Margaret Trauth

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• Commented on We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus
  I just plugged TESCREAL into the Rearrangement Servant and its best suggestion was at the top of its list: TREACLES. Also: EEL CARTS CLEAREST and CAR STEEL but really I think TREACLES is the winner here :)...
• Commented on I should blog more, but ...
  ...I have never been a cigarette smoker; I am in fact kind of allergic to cigarette smoke. But reading about that "raise the smoking age one year every year" policy makes me want to go buy some cigarettes. Damn....
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  PKD reality-slip stuff is far too prone to veering into self-indulgence Yeah, it's a really tough line to walk. I found it interesting to do once and I really don't ever want to do it again unless I come...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  PKD reality-slip. Often paranoid but not required. Aquarian Age psychics. Julian May’s “Intervention” and similar ilk. A warm, cozy story largely from a kid’s POV where it is clear terrible things they don’t understand are happening around them while assorted...
• Commented on Empire Games (and Merchant Princes): the inevitable spoiler thread!
  I was gonna ask where to start if I had not been caught up on this series but then thought to look back in the recent blog posts, and this one tells me where: Combined, the entire sequence runs to...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas" (Part 2)
  A new world is being born. I just hope I live to see it, and that there's room in it for someone like me to exist. Yeah. I feel this a lot, lately. A lot....
• Commented on Roll the dice
  Hmm. Okay, let's see: In the modern world, we play D&D because we want to escape from this mundane world to a more exciting one, where we get to have a chance to participate in the choices that change the...
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  You’re Stupid Because You’re Poor A sham court room show, in which a rich white lady hears both sides of a small-claims court conflict, then roundly castigates everyone involved for at least ten minutes. In exchange for this ritual humiliation,...
• Commented on Dread of Heinleinism
  At least most people don't end up writing tributes to the, uh, very interesting sexuality found in RAH's later books. They all blur together into one big blob of "Papa spank!" in my memory. It was really interesting being a...
• Commented on Cthulhu Counterfactual
  Considering the Mi-Go as a faction of the Culture is kind of breaking my brain right now. I think I'm going to have to roll that one around in the back of my head for a while, though, given that...
• Commented on Why I barely read SF these days
  This is a good rant. Thank you. I feel like I want to spend a half a day writing a complex response on my own blog. But right now I am sitting with my phone waiting for breakfast. Not the...
• Commented on Dude, you broke the future!
  We made a fundamentally flawed, terrible design decision back in 1995, that has damaged democratic political processes, crippled our ability to truly understand the world around us, and led to the angry upheavals of the present decade. That mistake was...
• Commented on Unforeseen Consequences and that 1929 vibe
  Last night I tweeted an intemperate opinion [...] that we need to ban Bitcoin because it's fucking our carbon emissions. I was having pretty much the exact same thoughts yesterday. Stop thinking with my brain, Charlie, I'm using it...
• Commented on Clickbait spasm: 14 gizmos I used in 2015
  Gizmos I have enjoyed having in 2015: A sunshade for my laptop, made out of some black illustration board, some tape, and some magnets so it can hang off the ones embedded in my Air's lid. I tried some commercially-made...
• Commented on Quiet in here, isn't it?
  In the Laundry Files I accidentally stumbled into a really smart decision early in the game by explicitly declaring that Bob is an unreliable narrator [...] Unreliable narrators are THE BEST. They let you play fun games with characters clearly...
• Commented on Second childhood?
  wait did you just include Rita on your Totally Not A Hugo Graphic Novel Nomination list AAAAAHHHHHH THANK YOUUUUUUUU runs around screaming in delight K6BD is fucking amazing and insane and I love it. Nevertheless, I think these may not...
• Commented on What's The Best Medium For A Storyteller In 2015 And Beyond?
  I am going to respectfully disagree with your thesis that Patreon is really just a way for Big Content to steal ideas. While there are some people using Patreon to create a paywall for their content, I use it to...
• Commented on What's The Best Medium For A Storyteller In 2015 And Beyond?
  It was not intended as a cue for a product endorsement but I will gladly take one. Thanks! I probably now owe you a beer when we're at the same con....
• Commented on What's The Best Medium For A Storyteller In 2015 And Beyond?
  Yeah, I had a couple comments in that HN thread. And the cheapness of comics is part of why I'm doing them! I used to work in animation, but gave up because I didn't want to spend several years claw...
• Commented on What's The Best Medium For A Storyteller In 2015 And Beyond?
  Doing comics on the web is fun. I just want to note that, as a rule, you are not going to be Homestuck. That is a combination of a lot of hard work for several years and no small amount...
• Commented on An age-old question
  I'm now 43. I should think about this more. I should also go re-read Holy Fire and see what it says to me now. I do enjoy the 'whatever' that comes with age; there's a lot of things I'm just...