Jim McGarva
@jimbozig.bsky.social
I teach math and stats and make tabletop RPGs and have a house full of kids and pets. He/him.
Find Tailfeathers, Strike!, and more http://jimbozig.itch.io and at http://strikerpg.com
Chat about my games at https://discord.gg/SmxeetS
Find Tailfeathers, Strike!, and more http://jimbozig.itch.io and at http://strikerpg.com
Chat about my games at https://discord.gg/SmxeetS
Reposted by Jim McGarva
"it's critical that I denounce this film without seeing it, but before you object, my reasoning is that I need to for the sake of propaganda."
September 17, 2026 at 3:03 AM
"it's critical that I denounce this film without seeing it, but before you object, my reasoning is that I need to for the sake of propaganda."
Almost there!
We had to pull up some milkweed where we were doing work in our garden, so we saved all the caterpillars we found and took care of them until they pupated.
We had to pull up some milkweed where we were doing work in our garden, so we saved all the caterpillars we found and took care of them until they pupated.
September 12, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Almost there!
We had to pull up some milkweed where we were doing work in our garden, so we saved all the caterpillars we found and took care of them until they pupated.
We had to pull up some milkweed where we were doing work in our garden, so we saved all the caterpillars we found and took care of them until they pupated.
Reposted by Jim McGarva
the web sites have got worse
September 9, 2026 at 6:38 AM
the web sites have got worse
Reposted by Jim McGarva
This is what’s always bothered me about the lab leak conspiracy, it’s chastising scientists for having open intellectual curiosity while pretending it’s not. If they’re only able to debate the lab leak if they come to the conclusion it must exist that’s not actually a debate!
September 4, 2026 at 7:32 PM
This is what’s always bothered me about the lab leak conspiracy, it’s chastising scientists for having open intellectual curiosity while pretending it’s not. If they’re only able to debate the lab leak if they come to the conclusion it must exist that’s not actually a debate!
Reposted by Jim McGarva
You don't have to do the thing where you strip a situation of all of its specifics to make some abstract point. Cofnas didn't merely switch topics, he took up one of the worst ideas of the last two centuries. It's actually fine for universities not to employ people who are loudly wrong and bigoted!
August 23, 2026 at 11:17 PM
You don't have to do the thing where you strip a situation of all of its specifics to make some abstract point. Cofnas didn't merely switch topics, he took up one of the worst ideas of the last two centuries. It's actually fine for universities not to employ people who are loudly wrong and bigoted!
I've been reading Pride and Prejudice and I can't help thinking "And this is what it was all for. They plundered the riches of entire continents just so they could host more dinner parties."
Anyway, it's a good read. Seems silly to recommend a book so acclaimed, but I do recommend it.
Anyway, it's a good read. Seems silly to recommend a book so acclaimed, but I do recommend it.
August 24, 2026 at 12:30 AM
I've been reading Pride and Prejudice and I can't help thinking "And this is what it was all for. They plundered the riches of entire continents just so they could host more dinner parties."
Anyway, it's a good read. Seems silly to recommend a book so acclaimed, but I do recommend it.
Anyway, it's a good read. Seems silly to recommend a book so acclaimed, but I do recommend it.
Reposted by Jim McGarva
People imagine medieval Europe as this isolated thing when the pope was writing letters in 1282 to the bishoprics of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroese islands that they need to pay tithe in money and not in walrus tusks and wool and that's why he's hired merchants to do money exchange for them
August 22, 2026 at 6:04 PM
People imagine medieval Europe as this isolated thing when the pope was writing letters in 1282 to the bishoprics of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroese islands that they need to pay tithe in money and not in walrus tusks and wool and that's why he's hired merchants to do money exchange for them
What happened to the good old days when you asked about a person's character and they said "Melf is a male elf"?
This is not some "identity gradually moved to the character sheet" thing. It always was! These were game pieces from the start. And from the start some people liked to imagine more.
This is not some "identity gradually moved to the character sheet" thing. It always was! These were game pieces from the start. And from the start some people liked to imagine more.
When did a D&D character stop being a character and become a build?
From AD&D kits to 3e optimization, 4e’s Character Builder, subclasses, and 2024’s Origin feats, this article traces how fifty years of design gradually moved character identity from the fiction to the character sheet.
#DnD #OSR
From AD&D kits to 3e optimization, 4e’s Character Builder, subclasses, and 2024’s Origin feats, this article traces how fifty years of design gradually moved character identity from the fiction to the character sheet.
#DnD #OSR
The Great D&D Flattening: Why Everything Became a Character Build
Ask a table today what their character is, and you will often get an answer that sounds less like a person and more like a shopping list: Hexblade Two, Paladin Eight, Polearm Master, Sentinel, Metamagic Adept. Ask that same question of a table playing in 1985, and you’ll hear a name, a class, and all manner of information provided by the player about who this fictional person is supposed to be.
therpggazette.wordpress.com
August 19, 2026 at 9:22 PM
What happened to the good old days when you asked about a person's character and they said "Melf is a male elf"?
This is not some "identity gradually moved to the character sheet" thing. It always was! These were game pieces from the start. And from the start some people liked to imagine more.
This is not some "identity gradually moved to the character sheet" thing. It always was! These were game pieces from the start. And from the start some people liked to imagine more.
Reposted by Jim McGarva
In the Renaissance people theorized, since the Aeneid is great, if you wrote poems made only of words & phrases from the Aeneid rearranged they should be great too, since a great source regurgitated should yield greatness.
They produced NOTHING we still read.
Thinking about that a lot lately.
They produced NOTHING we still read.
Thinking about that a lot lately.
August 18, 2026 at 4:05 PM
In the Renaissance people theorized, since the Aeneid is great, if you wrote poems made only of words & phrases from the Aeneid rearranged they should be great too, since a great source regurgitated should yield greatness.
They produced NOTHING we still read.
Thinking about that a lot lately.
They produced NOTHING we still read.
Thinking about that a lot lately.
Reposted by Jim McGarva
“the things a tenant must do” is terminal landlord-brain. That list, for right-thinking people, should include having a cuddle, hanging with the boys, and dividing the snow clearance between your neighbors.
August 8, 2026 at 12:41 AM
“the things a tenant must do” is terminal landlord-brain. That list, for right-thinking people, should include having a cuddle, hanging with the boys, and dividing the snow clearance between your neighbors.
Nolan's Odyssey may be good or may be bad, but it means we won't get an obsessively authentic Robert Eggers Odyssey.
And more than anything, I want to watch some dude cursing the Ahhiyawa in ancient Hittite while wearing period-accurate buckles.
And more than anything, I want to watch some dude cursing the Ahhiyawa in ancient Hittite while wearing period-accurate buckles.
July 28, 2026 at 3:44 AM
Nolan's Odyssey may be good or may be bad, but it means we won't get an obsessively authentic Robert Eggers Odyssey.
And more than anything, I want to watch some dude cursing the Ahhiyawa in ancient Hittite while wearing period-accurate buckles.
And more than anything, I want to watch some dude cursing the Ahhiyawa in ancient Hittite while wearing period-accurate buckles.
Reposted by Jim McGarva
Hell yeah, added community copies to GlitchHeart Vermin and some have already been claimed ^^
I appreciate every purchase but I know $20 is a big ask for an in-development game. If you can't afford it but want to give the game a read, please claim one yourself: minahoneybat.itch.io/glitchheart-...
I appreciate every purchase but I know $20 is a big ask for an in-development game. If you can't afford it but want to give the game a read, please claim one yourself: minahoneybat.itch.io/glitchheart-...
GlitchHeart Vermin by Minærva McJanda
Brain-breaking cyberpunk
minahoneybat.itch.io
July 5, 2026 at 6:28 PM
Hell yeah, added community copies to GlitchHeart Vermin and some have already been claimed ^^
I appreciate every purchase but I know $20 is a big ask for an in-development game. If you can't afford it but want to give the game a read, please claim one yourself: minahoneybat.itch.io/glitchheart-...
I appreciate every purchase but I know $20 is a big ask for an in-development game. If you can't afford it but want to give the game a read, please claim one yourself: minahoneybat.itch.io/glitchheart-...
Gene Wolfe responds to "the curtains were blue" discourse. He did so 33 years before the meme's creation because Father Inire sent a vision of the meme back to 1980.
June 23, 2026 at 10:57 PM
Gene Wolfe responds to "the curtains were blue" discourse. He did so 33 years before the meme's creation because Father Inire sent a vision of the meme back to 1980.
Urticate, salpinx, bordereau...
Add these 4 words to your vocabulary right now, experts say: They can make you more influential at work
Add these 4 words to your vocabulary right now, experts say: They can make you more influential at work
Incorporating a handful of simple words into your vocabulary can make you more persuasive, according to a Wharton professor, a Harvard study and more.
cnb.cx
June 22, 2026 at 2:18 PM
Urticate, salpinx, bordereau...
How the fuck does this jar of pickles say "no preservatives"? What do you mean???
June 22, 2026 at 1:51 PM
How the fuck does this jar of pickles say "no preservatives"? What do you mean???
Reposted by Jim McGarva
hell yeah lol
"In the appreciation of a work of art or an art form, consideration of the receiver never proves fruitful. [...] No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener." - Walter Benjamin, "The Task of the Translator"
The new formalism, guys, we’re making it happen
June 20, 2026 at 4:09 PM
hell yeah lol
Desperately wanting your stuff to be considered cool by the OSR specifically is a big fucking red flag.
Wanting your stuff to find some audience? To be considered cool by all, maybe including OSR folks? Ok. You can't please everyone--but sure, be hopeful.
Wanting to please these specific dudes? 😬
Wanting your stuff to find some audience? To be considered cool by all, maybe including OSR folks? Ok. You can't please everyone--but sure, be hopeful.
Wanting to please these specific dudes? 😬
June 16, 2026 at 3:04 PM
Desperately wanting your stuff to be considered cool by the OSR specifically is a big fucking red flag.
Wanting your stuff to find some audience? To be considered cool by all, maybe including OSR folks? Ok. You can't please everyone--but sure, be hopeful.
Wanting to please these specific dudes? 😬
Wanting your stuff to find some audience? To be considered cool by all, maybe including OSR folks? Ok. You can't please everyone--but sure, be hopeful.
Wanting to please these specific dudes? 😬
$7000 per American household. As a politician, you can promise every single household in the country $7000 if you'll just do a thing that nearly everyone would be happy to see you do even if they weren't getting $7000 for it.
June 16, 2026 at 2:55 PM
$7000 per American household. As a politician, you can promise every single household in the country $7000 if you'll just do a thing that nearly everyone would be happy to see you do even if they weren't getting $7000 for it.
I don't think social media is any more harmful for kids than it is for anyone else. It's terrible for adults, too. But I think that politicians recognize that telling adults they can't use Facebook is a violation of our rights. They're just doing this because they don't believe kids have rights.
UK PM Starmer set to ban 'harmful' social media for under-16s reut.rs/4g13ksk
UK PM Starmer set to ban 'harmful' social media for under-16s
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to announce a ban on "harmful" online platforms for children under 16 while maintaining access to some safer forms of social media, the Times newspaper reported on Monday.
reut.rs
June 16, 2026 at 2:32 PM
I don't think social media is any more harmful for kids than it is for anyone else. It's terrible for adults, too. But I think that politicians recognize that telling adults they can't use Facebook is a violation of our rights. They're just doing this because they don't believe kids have rights.
I want a recalibration on what makes someone a crank.
Being against universal free healthcare is just as much of a crank position as flat-tax or anti-vax.
Oh, that guy is anti-nuclear? That's a little silly, but if you're pro-AI then you're doing way more to increase fossil fuel use.
Being against universal free healthcare is just as much of a crank position as flat-tax or anti-vax.
Oh, that guy is anti-nuclear? That's a little silly, but if you're pro-AI then you're doing way more to increase fossil fuel use.
June 14, 2026 at 5:38 PM
I want a recalibration on what makes someone a crank.
Being against universal free healthcare is just as much of a crank position as flat-tax or anti-vax.
Oh, that guy is anti-nuclear? That's a little silly, but if you're pro-AI then you're doing way more to increase fossil fuel use.
Being against universal free healthcare is just as much of a crank position as flat-tax or anti-vax.
Oh, that guy is anti-nuclear? That's a little silly, but if you're pro-AI then you're doing way more to increase fossil fuel use.
Rereading Book of the New Sun.
June 13, 2026 at 4:51 PM
Rereading Book of the New Sun.
Reposted by Jim McGarva
Do you like constant background noise? Repeatedly cleaning up messes you didn’t make? And things being randomly broken or lost? Kids might be for you!
May 28, 2026 at 12:27 PM
Do you like constant background noise? Repeatedly cleaning up messes you didn’t make? And things being randomly broken or lost? Kids might be for you!
I just went to pay for something online and the part of the form that wanted an email address would not accept input that had a . or an @. It said "use english characters."
Obviously it wouldn't accept an email address without those either.
Love living in the age of vibe coding!
Obviously it wouldn't accept an email address without those either.
Love living in the age of vibe coding!
May 26, 2026 at 9:37 PM
I just went to pay for something online and the part of the form that wanted an email address would not accept input that had a . or an @. It said "use english characters."
Obviously it wouldn't accept an email address without those either.
Love living in the age of vibe coding!
Obviously it wouldn't accept an email address without those either.
Love living in the age of vibe coding!
Reposted by Jim McGarva
OP means well and I don't want to single them out, but also, fascists lying and/or being ignoramuses about the past does not mean we should cede the ground to them, even aesthetically. The strangeness of the ancient world is a fantastic antidote for "Victorian morals are timeless and eternal."
There is literally no reason why any rendition of Homer needs to be historically accurate.
Who wants to see guys fighting in this?
Who wants to see guys fighting in this?
May 17, 2026 at 12:02 AM
OP means well and I don't want to single them out, but also, fascists lying and/or being ignoramuses about the past does not mean we should cede the ground to them, even aesthetically. The strangeness of the ancient world is a fantastic antidote for "Victorian morals are timeless and eternal."