On this date every year, those who are diasporically descended from the country of Ireland traditionally celebrate their origins, and increasingly others who do not share these origins celebrate along with them. I myself have in recent years emphasized the Irish portion of my genetic heritage, and St. Patrick's Day is one opportunity to do so ( Read more... )

Over the past decade or so, I've been gripped by a dilemma, caught between two contrasting, driving impulses: to become essentially a hermit, cutting myself almost entirely off from other people; or to become sociable, in order to share my perspective on the world, my ideas, and any abilities that I have that might help others. The first is an ( Read more... )

I haven't been able to absorb a lot of fiction recently, especially in book form, and have never found science fiction books particularly enjoyable, but I stumbled upon an audio rendition of Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke, 1973) and found it a relaxing, yet compelling story. I first heard of this story from a video review of the video game ( Read more... )

I wrote this a number of years ago and left it unfinished. I'm rather proud of the ideas behind it, and some of the ideas behind it are good. I recently polished it up, filling in some bare areas and rewriting large sections that I had written in an unecessarily condescending tone for some reason. I'm not sure what to do with it now, so I'm just ( Read more... )

"Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned with acid or something like that ( Read more... )

I generally don't play phone games anymore because they're such fundamentally unproductive uses of time, but there's one that's held my attention. Gardenscape is a game in which you inherit a mansion and its surrounding fields of dilapidated gardens, which you renovate by playing match-3 levels and using the points as a sort of currency. What ( Read more... )

Crossposted from r/Worldbuilding ( Read more... )

(Cross-posted from r/Worldbuilding ( Read more... )

Having grown up in a county always known for police misconduct, I've given a lot of thought to potential police reform. I've never really spoken about it, though, perhaps because I assumed everyone else was on a similar level of thought. I will redress this lapse now ( Read more... )

The concept of 'worldbuilding' is used primarily for the construction of fiction, especially fantasy, and to a slightly lesser extent, sci-fi. But worldbuilding is involved in all forms of storytelling. As an example ( Read more... )