Our cat Harry went missing. It’s fine, he’s back now, but it’s the how that really shows how awesome people are. Harry is adventurous … to a fault. He’s a black tom, entirely too sure of himself, and doesn’t understand the difference between mine and also mine (formerly: yours). Because the cat loves sleeping on his head and eating, in that order, without more than a three-hour break between each cycle, when he was gone for a day and a night we knew something was up. I printed out around 200 flyers and dropped them to all our neighbours. I encouraged neighbours to look in their sheds, garages, and under house areas, because we’d had hellacious wind and a curious cat could easily have wandered somewhere to get accidentally shut in. This was the right thing to do. Within a Read More …

I wrote a piece for SFF Book Bonanza – it’s live! Check it out here: [Book Buyer’s Remorse: How to Not Hate Yourself]

I’ve spent a chunk of time recently digging over graveyards, looking for corpses. Not literal ones, because that’d be weird. Rather, things I’ve tried, or friends have tried, in their businesses / hobbies / macrame class. I’m trying to find the solve for: why is there so much bad advice? Or maybe, why do seemingly smart people take bad advice without engaging their brain? People will say, “You know Richard, you should really do this thing, because this other really successful guy did it, and he’s rich!” (Assuming your name’s Richard). Or, perhaps the really rich guy will hop on stage, and say, “I’ve done this stuff, and it’s amazing!” There’s not a problem with these statements necessarily, but they don’t go far enough. They are eminence-based, rather than evidence-based, and this is a tricky wee beast, because looking at Read More …

I fan emailed me today, asking a simple question: how does one fight off locust swarms? You’ve come to the right place*. Here’s what I said. So, locust swarms: this is tricky, and tbh I’ve given it some thought 😊 There was a terrible movie aways back called something like, Attack of the Killer Bees. In the movie they try all manner of nonsense, like using flamethrowers (effective in bursts, but insufficient against the horde). This got me thinking, how would you deal with it? SCIENCE. Locusts are insects, and insects need to breathe – lots of chemicals solve this problem. Aerosolize some carbaryl or similar agent, and boom, all the locusts die. But wait. That also kills the other insects. Not great. Turns out there’s a vineyard (citation needed) in Italy (citation needed) experimenting with a new system that’s Read More …

…and sometimes the quest for it can fuck you up spectacularly. I’ve been a sometime fan of the recently-released Anthem. It’s a fun game, but it’s not finished; it lacks a bunch of things that would make it AAA, and the developer’s gone radio silent after their mad cash grab / lurch for market share. This morning, while catching up on my PC PowerPlay, I saw this great opinion piece I’ll just leave here for you: The thing I like most about this is the calling out of the reprehensible tactics of people who already have all the money, trying to get more of the money, by exploiting people. It’s really not okay, but it’s evident everywhere – even in book marketing, where the biggest indie names are doing a kind of mad land grab (that’s a story for another Read More …