The Heist and After
Extending Act 2 of Cyberpunk 2077
It's an axiom of this essay and the essays in this sub-collection that Cyberpunk 2077 is a flawed masterpiece. It's further an axiom that a major reason that it is flawed is that the actual story was rushed, and that what was delivered is unfinished and substantially less than the original vision. I personally believe these two things, although the first more strongly than the second; but unless you provisionally accept them these essays will not make much sense to you.
Manifesto for a good society
This essay grows out of a quite minor Twitter thread, which is here.
Scotland now provides period products for free, to everyone who needs them.
That's an incredibly powerful thing. The fact that Scotland does it — the fact that Scotland is the first nation in the world to do it — makes me proud to be Scots. It is a seed from which the good society can grow.
Modular electric farm traction
Currently, farm tractors almost all burn diesel, and (with very few exceptions) burn fossil fuel. To reduce the carbon cost of farming, either electric or hydrogen powered tractors are necessary. This document considers electric power.
Battery weight, and modularity
Bondage Safety: or, how (not) to kill your partner
Bondage Safety: or, how (not) to kill your partner
Content warning: This is about rope bondage. I'm normally fairly shy about talking about my weird sexuality on my public blog, and I published this note some years ago in more private parts of the web where odd people hang out. If rope bondage isn't your bag, do not read on.
What we're doing, in modern western societies, when we play with rope, is fundamentally an artistic, or a meditative, or — very often — an erotic practice. Rope hasn't often, historically, been used in this way. Historically, people have mostly been tied by people hostile to them: by people who were their enemies, who didn't care, greatly, about their safety or wellbeing. Indeed, tying has often been a part of intentional torture, or a way to deliberately kill — usually slowly.
A rant about strappado
A rant about strappado
Strappado is a very simple tie. It requires no special skills, no fancy technique. It requires only one rope. It results in permanent, irrepairable injury to the victim, and that's intentional, that's what it was developed to do.
Very simply, you tie the victim's wrists together behind their back, and then you hoist them up by their tied wrists.