The Visible Zorker Lets You Peer Under the Hood to See How Games Worked in the 80s
Hello sailor!
Writing
Here's a selection of my work:
Is this ‘de-extinction’ project actually onto something?
An exception to Betteridge's law of headlines: I'm still not entirely sure if the answer is "yes" or "no."
The rotting fish smell of Bradford pear trees, explained
Give me a home among the cum trees etc etc
Emus once faced down the Australian army—and won
In the shuttered back rooms of silent country pubs, old men still sip from small glasses of beer and whisper of... the Emu Wars.
Andrew Jackson let 1,400 pounds of cheese sit in the White House for a year
IMPORTANT CHEESE LORE
22 years later, modders are keeping SimCity 4 alive
On SimCity 4's enduringly lovely modding community, and how they've kept the game alive long after its proverbial sell-by date.
Pitch perfect: why listening to cricket on radio soothes a world that won’t hear sense
A paean to listening to the radio cricket commentary, a reflection on the state of the world, and a meditation on the joys (and perils) of nostalgia.
Chai standards
In which I drive out to Werribee in search of decent chai, and get all the feels about India. मेरा भारत महान
Imagining a World Without Work
We have far more people than jobs that actually need doing. Why aren't we all enjoying the benefits?
Why the Most Important Olympic Basketball Team Wasn't the Dream Team
Fun fact: This was Rolling Stone's most read sports-related article of the year.
Not With a Bang: What If the Apocalypse Already Happened, and No One Noticed?
When it comes to pop-cultural conceptions of the end of the world, there’s almost always some sort of definitive event that sets the eschatological boulder rolling. But what if there wasn't?
Cat Condo is the stupidest, most cynical game... So why can’t I stop playing?
For the love of god why can I not stop playing this goddamn game
Elliott Smith - The J Files
An in-depth examination of Elliott Smith's music and the way that it connects to the many different places he called home.
Waiting for the End of the World: ‘Fallout’ and the Lure of the Apocalypse
More eschatological ruminations! Why is pop culture so obsessed with the end of the world? And why is the thought of complete destruction so weirdly comforting?
Mahatma Gandhi, Baltimore, and the Myth of Nonviolence
A piece that sets out my views on political violence (which are, according to at least one former friend-turned-fascist, "disgraceful.")
Opinion | Eurovision’s Glorious Silliness
While no one takes Eurovision overly seriously, no one wants their country to blow it, either.
LARPing Leonard Cohen
From the sadly disappeared archives of The Vine -- the story of how I once spent a month on a Greek island pretending to be Leonard Cohen.
Science never quite clicked for me at school. Then I discovered science YouTube
My latest obsession (or one of them, anyway): science YouTube!
Tuning out the static: It took 40 years before I found out that I have ADHD
On being diagnosed with ADHD at 40. It's been a surprisingly positive development!
Why is it now so hard to get my ADHD medication?
ADHD part two, med shortage boogaloo.
Wishing on a bottled star
I take it upon myself to write about nuclear fusion, because physics is fascinating! (PDF)
Our casual use of military jargon is normalizing the militarization of society
Looking into a subject that has long fascinated me — the way in which military jargon has pervaded common vocabulary.
2015 in Culture: Pounded in the Butt by Late Capitalism
I wrote several of these annual "Year in Culture" essays in my time at Flavorwire. This is my favourite, for ... obvious reasons.
Robin Williams and the Myth of “Battling” Depression
A rather personal piece on how you don't "battle" depression so much as you do endure it. Remarkably, someone has recorded a reading of it for YouTube.
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