Real Life

Time changed again. Why? Didn't we, as a society, vote on not doing this anymore? Every clock reset feels like an act of collective gaslighting.

Ben spent his week teaching classes at the Art-a-thon, where he also led a chaotic round of Werewolves featuring the now-immortal line: "I am a delicious villager." The kids apparently took that declaration at face value.

Steven was also at the Art-a-thon, diving into unfamiliar crafts (the kind that require more glue than dignity). Between Halloween, Disney runs, and too much coffee, his week sounded like a montage of exhaustion set to "Hakuna Matata."

Meanwhile, Devon escaped into Weapons—a new dark comedy-horror streaming on HBO. It's clever, weird, and surprisingly funny for something that involves, well, weapons. IMDb link here. Steven immediately brought up Good Boy—another horror film with an entirely different kind of twist. That one's here. Ben closed his week out by jumping into the Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown demo, a roguelike that lets players reimagine Voyager's storylines with ship management and branching plots. It's on Steam. Boldly go, repeatedly die, try again.

Future or Now

Ben's been pondering the next phase of human-computer interaction. There are two paths, he says: cyborgs and rooms. The industry is obsessed with the former—wearables, implants, the dream of merging with our devices. But Ben argues the real frontier is communal computing: Dynamicland.

Dynamicland was a physical space in Oakland where people worked inside the computer. Tables, walls, and objects became part of a shared computational environment. Programs weren't hidden behind screens—they existed in the room with you. From 2017 until COVID, it was a place where anyone could walk in, code with their hands, and collaborate in the real world. It's computing as a public utility, like a library—but for imagination.

Meanwhile, Steven shared a video called "Giving a PC Program Control of My Muscles to Become the Fastest in the World," which feels like the opposite of communal computing. Instead of the room becoming the computer, you do. Devon called it cheating, but maybe it's just evolution—painful, electric evolution.

Book Club

This week's story was The Game of Smash and Recovery

by Kelly Link—an emotional, cryptic sci-fi tale that left the hosts divided.

Steven liked that the story existed at all, even if he couldn't quite parse it. Devon wasn't sure if he liked it—he wants narratives that make sense on the first read. Ben, meanwhile, appreciated how readable it was and actually liked the story, proving once again that literary comprehension may be inversely proportional to caffeine intake.

Next week's pick: In the Forests of Memory by E. Lily Yu.

Until then—reset your clocks, embrace communal computing, and remember: somewhere out there, a delicious villager is waiting.

Real Life:

This week's episode kicks off with Ben wondering what would happen if idioms were costumes. Imagine showing up to a party literally raining cats and dogs or dressed as the elephant in the room. (We're not sure if that's genius or horrifying.)

Steven reminds everyone to say it to our faces! — meaning, drop us a comment or suggestion. Seriously. We read them. Sometimes we even respond like civilized humans.

Devon went to a Halloween party with the Non-Religious Alliance of East Texas Facebook group (yes, that's a thing), rocking a DS9 uniform costume that probably had at least three pips too many.

Ben got a night off parenting duties for Kids Night Out and wants to shout out Butterchurn Visualizer for turning his playlist into a full-blown psychedelic light show.

Then Steven dives into a spoiler-filled review of Sinners — which Devon also saw. If you haven't watched it yet, consider this your warning: spoilers abound, and apparently so do opinions.

Future or Now

Devon takes us up to near space with the week's wildest headline: the object that struck a United Airlines plane wasn't space debris… it was a weather balloon.
Turns out, flight 1093's busted front window was courtesy of one of humanity's oldest sky spies, not falling junk from orbit.
📰 Read more here: Ars Technica

Meanwhile, Ben is fed up with the internet's ad problem — you know, those "No Adblocker Detected" pop-ups that ruin your vibe. He found a fantastic rant about how ad-driven web economics are slowly melting the internet into a soulless sludge of clickbait and autoplay. Check it out here: Maurycyz.com on Internet Ads.

As for Steven, he contributed… absolutely nothing. His words, not ours.

📚 Book Club: "Planet Lion" by Catherynne M. Valente 📚

This week, the crew explored the lush and poetic alien world of Planet Lion by Catherynne M. Valente (read it here).

• Ben didn't love the poetic style but admits he might've shortchanged the story by listening instead of reading — multitasking strikes again.

• Devon really enjoyed it, especially the layered, lyrical tone.

• Steven appreciated how alien the alien perspective felt — not just in design, but in mindset.

Next week's story: "The Game of Smash and Recovery" by Kelly Link (available here).

As always — got thoughts, theories, or strong feelings about weather balloons or weird fiction? Say it to our faces! Drop a comment or join the discussion on our socials.

Real Life

Ben was out this week, which left Devon and Steven to hold court—and as Devon reminded us, there are no kings here anyway. He showed up fresh from an event that apparently involved an axolotl costume (details were scarce, which somehow made it funnier), and immediately launched into a whirlwind of thoughts about upcoming elections, funding cuts to science, and the strange, ongoing collision between South Park and real-world politics.

Meanwhile, Steven spent his weekend in the world of The Witcher: The Old World board game with Greg, slaying monsters, collecting trophies, and occasionally remembering to play the objective. Devon also caught up on Foundation Season 3, where he's decided Brother Day now fully channels The Dude—if The Dude had an empire and a god complex.

Future or Now

Devon took us on a deep dive into the evolving shape of human unhappiness. Once upon a time, midlife was the low point—a universal "unhappiness hump." But according to new global data, that hump is flattening out. Today, mental health is worst in youth and actually improves with age. The midlife crisis may be over, but something worse has taken its place: an age of early despair. Young people are struggling more than ever before, reshaping how we think about happiness across the lifespan.
👉 Read more

Steven followed that up with a warning: don't drink the Kool-Aid—or the soda. A massive new study of over 120,000 people found that both regular and diet soft drinks are hammering our liver health. The risk of metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) jumps dramatically with more than one can a day—and "diet" drinks might actually be worse. Changes to gut bacteria and appetite regulation are the prime suspects.
👉 Check out the study

Book Club

No story discussion this week, but next time we're diving into Planet Lion by Catherynne M. Valente, a luminous piece of speculative fiction about faith, communication, and the limits of understanding alien minds.

👉 Read it on Uncanny Magazine