Curious Ink

A brief explanation for my increasingly convincing impersonation of a social media ghost: My hands have apparently decided that years of faithful service are quite enough, thank you, and have entered into labor negotiations. Their demands are unclear, management is uncooperative, and the medical establishment has suggested that I simply continue using them, which strikes me as a questionable negotiating strategy. Unfortunately, this means that holding a phone, typing, clicking, scrolling, and generally interacting with anything invented after the printing press have become rather unpleasant activities. Even dictation requires an irritating amount of tappy-tappy, and I’m currently rationing my supply. Consequently, my online presence has dwindled from regular posting and socializing to the occasional drive-by observation, assisted by AI and sheer bloody-mindedness. If I owe you a reply, I haven’t forgotten you. I’m working through my backlog as my hands permit. Nothing personal, unless you’ve been particularly annoying, in which case I reserve the right to pretend otherwise. No sympathy required, please. I’m not soliciting condolences, medical advice, or inspirational refrigerator magnets. Just explaining why I’ve become unusually quiet. I remain as opinionated as ever. I’ve simply lost the ability to inflict those opinions upon you at my customary rate.

Writing tip: if a scene feels flat, cut the line where the character explains what they just did. The action already said it. Current status: deleted three perfectly good sentences that were only there to make me feel productive. The scene is better. I’m slightly annoyed about it.

QP/Share anything you like for #WhateverWednesday!

Damn, this place is lonely af. I see more pals on Reddit & Discord.

Ok, this is totally cool. 3DPrint your own astronaut costume accessories!

Writing tip: give a stressed character one small, useless habit that only shows up under pressure. It makes them feel more real than any dramatic outburst. Current status: three research tabs deep into a detail that probably won’t make the book, while the dog has decided the warm spot on the sofa is hers. Progress remains relative.

Writing tip: Don’t tell the reader someone is angry. Have them carefully reorganize the spice rack at 2 a.m. and refuse to explain why. Current status: three paragraphs of spice-rack subtext, one very judgmental dog, zero actual pages. Still counts as progress.

First nail wrap manicure attempt. Once again, X, changing a background doesn’t make it an AI image. 😡

I’ve been asking myself why everything online turned so shitty. Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification finally explains it: platforms start good for users, then squeeze everyone for profit until they’re worthless. Sharp, funny, and oddly hopeful. Now I get it. Highly recommend.

🌕🏠 Meet the Moon Base habitats — humanity’s first real outpost on another world! NASA is building a modular presence near the lunar South Pole. It begins with robotic prep and short crewed stays, then adds the JAXA/Toyota Lunar Cruiser (a pressurized mobile habitat) and grows into larger connected modules with airlocks, labs, crew quarters, and life support. Astronauts will live in shirtsleeves inside while the outside handles extreme cold (–250°F shadows), radiation, and abrasive dust. The modules expand over time—like the ISS, but on the Moon—and plug into nuclear power, ISRU oxygen, and rovers. This turns brief Apollo-style visits into real exploration and research stays. The first permanent foothold off Earth starts here. Who else can’t wait for the day astronauts call the Moon “home base”? 🚀❄️ #Artemis #MoonBase #LunarHabitat

Fellas, watch this magic trick. Sound off (the music is a choice).

Somewhere in Oregon. Because of course.

Finally, a restaurant that understands the assignment. No free meals for content. No ‘collabs.’ Just come eat like a normal person or keep walking. The only free thing happening here is the honesty

Hey, @GOP , it’d be a lot easier to flip AZ red if you actually had candidates on the ballot. 1/3 of candidates (4 of 12) are Democrats running unopposed.

Filling out our ballots. It’s clear from the propositions that AZ is a state at war with itself.

Ooooh, shiny!

Unpopular opinion: dismissing audiobooks as “for people who can’t read” is for people who haven’t looked at the research. A 2019 UC Berkeley fMRI study (Deniz et al., Journal of Neuroscience) scanned people while they listened to and then read the same Moth Radio Hour stories. The semantic maps—the brain regions extracting meaning—were virtually identical across modalities. Once the words get past the ears or the eyes, the cortex builds the story in largely the same places. A 2022 meta-analysis of 46 studies (Clinton-Lisell, ~4,700 participants) found no reliable overall difference in comprehension between reading and listening. Reading had a modest edge only when it was self-paced and when the task required inference rather than literal recall. For straightforward narrative, the two are functionally close. Print still wins for dense, technical material where you want to flip back, slow down, or re-read a tricky passage. Listening wins for commuting, walking the dog, or hands-busy time. Both engage the same core meaning systems. Treating one as inherently lesser is status-signaling, not science.

lmao helluva brand name

Payment Method: Cheese. Just reloaded my card the old-fashioned way. Cash is for amateurs. Credit is for the weak. Cheese is for people who’ve accepted the timeline we’re in. (Remaining balance: $29.30. Still trying to figure out if that’s dollars or cheddar.)

Or, you know, dress appropriately for seasonal weather & don’t buy this stupid Chinese crap & waste power.

Some of those South Pole craters haven’t seen sunlight in billions of years. Temps below –330°F lock in water ice right next to rims that get almost constant sun—perfect for solar power.