A tweet from Pope Leo XIV that reads: “When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.”

Apparently the Pope has read Baudrillard.

This year's KP book Seasons of Larp's PDF version is out and it's free. Go check it out: www.nordiclarp.org/wiki/Seasons...

Preparing to play I’m currently heading home from this year’s Knutpunkt larp conference in Gothenburg, and the thought at the front of my mind is: what does preparation for attending different kinds of i…

Back from a brilliant weekend at Knutpunkt so I'm naturally on my making-up-definitions-and-picking-apart-larp-and-theatre bullshit.

though, genuinely: I do think there's something here in how we (best) ready people for different events

chloemashitermakesthings.wordpress.com/2026/04/20/p...

Suited and Routed: Audience/Narrative Buy-In at Bridge Command By Michelle "Shelley" Snyder One of the critical pillars of the immersive experience is audience buy-in: that spiders-web thread of trust between the Production and the Visitor wherein one tightrope-w...

Costume is your cheat code to quicker audience buy-in and buy-back.

Thanks to @bridgecommand.bsky.social for the opportunity to share how much fun it is to see guests drape themselves into the universe of the show!

George Lucas has really been vindicated in the past few years, because tell me that ain't exactly something Bezos (or Musk or Thiel) would pull, and we've all seen the state of Congress lately...

Blog First, one goal is to explore life as a “FOSS Academic” – someone who uses Free and Open Source technologies to do academic work. I’m hoping that my discussions of FOSS technologies in an academic set...

It's going to be wild if humanities & social science departments start moving en masse to software like LibreOffice, Zettlr, and Scrivener in order to avoid the incessant & unavoidable AI pleading & nagging built into Word.

Like if this prof wasn't an outlier? Wild.

Can’t wait!

A classic example of what being led by donkeys looks like. Forget about understanding all of American history. They don’t even understand recent American history.

McCormick: "We were horrible in Vietnam until we did Rolling Thunder Two, then we won. As soon as we do half-measures, we lose. The faster we get this over the better. If we seize Kharg island, it could be done almost flawlessly. If we have enough firepower, it would be very easy to defend."

Screenshot of an article titled "Roxane Gay co-writing romance Novel with Channing Tatum"

okay finally there is good news (please don't let this be an early April Fools joke)

White text on a blue background reads, “Mystic Seaport Museum Workers ‘Go Union,’ Join AFSCME”. Underneath, WNY Labor Today is listed as the source.

“Mystic Seaport Museum Workers ‘Go Union,’ Join AFSCME” — WNY Labor Today

#UnionNews #AFSCME #museum

Screenshot from the Atlantic covering yesterday’s protest, showing a woman dressed as lady liberty being arrested. The caption reads Etienne Laurent / AFP / Getty LAPD officers arrest a protester dressed as Lady Liberty in chains, following clashes near the Metropolitan Detention Center during the "No Kings" national day of protest in Los Angeles on March 28, 2026.

Her grin knowing how this arrest looks

(Published in The Atlantic today)

really can't be said enough that this case was decided by the same court that decided plessy v. ferguson. if they could have found a plausible rationale to limit birthright citizenship they would have done it. but there is none! the text is as clear as constitutional language can be.

A fictional board game called "Accountants of the Hanseatic League".

Found the most bluesky board game possible.

The first step toward getting off Google Switching to non-surveilling alternatives is fast and easy.

"Every step we take towards deGoogling, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction."

New from me: The first step toward getting off Google, feat. @cyberlyra.bsky.social

buttondown.com/creativegood...

The official White House Android app: Injects JavaScript into every website you open through its in-app browser to hide cookie consent dialogs, GDPR banners, login walls, signup walls, upsell prompts, and paywalls. Has a full GPS tracking pipeline compiled in that polls every 4.5 minutes in the foreground and 9.5 minutes in the background, syncing lat/Ing/accuracy/timestamp to OneSignal's servers. Loads JavaScript from a random person's GitHub Pages site (lonelycpp.github.io) for YouTube embeds. If that account is compromised, arbitrary code runs in the app's WebView. Loads third-party JavaScript from Elfsight (elfsightcdn.com/ platform.js) for social media widgets, with no sandboxing. Sends email addresses to Mailchimp, images are served from Uploadcare, and a Truth Social embed is hardcoded with static CDN URLs. None of this is government infrastructure. Has no certificate pinning. Standard Android trust management.

Ships with dev artifacts in production. A localhost URL, a developer IP (10.4.4.109), the Expo dev client, and an exported Compose PreviewActivity. Profiles users extensively through OneSignal - tags, SMS numbers, cross-device aliases, outcome tracking, notification interaction logging, in-app message click tracking, and full user state observation.

Bro what the fuck

LAPD officers arrest a protester dressed as the Statue of Liberty outside a federal building during a ‘Kings Day’ protest. (Connor Sheets/Los Angeles Times)

A remarkable photo from #NoKings in DTLA from Connor Sheets of @latimes.com www.latimes.com/california/l...

$71,000 - $78,000

One unintended consequence of this will likely be that LLMs will scrape Wikipedia even harder, knowing that it is a site of 100% human generated content.

Wikipedia Bans AI-Generated Content “In recent months, more and more administrative reports centered on LLM-related issues, and editors were being overwhelmed.”

after much deliberation and giving AI the benefit of the doubt, Wikipedia editors have had enough of AI slop. New policy bans LLM generated content, periodt www.404media.co/wikipedia-ba...

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

The Cyberattack That Exposed The Fragility Of Digital Heritage Saturday 28 October 2023 is a date that will live long in the memory of staff at the British Library. As they arrived for work that day, they encountered

On ransomware and under-funded GLAMs: 'At no point was the British Library particularly negligent or unprepared. Instead, it was hindered by vulnerabilities shared by the majority of cultural institutions. ...the attack [is] a warning to the whole sector.' informationsecuritybuzz.com/the-cyberatt...

These last few days Trump has felt particularly Mad Kingy, raging against his opposition, spiraling more and more out of control. It is remarkable how much these four "injuries" listed in our Declaration Of Independence speak to us today 7/

The idea of a Gene Roddenberry & Lucille Ball action figure two-pack is equal parts hilarious and beautiful. I'm stunned.

Here's hoping this launches a sub-line of behind-the-scenes Star Trek figures. I'm pulling for DC Fontana and Wah Chang in the next wave.

A photo of an ice cream machine with a sign reading, "Anything is possible with ice cream." Beneath that is a hand lettered sign reading, "No ice cream".

2026 basically

A great obituary for an important artist. One of the many joys of calling Cambridge home is that the city seems to be stuffed full of amazing characters like this, and you’re might bump into them at the hardware store, or at the bus stop. RIP.

Ugh! In a saner timeline, this could only be the headline of an Onion article, but alas…