Dexter Palmer

@dexterpalmer.bsky.social

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Author of The Dream of Perpetual Motion (St. Martin's, 2010), Version Control (Pantheon, 2016), Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen (Pantheon, 2019), and a work in progress (Pantheon, when it's done).

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I got the eleventh game in the Legend of Heroes: Trails series in the mail today and I'm maybe 10% through the second—I see why the writing in these games is so widely praised, but given their size and my inability to resist sidequests I'll be playing them until retirement

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Dexter Palmer

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Emily St. James

Shockingly little science fiction correctly predicts technology getting worse. If phone audio quality decreases as much by 2060 as it has since 1990, everyone on the phone will just sound like bees

This is a good scale--does exactly one thing (weighs you within 0.2 lbs accuracy) and does it well

I need a new bathroom scale, and ended up paying $10 more to get one that does not communicate with an app, require me to agree to terms and conditions, or charge via USB. It's come to this

HD-662 Bathroom Scale | Tanitatanita.com Step into a realm of precision and sophistication with TANITA's HD-662 digital bathroom scales – renowned for their unparalleled accuracy, unwavering re...

Malicious compliance Nancy is the best Nancy

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller July 5,1973

"Three weeks of writing on a Marvel movie paid more than making three films. It's obscene!"

Nicole Holofcener on Saying Yes to Ben Affleck, No to Reese Witherspoon and the WGA Deal “Mess”www.hollywoodreporter.com The writer-director also tells the Karlovy Vary film fest about male actors having "a hard time trusting me" and indie film: "Everybody's running scared. And there are generally six actors that will g...

I need a new bathroom scale, and ended up paying $10 more to get one that does not communicate with an app, require me to agree to terms and conditions, or charge via USB. It's come to this

I'm currently hoping for a ticket of Harris/Some Boring Dude 2024, but if the bar to clear is that every sentence you speak has to look grammatically correct when transcribed to print, none of us could clear it

Biden Stumbles Over His Words as He Tries to Steady Re-Election Campaignwww.nytimes.com The president’s appearances have come under intense scrutiny since he appeared feeble in his debate against former President Donald J. Trump.

Town Bloody Hall is a good documentary, a colorful snapshot of the left at a particular place and time (NYC intelligentsia in 1971, the middle of second-wave feminism). You do have to do the required reading first, though (Criterion should've bundled Mailer's book with the disc)

Read Norman Mailer's The Prisoner of Sex (his critique of Kate Millett's Sexual Politics) in preparation to watch the documentary Town Bloody Hall, and it's an axe-grinding, often insane book that should nonetheless not be out of print. (The Library of America will probably get around to it)

Town Bloody Hallwww.criterion.com On April 30, 1971, a standing-room-only crowd of New York’s intellectual elite packed the city’s Town Hall theater to see Norman Mailer—fresh from the controversy over his essay “The Prisoner of Sex” ...

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Dexter Palmer

Yes, that's my point, regardless of Biden's health, the very structure of such a debate doesn't work because the two sides follow different rules and norms. That's why I won't debate climate denialists - it is a bad way to evaluate their arguments, allows rhetoric to trump data, no pun intended.

I realize there were constraints, but Biden was the one who thought debating this criminal coup-leading bag of refuse was worth doing, *and* to do so in a serious manner as if he faced a legitimate opponent. There are severe downsides in doing so, even if Biden was at his best.

Automation works until it doesn't, and when it doesn't the time spent trying to solve a problem often exceeds the gains from the initial automation. (20 minutes out of the 45 total I spent on the phone involved tricking a chatbot into connecting me to a human who could fix the issue)

Good morning to everyone except the guy who used my email address to open a Wells Fargo account last night. (I'm sure he just doesn't know his own email address because I now have access to his private information--I've been on the phone with WF for a half hour trying to sort it out)

"Well, this is not Mission Difficult, Mr. Hunt, it's Mission Impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you."

Robert Towne was one of the greatest screenwriters to ever live. RIP to a legend. www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

Robert Towne, Oscar-Winning ‘Chinatown’ Screenwriter, Dies at 89www.hollywoodreporter.com The San Pedro native also wrote 'The Last Detail,' 'Shampoo' and 'Tequila Sunrise' and forged a superstar reputation as a script doctor and consultant.

One interesting game design feature of the Trails JRPGs (Trails in the Sky, etc.): if there's an humorous in-game acknowledgment that an escort mission annoys the characters, that paradoxically makes the escort mission amusing for the player rather than irritating

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Dexter Palmer

"Whatever he considers to be beneficial to the commonwealth and the dignity of divine, human, public, and private affairs, he shall have the right and the power to do and to execute." From the statute that conferred absolute power on the Roman emperor (*Lex de imperio Vespasiani*, section 6). 😬

No one has ever been as indifferent to the unexpected presence of Superman as the man in this commercial

Superman Peanut Butter Live-Action Commercialwww.youtube.com YouTube video by Thessair

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Dexter Palmer

but how does it interpret LOLITA

I can’t think of a clever caption for this. It just breaks my fucking heart.

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Dexter Palmer

2010: ODYSSEY TWO (1982) Acrylic on Illustration Board - 30" x 20" When legendary publisher Judy-Lynn del Rey asked me to do the cover to the sequel to 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke she said, "What we're looking for here is a 'big book look'." 1/3

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Dexter Palmer

It’s getting to the point where the publishing industry should probably be looking at alternatives to its frankly pathological dependency on Microsoft Word.

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Dexter Palmer

We're living at a pivotal moment in history. We need to make transformational changes to slow climate change, deal the erosion of democracy, and manage emerging technologies like AI. I don't know what the hell I just watched.

Kennedy/Nixon 1960 debate vibes—very unpleasant

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Dexter Palmer

nine months from today no babies were born

During the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 (Lincoln and Douglas were running for one of Illinois's Senate seats), the first speaker talked uninterrupted for an hour, then the second spoke for 90 minutes, and finally the first was allowed a 30-minute rebuttal. Those debates had audiences of 12-18,000

Looking at Steam and GOG sales, and I like to imagine that I'm the kind of person who'd play Gary Grigsby's War in the East, but I could write a book in the time it would take me to get a handle on it. I'm glad such niche games exist though (even if it requires charging $80 retail for a 960 MB game)

Successful summer potluck dinner: good food was brought; several 4-5% ABV beers were drunk; people helped clean up and left by 9, and tomorrow I'll wake up without a hangover and there won't be any evidence that it happened besides leftovers in the fridge. 10/10

I went into Best Buy this evening hoping to pick up a video game and, geez, I don't think that chain is going to survive the decade. (Though maybe it ends up going entirely online)

I watched one minute of the trailer for Heretic and I don't even need to see anymore: I'm in for evil A24 Hugh Grant

Gift link to the recent long Atlantic piece on Phoenix, Arizona (2.5 hours audio; about 40 pages in the magazine)

What Will Become of American Civilization?www.theatlantic.com Conspiracism and hyper-partisanship in the nation’s fastest-growing city

I checked out a library book today that's riddled with grad student annotations (the only copy I could find) and I promise you, whatever you write in a library volume will embarrass you in front of that book's future readers—don't do it