L. Rhodes @lrhodes@merveilles.town

@darckcrystale I do think that's probably part of it, at least with some places. Although I suppose it also lowers the risk of certain forms of robbery.

@AdamOnLinux It's a relatively recent development in the US, but it feels like it got a big boost out of the early stages of covid, when people thought it was easy to catch from infected surfaces.

How do minors shop at all of these stores and restaurants that have gone cashless? Are they just not allowed to buy anything unless an adult loams them a credit card or opens a checking account with a bank card for them?

Nice interview with actor/activist Wes Studi, covering his career and new movie, but also dipping into some history of the American Indian Movement. https://www.vulture.com/2022/08/wes-studi-traveled-his-own-road-here.html

Currently reading Fifth Sun, by Camilla Townsend, a history of the Mexica people (later known as the Aztecs) based on accounts written by Christianized indigenous historians in the early phases of Spanish colonization. The politics of polygyny can get bewildering at times, but the cultural and historical background is fascinating. #theLibrary

I want to support local journalism, but I'm also fairly convinced that commercial news sites have all been quietly deactivating their RSS feeds in order to push subscribers into newsletter subscriptions or proprietary apps, and I'm just not going to do that. If you take away RSS feeds — which are the main way I focus on news — then your site is immediately much less useful to me, and I'm not inclined to pay a monthly fee for minimal use.

Seriously considering canceling my digital subscription to the local paper and donating that money to local public radio networks, since the latter have functioning RSS feeds on their websites, while the former does not.

I'm getting into itch.io as a venue for non-gaming #zines. For example:

https://themightyodd.itch.io/paradoxa
https://ezrarose.itch.io/fyma-a-lesser-key
https://helveticablanc.itch.io/holy-10

Hit me with recommendations, and I'll boost them.

Remember: non-gaming (video or tabletop)

One thing I've realized about writing #fiction is that I can only really plan about the first 4/5ths of any given story. If I try to plot the ending with the rest of the structure, then I may well be able to address the basic conflict that propels the plot, but I won't be equipped to grapple with the deeper problems that surface around that plot, because I won't understand, or even necessarily recognize, those problems until I've written them.

@erin If #ttrpgs are something you're interested in playing more, there's a thriving indie scene, and many of the games there are much less complicated than D&D. Lots of people on https://dice.camp and https://tabletop.social would be willing to help, I'm sure.

Speaking of Wyndham, last night I watched Children of the Damned (not to be confused with Village of the Damned, which is also about uncanny children), which bills itself as a sequel to Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos. Imagine a particularly wicked episode of the original Twilight Zone. #theCinema

Been reading John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids, and I keep seeing these big weed-things all over the neighborhood. 😬