A rubber ducky is cheaper and not made by stealing other’s work. Also cuter.

And nothing of value was lost.

God I hate “screen time” discourse. Not all activity that happens on a screen is of equivalent value.

I hear Mint is great if you want something simpler.

The Lies of Locke Lamora is a fun fantasy heist book

The Book of Three is the first in a classic high fantasy series. It’s a lovely comfort read, but definitely targeted at younger readers.

You might consider Nix’s Abhorsen series for a unique take on Necromancers.

Foundryside is wild and fun if not a hugely traditional fantasy. Imagine if you could carve sigils on objects to make them ignore reality in very specific ways.

Might as well mention Week’s Lightbringer series too .

Horror? That was a dark comedy I thought.

With all the historical windows bloat that’s not surprising lol

How did I not know about this? Thank you!

China is a state capitalist regime lol.

Corporate consumer brands are crap now. If you want quality you have to buy from craftsman with janky websites they built in 1995 or sometimes on Etsy. There are still tailors and leather workers and so on doing their thing, but you won’t find them on Amazon.

Well when you hoover up companies left and right…

I take it your server has been BUSY.

Love that shot from Elite, nice work.

Raft is really fun but explains very little about how things work.

A trap for the unwary.

I have a black and white laser but am considering color for crafting purposes. But the B/W laser has done well for years and rarely needs toner.

I am surprisingly ok with this.

I don’t know what “morally lazy” means as the author never defines the construct. Discord has an uncertain monetization model, sure. It’s not great for privacy. It will, no doubt, follow Doctorow’s “enshittification” model.

And then I’ll just spin up a Mumble server or something. So what? Should I feel bad for using a service while I can? Should I feel bad for having fun conversations with my friends? Maybe not everything has to be a fraught struggle of good vs evil.

I found a job that doesn’t ask me for 50 hours a week and they go to bed at a reasonable hour. But don’t ask me what I’m not spending enough time doing, like working out. Or how much we spend on takeout (way, WAY too much). And on top of that I have pretty great family support.

Basically, it’s hard even under ideal conditions with some less than great compromises.