Clamatius

That Other American Tolkien When I was a child, the novels of Fritz Leiber were way more important to me than The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. If anything Tolkien was the British Leiber

open.substack.com/pub/levgross...

This is definitely true for me. Leiber was a terrific influence, both as a fantasy writer and an sf writer. Genius, and now virtually out of print.

Not only a great author but good taste too! I am fortunate enough to own all 10 books. They are really something special, although I think Cook's decision to go with "The Wizards and the Warriors" as book 1's title was... perhaps not ideal.

Forensic analysis of objective video evidence. This is how you serve readers searching for clarity.

if you get mad at one of my posts please understand the guy who said that is dead. I’m a whole different guy

We had a good run

3-panel SMBC comic update. Two children are looking around a room while their mother stands in the doorway. The little girl asks "mommy, where'd all the candy go?" In response, the mom play-acts surprise and says "oh no! It was the Atañip! It's all gone! All gone!" The final panel shows a creature resembling a piñata growling. The caption below the comic reads : thanks to machine learning, I was able to invent the first ever reverse-piñata.

We could build this NOW. The future of damaging children is HERE.

COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/where-3
PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm...
STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

4-panel comic. (1) [Teacher with medium-length hair talking to students at desks.] TEACHER: Modern physics rests on three main pillars: General relativity, which describes very massive objects, (2) TEACHER: quantum mechanics, which describes very small objects, (3) TEACHER: and hyperacute interdynamics, which describes objects 10-30cm in size and 200-700g in mass. (4) STUDENT [from off-panel]: That last one seems kind of limited. TEACHER: Yeah, but over its domain, it’s *really* precise. Absolutely *nails* squirrels and grapefruit. Someday we hope to unify it with the other two.

Hyperacute Interdynamics

xkcd.com/3178/

Part 1/3 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update. Two men are talking, walking by a beach with a red sky. They are talking about whether or not the universe is a simulation, one proposing that if you can build simulations, then more minds are in a simulation than not. The second man argues that there are more simulations within simulations. If the universe contains a million sims, then there are trillions of sims of sims, and quintillion is sims of sims of sims, and so on.

Part 2/3 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update. This would make the universe an infinitely-nested sim, which is logically absurd. The man defending the position of the universe being a simulation says that it would not be infinite, because each sim would be lower fidelity with the universe it is nested in, something the second man disagrees with, saying sims within sims would be higher fidelity if they spend more time to run less time in the sim of a sim.

Part 3/3 of an 11-panel SMBC comic update. The second man concludes that he is correct, because lower fidelity sims would also be too simple to support a conscious mind. When the first man concedes that the second man's reasoning is superior, the panel shows that the second man is actually having this argument in a virtual reality, saying he loves this game.

Sometimes I do a comic just to confirm that I am not in any way optimizing for social media algorithms.

COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sim-3
PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm...
STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

Guild Wars® Reforged on Steam Step into Guild Wars Reforged, the award-winning online roleplaying game enjoyed by millions, now re-energized with system enhancements. Experience the complete saga—from the fall of Ascalon to the de...

They just re-launched the original Guild Wars today. Also a free update for anyone with the original game, and they've made the expansions just a free part of the package.

Still no other game like it. Not really an MMO, but rather a linear, mission-based action-RPG deckbuilder, with optional bots.

If everything is a top priority, then everything gets done quickly. That's basic management

I take on average 10,000 stills and a half hour of video every week. Most I'll never think about again. This I'll hold onto until I grow old. 4 hours ago.

Zero edits. No recoloring. No cropping. Nothing. Just straight up reality. 🦑

How to Fix a Typewriter and Your Life (Gift Article) This is the story of how a man traded steady, grinding corporate security for a dying craft and, in the process, found his soul.

This is a lovely article.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Save 100% on Warhammer: Vermintide 2 on Steam The critically acclaimed Vermintide 2 is a visually stunning and groundbreaking melee action game pushing the boundaries of the first person co-op genre. Join the fight now!

Cool free stuff alert: They're giving away the base version of Warhammer: Vermintide 2 this weekend.

Really good co-op first-person brawler about the world's most dysfunctional friend group fighting through the ratpocalypse.

There's some decent DLC but they've added a LOT for free over the years.

"You're a poet? How long have you been in the security industry?"

Interstellar Space Travel Will Never, Ever Happen It's basically impossible and they know it.

New column from me on why interstellar space travel will never, ever be a thing, and how it's kind of weird that they keep telling us otherwise:

jasonpargin.substack.com/p/interstell...

YouTube video by Guild Wars 2 Guild Wars Reforged Announcement Trailer

Ah, interesting - they're doing a slightly polished up re-release of the original Guild Wars (with all expansions built in) - out in a couple weeks for $20.

Always good to see legacy games like this getting some love. Especially as there's still nothing like the OG Guild Wars. One of a kind game.

Comic. [Person with ponytail pointing at diagram while speaking to three other people] PERSON: If the emergency stop is activated, any riders on the waterslide will be diverted into the beam dump, a large graphite block which will safely absorb their momentum. [caption] We regretted hiring an accelerator physicist to design our water park.

Beam Dump

xkcd.com/3168/

Linus Torvalds being unfathomably based

Everything so stupid but I have faith it can get stupider

Full comic here: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/conspi...
#smbc

YouTube video by Dean Dauphinais Phoebe Bridgers: "Teenage Dirtbag" (Wheatus cover)

Anyway here’s Phoebe Bridgers covering Teenage Dirtbag

Dance Yrself Clean by LCD sound system

Millennials haven’t had easy lives but at least we’ll always have this beat drop at 3:07

Magnus Carlsen press conference, announcing his intention to capture a king by the end of the year. No mere checkmate, full capture. The holy grail of chess. The four minute mile.

Confident in my ability to English, I sit down across from Chotiner. I tell him I'm ready for my interview. He doesn't immediately thank me for my time. He'd be more successful if he did, I think. He asks his first question. My brain immediately explodes through my skull, killing me instantly.

joining the short, yet illustrious, list of People Who Fucked Up So Bad You Can See It From Space

“I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm” of course you do. You’re twelve. “I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal” hell yeah homie you’re twelve. “Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army” bless your heart my twelve year old buddy