I kind of drifted away from it too after a time and we just stabilized around a couple games. I miss Google Plus more than Flailsnails.

Just realizing that all of my playing with strangers experiences are over a decade and change years ago. Flailsnails had at least a shared ecosystem of games and some level of very loose norms. Like we certainly soft banned people at times.

Cuba’s Sunlight Is Hard to Sanction Study Shows Decarbonization as One Avenue on the Road to Ending Empire

open.substack.com/pub/chriskut...

Wrote a piece about renewable energy and Cuba. Namely a study that shows that it would be eminently practical to (with of course the right friends) to end fossil fuel imports for roughly $8 billion.
Link down in those comment like usual.

Why Was There a Long Bernie Moment but not a Long Jackson Moment? Why was 2016 "Our Time" and Not 1988? And What Are the Lessons?

Thanks for the kind words and funny you should ask I posted the much longer version here:
open.substack.com/pub/chriskut...

Having to hardcore resist the urge to pull out my usual array of April Fools hoaxes after last year's po-faced flipout by the AI TTRPG Art Police. The flesh is weak yall.

Happy Czech flag day. You know for all who celebrate.

The Hill Cantons by Chris @kutalik.bsky.social with @wizardthieffighter.bsky.social and additional art and teamwork by the @hydracoop.bsky.social crew (Jason, Robert, and Humza) is the first one that comes to mind!

Why Wasn’t There a Long Jackson Moment? - Democratic Left In 1988 and 2016, DSA backed insurgent primary campaigns by gifted outsiders — but the aftermath of Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders’s campaigns were very different.

I done got published today in the official DSA paper of record with my (shortened) musings on why the Jesse Jackson campaign didn't lead to the same kind of long political moment of Bernie's. I was forbidden from over-using "conjuncture".

democraticleft.dsausa.org/2026/03/29/w...

Fucking knowledge demon.

At the end of the day if the only thing you can conjure up is a list of ad hominems and can't actually grapple with the substantive politics of a thing (and this is broader than Platner "secret nazi" derangement) then you are incapable of seeing beyond self-indulgent liberal moralism.

Basically this. And capitalism.

Because yes.

Why Was There a Long Bernie Moment but not a Long Jackson Moment? Why was 2016 "Our Time" and Not 1988? And What Are the Lessons?

A sprawling article in which I only get part way through the question.

Why Was There a Long Bernie Moment but not a Long Jackson Moment? Why was 2016 "Our Time" and Not 1988? open.substack.com/pub/chriskut...

Hopefully surpass! We have so much possibility.

Keep Hope Alive I Was a Teenage Jesse Jackson Delegate

RIP Jesse. Some personal reflections from my teen age experience of 1988.

open.substack.com/pub/chriskut...

Just How High is the Sky? Does the US Left Have a Supporter Ceiling? Does DSA? Last week Democratic Socialists of America hit 100,000 members.

Just How High is the Sky? Does the US Left Have a Supporter Ceiling? Does DSA?
open.substack.com/pub/chriskut...

With my unused masters degrees I generally think that wise.

Thanks for the kind words. Curious about your partners piece.

Nothing ever happens....or does it? @kutalik.bsky.social discusses "punctuated equilibrium" in our latest:

powermapmag.com/punctuated-e...

That the Trump administration--a unique combo of deep incompetence and right wing authoritarianism--can "run Venezuela" is just Iraq and Afghanistan all over again. Imperial hubris that leads to mass suffering and more decline.

"I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as a democratic socialist."

Watching our comrade Zohran be inaugurated with the whole family glued to the TV like it was the moon landing, is a hell of a beat for the long Bernie moment and DSA. We did this, friends.

Wrote a Novel (Literally) A Short Novel about Hard Scrabble Life in the Texas Hill Country and Port of Galveston. The rise of the Populists, Bi-Racial Unionism, Sewer Socialists Form the Backdrop

open.substack.com/pub/chriskut...

I done wrote my a novel, literally. I grew with family rooted in a very different, entirely “analog” era of Texas than the one I was living at the end of the 20th century. My grandpa reveled in these stories of hard scrabble farm life in a bend of Rocky Creek outside Shiner 1

All I want for Christmas is to spend quality time with my boys--playtesting my new battalion level WW2 wargaming rules in 1/72 scale with giant backyard battles.

Is that too much to ask?

So drink your gin and tonic-ah
And smoke your marijuani-khah
If you really, really wanna-kah
Have a happy, happy, happy, happy Chanukah.

Miniature wargame fans are refighting WW1 using 15,000 toy soldiers and their yards as the battlefield A Chicago-based gang of tabletop wargamers are digging actual earthworks to accommodate their colossally ambitious custom campaigns.

It's a shame that I read this on my birthday instead of the week or so I needed to do this ON MY BIRTHDAY. Also #RetirementPlans

www.wargamer.com/miniature-wa...

Zohran Mamdani Is Bringing Bernie’s “Nevada Moment” Home In 2020, Bernie Sanders decisively won the Nevada primary, in part because many younger immigrant voters persuaded parents and grandparents to vote for him. Zohran Mamdani’s victory, powered by simila...

As a former Nevada Bernie 2020 field staffer this really hit. More Nevada moments.

jacobin.com/2025/11/mamd...

34 minutes into the count Zohran wins a majority in the largest mayoral turnout in 30 years. What a time to be a DSA member.