shadowrun’s integration of fantasy on its head, imagining a world that a) always had magic and fantastic lineages (aka, races), and b) building upon Babylonian mythology as its foundation instead of the usual European inspirations. In Neo Babylon, magic has ruled for eons and technology is trying to level the playing field, disrupting the balance of power while crushing the underprivileged between them. In this world, the cops (Lawjacks) are implicitly a gang.
Why I Don’t Give Career Advice: Army Dazed
I was tickled when I saw how Microcosm titled our conversation about my career path in the industry, and listening to it for the first time, it’s another reminder that my path was a relatively unusual one, difficult and unlikely to be replicated in the structure of the current industry. That said, I do think there’s still an opportunity (and more importantly, a need) for people to be more outspoken about the various challenges the industry is dealing with, dismantling whisper networks to level the playing field for those coming from non-traditional backgrounds.
Five Things: February 16, 2023
“A dim future for big publishers is not a dim future for readers.” Five things for February 16, 2023. That’s it! That’s the excerpt.
The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt (A 2023 Reading Challenge)
Comments on blogs aren’t really a thing anymore, especially on this here blog, but I occasionally have someone pop in via WordPress Reader, I think, and while checking out the blog of one such commenter, It’s The Bageler!, I discovered “The Year-Long Scavenger Hunt” at Birdie’s Book Nook.
On Mastodon — Four Months (and Five Years) Later
I still don’t consider Mastodon a straight Twitter alternative — at least not the Twitter we’ve come to know during the Trump/Musk Error — but it has replaced the Twitter I used to know and love back in the day…. Contrary to some self-serving media coverage, people continue to sign up and kick the tires — most surges apparently align to Musk’s latest shenanigans — and a lot of them are sticking around and, like me, enjoying the experience.
Five Things: January 5, 2023
Five things for January 5, 2023. That’s it! That’s the excerpt.
Masto do, Masto don’t? YMMV.
The biggest challenge I’ve seen for a lot of people with Mastodon seems to be picking the right instance. It’s something you don’t usually have to think about when signing up for a social network, but picking the right instance is both incredibly important for optimizing your overall experience, and arguably a waste of time in the very beginning.
[FLASHBACK] The Future of the Blog: Robots Win
Shatner’s on Twitter, too, which is a “micro-blogging” platform. It’s like a blog on training wheels, for bloggers too stupid or boring to put together a compelling paragraph or three, and social media gurus who don’t like dealing with people all that much. Ev and Biz clearly had no idea the monster they were creating.
Five Things: November 17, 2022
Five things for November 17, 2022. That’s it! That’s the excerpt.
Twitter Detox
Of course, like quitting smoking or other addictions — and let’s be honest, for some of us, Twitter had become an unhealthy addiction — it’s left a gaping hole in my life. Over the years, Twitter had evolved into my main source of current events, engagement with topics of interest, and connections with people I’ve known for years but am unlikely to see in person any time soon. The spoke became a hub, something the marketer in me knew was very wrong.