Links: Community, creativity, dinosaurs, and medieval churches
There's never a deliberate theme for these general link posts, I just put links into a draft as I find them then post it when there's a good amount. But it often feels like a theme emerges. Reflecting my interests of the past weeks? Who knows. But writing this up feels like there's a lot of community and creativity stuff. Also... dinosaurs. Because who doesn't love dinosaurs.
AI will force us to be more ambitious, more human storytellers I feel like this about a lot of AI stuff. Wanted to write a post about it but did not want discourse. Also, from the Verge, You sound like ChatGPT. Both of these I found via people I have now lost.
There Are Other Ways to Be Thoughtful by Nick Hayes.
That's not to say I'm going to stick my head in the sand and pretending everything is fine but writing that’s permanently critical or cynical, and allergic to joy, just leaves me feeling flat and deflated rather than thoughtful.
I emailed Nick after reading this, basically to say "Same." Similarly Jinbash's Making my own little corner of the internet is a perfect sentiment.
Big Think's 5 literary conspiracy theories — debunked includes everyone's favourite anti-Stratfordian arguments and that Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper.
Two great posts on games-related local scenes: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Building a Local RPG Design Scene by Lyme and D&D, how to create big active groups that run anything but 5E, you got this! I'm making notes.
A cool project! Reading Gutenberg doing exactly what it says on the tin.
From Aeon: The shape of time In the 19th century, the linear idea of time became dominant, forever changing how those in the West experience the world. Love some temporal shenanigans. Might start a time travel page.
Hamnet, and more and less forgotten women in history by Emily Spinach:
Does Anne Hathaway count as forgotten? Yes and no. We know very little about her internal world, but she’s a damn sight more ‘known’ than the vast, vast majority of women who have ever lived. Her house is a museum now. If a scrap of clothing that could be even shakily identified as hers was found tomorrow, it would immediately sell for millions at auction. That’s not true of any of my peasant foremothers.
I was at Anne Hathaway's house last year and my wife and I had this exact conversation. The whole article is great and has me pondering something.
Folk the System: Caring for One Another in Hard Times by Robot America:
We, the folk, are capable of creating new folkways rooted in care, kindness, and shared effort far beyond the imagined borders and politics that divide us.
Perhaps paired with Revolutionary Loserism: A Letter to Comrades, Losers, and Other Romantics...
I was giving a talk on staggered collapse and the polycrisis under which our carbon-capitalism-colonialism (CaCaCo) world is ending, outlining what I saw as conditions for salvage communism in the ruins-to-come. When one comrade’s turn came to speak, he stood (or, I remember him standing) red-faced and cried accusingly, “But this is loserism!”
Inchwyrm's 2026 Is the year of the wizard! is absolutely my kind of word of the year.
Some really cool paintings of dinosaurs from Cosmographia. It's cool paintings of dinosaurs! What more do we want?
Some really cool pictures of under the sea! What It’s Like to Touch the Bottom of the World on The Marginalian. Plus I just read Playground so I'm into it.
we've created a society where artists can't make any money by Celine Nguyen at personal canon.
Seth Werkheiser's Bring this back is a brief rallying cry to bring back whatever you want.
ReedyBear coming to the defence of Luddites: Please stop using Luddite as a slur And it's true!
Thanks to James Philbrick I've been enjoying myself on Great English Churches. I'm very fond of a round-tower thatched flint church of the kind found in Norfolk. Like this chap in Hales.
Zachary Kai has set up Title Traders Collective for people who are interested in swapping blog post titles, sort of like prompts. It's a great idea to have a list of everyone. I'm on there and always interested in swapping. Zach is also running February's IndieWeb Carnival on Intersecting Interests.
Thanks and appreciation, as ever, to all these cool people making all these cool things.