particularly obvious untruths frequently catch listeners flat-footed. the utterer can't possibly be lying, because such a lie would be trivially discoverable; so, i guess...their outlandish claim must be true? when your listeners are professionally credulous, you can build a lucrative career out of this type of lie. when they're high schoolers, you can generate some funny stories.

In February of 2009, the LessWrong forums were launched by some guy named Eliezer Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky is a member of the demographic I call the Very Smartest Boys - affluent men who, despite lacking any particular expertise or accomplishments, consider themselves intellectual titans because they're good at a particular set of narrow, societally rewarded tasks, like taking standardized tests. LessWrong was a haven for this type, and the forums echoed with heady philosophical and scientific discussions, even though the participants rarely had any idea what they were talking about. Yudkowsky himself would occasionally say something stupid enough to break out into broader nerd circles, and we'd roll our eyes and chuckle and then go back to ignoring him.

After sixteen years of self-promotion, he managed to get a book into the mainstream. Now I have to explain Eliezer Yudkowsky to my dad.

I recently completed a playthrough of OXENFREE II: Lost Signals, the sequel to 2016's OXENFREE. I loved the first game, but the second fell flat. It inherited what made OXENFREE good, but not what made it great.

My job has a learning & development stipend. I usually use it to buy books that are relevant to my work. Here are the ones I read in 2025 and what I think of them.

the highest authority in any organization isn't the person with the fanciest title. it's not the person officially "in charge". the highest authority is the person with the keys. at a high school, that's a custodian. if the school is big and old enough, maybe it's one particular custodian who's been around long enough to collect keys to weird, forgotten spaces.

that custodian might be schmoozable.