I keep getting asked which of my books people should start with. So: If you like Discworld-style satire but in steampunk Victorian London: Black Iron. If you like hard SF cyberpunk: immechanica. If you like sex: The Brazen Altar. If you like sex and humor: London Under Veil.

You know that ha-ha-only-serious joke that if you let a Nazi into your bar, and you don’t throw him out, you now run a Nazi bar? On social media, if you allow romance scammers on your site and don’t throw them out, you will sooner or later run a child p*rn site.

All 20 for me. I’ve done everything on this list, plus: used a payphone, fixed a cassette tape by transferring the tape to a different shell, played lawn darts, used a dumb terminal, and used a TTY.

Seems pretty simple to me: They don’t want a bunch of violent, lawless thugs like you guys on their property. You’ve repeatedly been spanked by the courts and flouted the rule of law in your xenophobic crusade. Normal people want nothing to do with you savage animal thugs.

Me: “It’s almost midnight! I’ll just finish editing this chapter and go to bed.” Me: *looks up fifteen minutes later to see that almost two and a half hours have gone by.* Me: “...oh.” #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction

A laptop and a tentacle.

It’s half past two in the morning. I was up late writing, happy with the work I got done, so I went to bed, had just slipped under the covers, was reaching for the light, and I knew what happened next. I sighed, got back up, and started writing again. But hey! Chapter finished!

I truly, sincerely don’t get people who gatekeep obscure bands or niche books or hobbies or whatever. I meet someone else who loves a band that 20 people have ever heard of, I’m like “This is AWESOME! Someone else likes this cool band I like! Woohoo!”

Don’t flirt with me. I will be your best bet for a long night of fun and laughter until you are satisfied with the outcome. Oookay then. Type “don’t flirt with me” and let predictive text finish it.

Walking down the street in Portland, I just passed a huge line of cars flying the Venezuelan flag and honking. Not sure if celebration or protest. Guessing protest; Portland isn’t exactly MAGA Central, and you-know-who isn’t exactly loved or respected around here.

Blog post: The psychology of romance scams: I recently had an insight. Romance scammers who prey on men don’t act like women, they act like thirsty, desperate men. This is key to their success: behaving the way incel men wish that women would behave. https://t.co/GPqzSFjslD

My blog, the More Than Two blog, and the Passionate Pantheon site are being hammered with a flood of SQL injection and brute force attacks. It seems targeted; the brute force attacks are using “fveaux,” “franklin,” and “franklinveaux” as usernames. The sites may be slow to load.

I was today years old when I learned that Apple macOS text boxes support EMACS commands systemwide. For example, Control-T (note: not Command-T) will swap two adjacent characters to the left and right of the cursor, Control-Y will yank, and so on.

Walking home on a cold drizzly day from shipping one of the largest poster orders I’ve ever received (or trying to, the website swore the shipping place was open when it was not), I ran across this. There’s a story here. I want to know what it is.

I’ve had multiple COVID vaccinations, it’s December 31, and I’m doing juuuust fine. Wonder if this dingleberry will admit she was wrong tomorrow.

Just found an email from a couple weeks ago in my spam folder, from a guy calling himself “Gordon Scott” using the email lonelyplanet307@gmail.com. Apparently Gordon Scott is an alias for registered sex offender Gregory Todd Scott in Michigan. Not sure what he’s on about.

Blog post: Thoughts from the jury box: The prosecutor asked us, “If the victim testified for the defense to say that she didn’t think he should be convicted, would you still be able to convict?” That raised the small hairs on the back of my neck. https://t.co/MgVdWEXW6T

Found an organized ring of profiles on @Quora selling CP/CSAM. Spent most of the morning tracking down Telegram and Zangi addresses they’re using and sending them to the FBI & Nat’l Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Now I need a shower.

Regular reminder: Any system if transformative or restorative “justice” that has no fact-finding component is not about justice, it’s about conformity, bullying, and mob rule. No truth, no justice.

Blog post: Visions of Llanddarog: In which your humble scribe returns from Wales almost entirely unscathed, and brings back photos! https://t.co/3jDvRcph72

With our novel Spin about to enter its fourth draft, and the very odd erotic anthology Spectres about to go out for ARCs, my Talespinner and I are gearing up in the next few weeks to start our hyperurbanized court-intrigue gangster noir novel. #AmWriting #AmWritingFiction