Alistair Young @cerebrate@qoto.org

Excuse Me, Constable - https://eldraeverse.com/2025/09/13/excuse-me-constable/

What the well-dressed watchman wears.

#eldraeverse #scienceFiction #writing

I have seen people, in these current days of multiple atrocities, calling upon we merry writers of fiction to say something relevant.

Well, here it is:

Consider the public responses to events in these times as today’s sad and sorry reminder exactly how many of us would be red-flagged by the Guardians of Our Harmony as unfit for participation in a society of sane and reasonable people.

Cultivation

Minds are holographic, you see.

https://eldraeverse.com/2025/09/12/cultivation/

#eldraeverse #scienceFiction #writing #relevant

Today I find myself needing to pull data off a DVD, only to discover that quietly, without noticing, I have ended up without a single optical drive in the house.

Hard drives, SSDs, every type of SD card made, even floppies, those I have things tucked away to read should them unexpectedly turn up. Optical disks, though, nothing.

It’s a lovely morning in Sunnydale, and you are a horrible geas.

#btvs #fanfic #proposedtitle

If it doesn't involve Special Circumstances, or at least Contact, I don't want to hear about your Culture war.

This day I have spoken my will to a cat and had it obeyed.

Kneel before Zod.

"THEY might do bad things in the future so WE must do bad things now" is a common strategy affected by people who should be thrown out of the airlock now just in case they're ever in a position to implement it.

Using the dust shoe on my #cubiko CNC is a little surreal: evidently the sawdust flies through it far too fast for me to actually _see_, but it doesn't turn up anywhere else either. Just vanishes!

I have been firing lasers in my office for almost a full week and have not yet said “No, Meester Bond, I expect you to _die!_ Muahaha!”

I just want y’all to appreciate what a big deal that is, when you’re me.

All I want for Christmas is people to stop calling things eugenics when they are so obviously dysgenic.

(As a helpful guide, if the dead worm in a politician's brain thought it up, it's dysgenics.)

Just because a starship is a giant XFEL with a hull wrapped around it doesn't mean it should be named the _Lase-y Boy_.

I am the sort of man who says cyanoacrylate when he means superglue, and you're all going to have to live with that.

I am the sort of man who says cyanoacrylate when he means superglue, and you're all going to have to live with that.

Cubiko and the CFL55-33 Laser Module

How I made my laser not slip in the spindle clamp.

https://open.substack.com/pub/randombytes/p/cubiko-and-the-cfl55-33-laser-module

#cnc #laser #cubiko

The fundamental problem with nationalism is that stupid, savage barbarians in in-group are, if anything, even more contemptible than stupid, savage barbarians in out-group.

One can always redefine in-group to exclude all members of that class, but then it sure ain't nationalism any more.

Damned [coethnics]! They ruined [ethny]!

Yes, I know the argument that the mass of non-technical people need to be able to install various apps to protect their privacy, avoid government surveillance, etc., etc.

But be serious, people. If you can't figure out how to root your phone, there is no way in _hell_ they can find, assess, and run a secure communications app in a way that doesn't put everyone they talk to at risk.

Security theater is worse than no security, especially when you don't know that it's security theater, or don't understand what security theater _is_.

Basically, permitting sideloading, rooting your phone, and unwalling the garden should require a certain degree of technical competence, even if it's only the ability to Google The Magic Incantation.

The arguments over restricting sideloading of apps are fascinating to me.

By nature, I am someone who hates the ides of restricting sideloading, because I am guaranteed to want to run whatever I want, including my own handcrafted software, on any device I own. I am exactly who they have in mind when they argue that OS developers should not be able to control what you can run on your device.

But I am also someone who understands that there *is* a perfectly reasonable argument for it, insofar as a brief observation of normie users should make it obvious that closed app ecosystems are what stands between them and installing 53 silly little games and desktop toys that also mine bitcoin/serve child porn/hack elections for Russia/steal secrets for the CCP/DDoS shit for 4chan.

This is not an easy balance to strike, especially if the penalty for getting it wrong is having to explain to Congress what a Com-Pew-Tah is and why they shouldn't fine you umpty-billion dollars for not implementing Magical AI-Powered Anti-Bad-Stuff tools.