Kit Walker's Blog, page 6
June 25, 2024
It's preorder time again
I've moved into the new flat, which lacked a stopper for the kitchen sink. So I had to go buy one. Do you know how hard it is to just walk into a store and buy a sink stopper?
Regular retail stores don't have them, even the ones that ostensibly stock housewares. You can order them online, but mostly only in packs of 4 or more and you'll pay more in shipping than you will on the actual product. Instead I went on an arduous journey to the nearest big boy hardware store, where — after considerable time spent searching the aisles — I finally found what I needed. It was £1.
Anyway:
Preorder: "Jay Moriarty Has Seen You Naked"
The fourth story in The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, titled "Jay Moriarty Has Seen You Naked," comes out on July 9! It's up for preorder — from those among my vendors who allow preorders, anyway — here.
A spur-of-the-moment invitation brings Sebastian Moran along for the ride as Jay Moriarty recovers from surgery in a Spanish resort hotel. When Jay exploits a security vulnerability in the hotel network, he finds an array of exposed cameras — and comes across hints that one of the other guests is hiding a dangerous secret. A secret that, once uncovered, may put Jay and Sebastian's own lives at risk.
Ko-fi supporters who subscribe at the Early Access tier ($5 CAD/month) can download the book for free, right now. If you'd like to read the story early but don't have a spare $5 kicking around, you can also get a free advance review copy over on Booksprout.
This Week's LinksAn attempt by the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute to catalogue various "consumer aesthetics" of the last 70 or so years. Pretty useful if you need to describe a room or a building.
Reconstructing shredded paper money
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority visitor center sells souvenir glass containers full of shredded paper money. Each container (costing $100 HKD) is advertised as containing 138 complete $1000 HKD banknotes. Researcher Chunt T. Kong set out to determine whether he could use "computer vision" to reconstruct the shredded banknotes.
The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?
Just a lighthearted little piece about the upcoming climate-induced societal collapse, and what comes after. Features Canadian hard sci-fi author Peter Watts, who I've mentioned on this newsletter before.
Most storefronts don't allow me to see if anyone's preordered a book until after release day. This is a system designed to make me insane.
-K
June 4, 2024
Material possessions were a mistake
I'm moving this week, for the dumbest possible reasons.
At the end of April, my landlord informed me he'd sold the building and that I had two months to move out. I found a new flat, worked out a move-in date, and signed the lease.
Two days after I picked up the keys to the new place, the landlord of the old place informed me the sale of the building had fallen through and asked if it was too late for me to stay.
I have not stabbed anyone. I think I deserve credit for that.
Anyway. I'm on final revisions of the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story, which is turning out to be around 25 000 words long. It's a bit hefty for what's fundamentally a beach episode, but I'm feeling indulgent this time around.
Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight YouThe latest episode of I Will Fight You is about the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, and features a guest appearance from fellow podcaster MeganBob. Also included: discussions of 90s drag taxonomy and deep cut references to the Chappaquiddick incident.
You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.
This Week's LinksSora’s attempts to replace filmmakers are dead on arrival because these are impractical and ineffective solutions to problems that nobody complained about other than Hollywood executives. The AI hype bubble, as I’ve noted before, is one entirely reliant on us accepting the *idea* of what these companies will do rather than interrogating their ability to actually do it.
A great little flash fiction story about lasers and the problems that arise when the people you're accountable to got all C's in high school.
'Are We Dating the Same Guy' Guy Imprisoned for Tax Fraud
Definitely in the running for Most Lede of All Time:
A man who sued more than two dozen women for calling him “clingy” and “psycho” was just sentenced to a year in federal prison for tax fraud and generating mob-connected earnings from gambling machines. During his trial, his lawyers defended him by calling their client too stupid to be held accountable.
That's all for this week, because I need to go finish packing. Why do I own so much fucking garbage.
-K
May 14, 2024
Just some links today
I'm heads-down on getting the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story finished, so I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to the newsletter this week.
This Week's LinksWhat Happens When a Romance Writer Gets Locked Out of Google Docs
There's been a lot of confusion over the last few months among writers — especially fanfiction writers — over content restrictions on Google Docs and whether they can ban you for writing smut. Google has not offered any clear verdict on the matter.
This is the fundamental problem of relying heavily on services controlled by third parties, like Google. By handing over all the hard stuff (hosting, admin, etc.), you also hand these companies leverage they can exercise for any reason they want, at any time they want.
Such is the bold vision of Guy Dupont, a developer whose recent entry into the Boston Stupid Shit Nobody Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon was the most sacrilegious gag I've ever seen: He added microtransactions into Doom earlier this month. That's the original, 1993 Doom. Can he ever be forgiven? No.
Ohio State commencement speaker says he got help from psychedelics while writing speech
My problem, as someone who enjoys writing fiction about dumb bullshit, is that it's getting difficult to keep up with the baseline dumb bullshit that is reality.
Also, I watched the Mean Girls musical movie over the weekend. It wasn't very good.
-K
April 30, 2024
Too old for the hype machine
My general outlook on the state of popular media is: it's too many. I can't keep up. Every movie I see advertised on the side of a bus is something I've never heard of and looks like a background gag from a 30 Rock episode.
Have I seen Civil War? Of course not. I only found it existed after it was already out and everyone suddenly had an opinion on it. I am busy rewatching Stargate: SG-1. Stop bothering me.
Podcast Appearance: I Will Fight YouThe latest episode of I Will Fight You is about Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, a game with too many subtitles which is also, according to my co-host Maquekenzie, High Art. Spoilers for a game that came out 20 years ago.
You can listen to the episode here, or wherever podcasts are found.
Recommendation: PRETTY GOOD
Jon Bois, the storyteller behind the YouTube video series PRETTY GOOD, is perhaps the only person on YouTube who understands that video essays are supposed to have a visual component. He's ostensibly a sports writer, but has managed to wedge himself into an online niche that allows him to talk about whatever he wants; PRETTY GOOD covers not only sports stories, but also bodybuilding forum drama, the show 24, and a flying lawn chair.
What continually impresses me about Bois as an artist is the visual complexity he's capable of pulling off with Google Earth, a (presumably office-supplied) copy of Adobe Premiere, and a budget of $0. This is a guy who understands exactly what he can accomplish with the tools available to him, and he pushes them all to their utmost. Watch the videos, and you'll see what I mean.
This Week's Linksweird vintage sci-fi fantasy books ily
A Neocities page about vintage sci-fi book covers. Mouse over each of them to read the back. This is the closest online equivalent to killing a half-hour in the sci-fi/fantasy section of a used bookstore.
IMMORTAL Pop!bat 2: funK.O. (Definitive Edition)
IMMORTAL Pop!bat 2: funK.O. (Definitive Edition) is a sequel to the much-beloved and often-played Mortal Popbat, the war game of empty-eyed vinyl bobbleless bobbleheads. Now even more chaotic and bloated, IMMORTAL Pop!bat 2: funK.O. (Definitive Edition) is sure to satisfy that primal desire to see little merchandise blobs maul each other. Spend, fight, destroy, and see who comes out on Pop™!
No, really — this is a wargame for Funko Pops. It's over 1600 pages long. The first 3 or 4 pages are the rules; the rest are stat blocks. There is a dedication on display here that I find both impressive and terrifying.
This video captures something fundamental about the human condition. I rewatch it on a regular basis. I can't stop thinking about it.
Yes, I started rewatching SG-1 after I saw the Stargate prop from the other week. That's how easy it is to reactivate an old obsession. It could happen to you.
-K
April 23, 2024
Free stuff and a book update
The first draft of the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story is done and already sitting at over 17 000 words, which means the final draft will likely be somewhere over 20 000. This is probably why it's taking longer to write than the others did, even accounting for other circumstances.
The first book in the series, "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act," was about 10 000 words. The next two were around 15 000. I'm not married to 15k as the standard for the series — I'm content to let these be as long as they have to be — but it's interesting to see which stories end up needing more space to play out.
And it's not like the Sherlock Holmes stories are all the same length, either. I'm just following tradition, or something.
Community Copies on itch.ioThis week, I made some community copies available for all of my paid titles on itch.io. To find them, scroll down each book page until you see the "Community Copies" section.
Community copies of a book are available for free to readers who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. They're funded by book purchases; for every copy sold, a new community copy becomes available.
So if you buy one of my books, you're making a free copy available for somebody else — and if you couldn't afford my books before, you can now grab one of those free copies.
Recommendation: Leverage
If you know me personally, then you've already heard of this show because I literally never shut up about it. Leverage is a con-and-heist show that ran from 2008 to 2012, in which a team of professional criminals target the rich and powerful on behalf of the poor and powerless.
(As you can probably guess, it was a major inspiration for The Casefile of Jay Moriarty.)
Leverage isn't just a fun show; it's quite possibly peak television writing. Most shows I love have a weak first season and periodic flop episodes, but Leverage hit the ground running. I can't think of a single episode I actually dislike. And the writing is tight, covering a lot of ground with its long-form emotional storytelling by interweaving it with focused, self-contained heists-of-the-week.
It's a good show. You should watch it.
This Week's LinksI've known about Apollo Robbins for a while, but I just recently found out he has a website. And that the domain "istealstuff.com" redirects there. He's a stage pickpocket (among other things) and was a criminal consultant on Leverage. If you're a crime writer (or if you have a hobby interest in this sort of thing), Robbins' website is worth checking out.
Wrong couple get divorced after solicitor ‘clicks wrong button’
The solicitor (lawyer) in question works for Ayesha Vardag, who apparently calls herself the "diva of divorce." This whole situation is wild but I just want to draw attention to this paragraph at the end:
[Vardag] made headlines in 2019 after sending a memo to staff banning cardigans in the office. In a new dress code issued last year, she said staff could shun the cufflinks and business suits associated with “bankers and estate agents” and wear electric blue sequined jackets and gold leather trousers to the office instead.
Tory MP William Wragg admits to leaking phone numbers in ‘honeytrap’ scandal
Basically: UK Tory MP sends nudes to a guy he met on Grindr, who then blackmails him into providing the phone numbers of other MPs, who then also send nudes.
My friend Ian keeps insisting the British are not a horny people. He is wrong.
For those wondering: the next Casefile of Jay Moriarty story takes place in Marbella, Spain. Jay and Sebastian are having a completely normal holiday. Don't worry about it.
-K
April 16, 2024
Corporate warfare via journalism
There are things I write about in this newsletter specifically because my dad reads it, and would find those things interesting. This week, it's Hunterbrook Media.
Depending on who you ask, Hunterbrook is either a news-powered hedge fund or a hedge fund-powered newspaper. They've hired journalists to investigate various publicly-traded companies; if these investigations reveal any shady practices, Hunterbrook then shorts the companies in question before making their findings public. In their ideal scenario, the value of the targeted company's stock then goes down and Hunterbrook makes a lot of money.
Apparently this isn't insider trading, because Hunterbrook's reporters are instructed not to seek out sources within the companies they're investigating. And it's probably a solid investment on Hunterbrook's part; the cost of housing and feeding a newsroom of two dozen journalists has to be pocket change compared to the amounts of money hedge funds usually deal in.
It's not the most ethical thing in the world, obviously, but it is really, really funny.
Recommendation: The Maltese Falcon
The thing about seminal works of genre fiction is that everyone agrees they're good, but nobody actually reads them. And then you do read them, and they are good, but you can't tell anybody because they all agree with you already. But at least your opinion is informed, goddamnit.
Anyway. The brilliant thing about Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon is its refusal to tell you what any of its characters are thinking. The prose describes what they say, how they're saying it, their expressions, their actions, but gives you no insight as to anyone's motivations or what they're up to once they leave the reader's sight.
As a result, you can't trust anyone in The Maltese Falcon — not even its protagonist. And that's what keeps you guessing until the last page.
This Week's LinksAesthetically speaking, the Stargate might be the perfect science fiction object. It spins. It lights up. It makes satisfying cha-chunk noises. And now Kristian here has made a miniature prop version that does all of those things.
I love this. Not just because the project is cool, but because it's my favorite kind of website: the kind that exists because somebody built something interesting, and they want to show it to the world.
These Songs Are Still Legal in Chechnya
“From now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute,” Chechnya’s Culture Ministry said in a statement, according to the Moscow Times.
In a meeting, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov instructed Chechen Culture Minister Musa Dadayev to make Chechen music “conform to the Chechen mentality,” and added that “Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible,” the Moscow Times reported.
Burglary crew allegedly nets up to $30M in one of the largest cash heists in LA history
In today's world of crypto scams and offshore digital assets, it's weirdly reassuring to know that you can still pull off a good old-fashioned heist. Also I was nowhere near Los Angeles that weekend, and you can't prove otherwise.
I wonder if that 3D-printed Stargate scales up to life size. I have ideas.
-K
April 9, 2024
Okay, I'm back
Took a week off the usual newsletter schedule to deal with, y'know. And also to figure out what the fuck is going on with my taxes. I won't bore you by complaining about that here, but let me assure you: shit's fucked.
Recommendation: Blindsight
In Peter Watts' novel Blindsight, a group of specialists are sent to make first contact with what appears to be an alien vessel at the very edge of the solar system. The resulting encounter begs terrifying questions about language, xenobiology, and the nature of consciousness itself.
This is hard sci-fi, and I mean hard. There's a list of citations in the back. It's ended up on the syllabus of more than one neuroscience class. I first read it at age 16, and it permanently altered my brain chemistry.
You can get Blindsight most places books are sold, but Watts has also made it available under a Creative Commons license on his website here.
This Week's LinksThere is no EU cookie banner law
Companies are making your life hard by choice. They got told by the EU they could not be secret abusers anymore, so now they decided to be irritating on top.
Billionaire Says His Long-Delayed ‘Titanic II’ Ship Will Be Antidote to ‘Woke’ Politics
The headline kind of says it all, but this feels like a good time to mention that I Will Fight You did an episode on the movie Titanic 2.
Trash from the International Space Station may have hit a house in Florida
It is notoriously difficult to predict where a piece of space junk will reenter the atmosphere. US Space Command precisely tracks tens of thousands of objects in Earth orbit, but the exact density of the upper atmosphere is still largely an unknown variable. Even a half-day before the reentry, US Space Command's estimate for when the battery pallet would fall to Earth had a window of uncertainty spanning six hours, enough time for the object to circle the planet four times.
And if you don't know when something will reenter the atmosphere, you can't predict where it will come down.
Speaking of Peter Watts, he was also a "genetics consultant" on Jurassic World Dominion, a gig that apparently consisted of drinking in a hotel room and complaining about the first Jurassic World movie. And then they spelled his name wrong in the credits. I guess there's worse ways to earn money.
-K
March 26, 2024
This one's a bummer
My cat died this week.
There's a banality to grief that art rarely captures. You can lie on the floor sobbing your heart out, but eventually you have to get up and do the dishes. And all that crying pulled a muscle in your abs, so now you need to go take an ibuprofen.
Anyway. Following my usual format for this newsletter feels a bit ghoulish at the moment.
My cat's name was Pam. I wrote about her and her life here.
See you next week.
-K
March 21, 2024
comments
March 19, 2024
Too hot for Gumroad
Gumroad — one of the services I use to sell my books — has instituted a new content policy on their platform, banning "media that is created for the primary purpose of sexual gratification." This rule strikes me as, among other things, difficult to enforce in any consistent way. If Gumroad points at a sex scene I wrote and says it's intended to get someone off, and I say it isn't, who has the final word? Who decides whether I'm a pornographer?
For now, I haven't removed any of my books from Gumroad. I'll play the situation by ear.
One frustrating element here is that Gumroad is instituting this content ban to stay in line with its payment processors' policies, which are themselves in place to stay in line with a law known as FOSTA-SESTA. Like Gumroad's new content policy, FOSTA-SESTA offers only vague definitions of what it actually prohibits, thus encouraging those under its power to self-censor. This is how censorship works: it's not actually feasible to identify and prosecute every possible infraction, so censors rely on uncertainty and fear to do their jobs for them.
FOSTA-SESTA was also passed into law in the United States, of which I am not a citizen and in which I do not live. Ostensibly it only affects platforms and payment providers based in the US; however, most platforms and payment providers are based in the US. And as the TikTok situation shows, any platform based outside the US can and will be either blocked from operating within it or forcibly divested from its foreign owners.
I was legally prohibited from voting for or against the legislators who passed FOSTA-SESTA; nevertheless, I am expected to comply with it.
This is yet another facet of American empire, by the way. It's more than bombs and guns and client states — it's that the US leverages its dominance over technology and finance to set policy for, effectively, the entire world.
itch.io's Spring Sale is still on!As of this mailout, there should be roughly 2 days left of itch.io's Spring Sale. All my books are 50% off, or you can get the whole library in a bundle for just $3 USD.
Recommendation: The Paper
Henry Hackett is the workaholic editor of a New York City tabloid. He loves his job, but the long hours and low pay are leading to discontent. Also, publisher Bernie White faces financial straits, and has hatchet-man Alicia Clark—Henry's nemesis—impose unpopular cutbacks.
The Paper is one of those movies I quote constantly, which is unfortunate because the only other people I've met who've even heard of it, much less seen it, are my parents. Both of them worked in newspapers, so I might be genetically predisposed to like this movie.
It's great, though. It's funny, it moves at breakneck speed, and anyone who's worked in a high-pressure production environment will recognize everything about it.
This Week's LinksThe Real Harm in "Harmful Content"
After all, there’s a convergence of factors here: anti-intellectualism rises in alignment with anti-sex attitudes. Anti-intellectualism and movements against bodily autonomy and sexual education are about the same thing: control, and maintaining control.
Was the giant sheep cloning and breeding operation at risk of causing an ecological disaster? Yes. Is this entire concept really, really funny? Also yes. I'm now imagining a Jurassic Park scenario where the giant sheep get loose and go on a rampage, killing and eating trophy hunters.
How a Foul Ball From 2014 Became Part of a Russian Disinformation Campaign
Then I realized that I probably could determine exactly how ancient this 13-second clip of a foul ball was, because a series of databases—most notably the incredible baseball-reference.com, tracks essentially everything that happens in baseball.
Here is how I performed this critical investigation, which no one actually asked me to do but which does demonstrate the incredible amount of granular statistical data available about the sport of baseball.
News from the front is that Chappell Roan's opening act for the first leg of Olivia Rodrigo's world tour is causing a mass lesbian awakening event. I could not be more delighted.
-K
