Freedom fighters valise delivery & night poster run

Arma Reforger stream #50 with cooperative play starring Artwo and Yootsvik.

Uniting people

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech today reminded me of what good leaders do: Unite people, for the benefit of all.

We aim to be both principaled and pragmatic. Principaled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN charter, and respect for human rights.

I hope he means it, and that others listen.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

Happy MLK day.

We need cooperation to save our world

And other lessons learned from gaming, in the editorial to Simulation & Gaming Volume 57 Issue 1, February 2026.

Exanima Expert Practice complete

Two more Exanima videos, starring shieldmaiden Joan Rambo.

4. The weight of the swing
5. Precision in chaos

Story mode starting next stream!

Foley

In sound design, Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to films, videos, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. It is named after sound-effects artist Jack Foley. Foley sounds are used to enhance the auditory experience of viewers across film, audio dramas, and video games. They can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. Foley can also be used to cover up unwanted sounds captured on the set of a movie during filming, such as overflying airplanes or passing traffic.

Tools

A pencil drawing of a hand drawing a piece of paper that is itself by Hypertexthero.
Drawing of a hand drawing a piece of paper that is itself, originally made for the UN Archives.

We’re shaped by our tools. Here are some I’ve made to help me navigate a life with computers, ordered by most recent.

Stream marker tool 𐦮︎

Elapsed timestamps for YouTube video chapters or whatever you like. =todo: Test more. Better sounds like UIs of Everything, Starfield, MGSV.

Mindful timer 𓇳︎

To help remember to look away from screens regularly, or check the stove. =todo: Better bell/gong sound with subtle variations.

Piano chords 🎹︎

Poster to help me learn to play keys.

Daily exercise 𐦂︎

Seven minute workout. =todo: Light images with transparent background.

Compass rose with back azimuth 🧭︎

Head back the way you came, or tell someone you see in the distance roughly where to head to meet you, in both real and virtual worlds. =todo: increase size of bearing numbers & redo typography.

HTML Form to File.txt ✎︎

HTML/JavaScript form that saves user input into a text file in Markdown format with YAML front matter for use on your local computer. Use to quickly create a post for publishing with a static website generator such as Hugo.

U+23FF Observer Eye Symbol

I couldn’t find a symbol for an observer that was mentioned in an astronomy lecture, so I made one, dedicated it to the public domain and submitted it to the Unicode Consortium.

Web typography template

HTML & CSS template.

Pasta clock 🍝︎

Timer and technical advice for cooking pasta al dente, not al mush. =todo: User-definable infinite time settings. More recipes.

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Everything, Sound Space 6

It’s hard to imagine that everything could be here for each other, because you can only see things from your own perspective.

From the work of art video game Everything, where I began a new playthrough using autoplay while taking breaks for music improvisation in Sound Space #6.

Double-wielding & music improv - Exanima 2

15 minutes from Exanima stream 2.

7-minute exercise (and stream marker tool) updates

The workouts page is more green and glowy, with voices working in iOS. Your pocket computer phone now stays awake instead of going to sleep while you are in the middle of exercising.

The stream marker tool has placeholder titles automatically selected when created and saved after 10 seconds, nicer buttons, and subtle sound effects for button presses.

Exanima

A screenshot taken beyong the first door in Exanima.

Melee combat system aficionados, behold hither! And see a nascent series of livestreams of video game going by the name of Exanima!

Unfinished, yet accessible to play for many moons, a diminutive party keeps their mettle and bring forth bemusing medieval melee experiences, should sounds of clanking and clothing bemuse thee, as they do me, admirer of sounds of space in other audio art pieces.

Hypertexthero Exanima video list:

The beauty of Exanima is it doesn’t let one “fake it.” Being present with the physical movements, in the moment, is necessary for progress.

Further notes shall, by the grace of the gods, befall upon this page!

  • Change view with middle mouse button (MMB) held while dragging mouse.
  • Scroll wheel zooms in and out.
  • V to place camera behind you.
  • Double-click left mouse button (LMB) and hold second click for overhead chop.
  • Hold Alt and click for thrusting attack.
  • Click LMB just right of opponent and hold, then quickly move mouse left for a powerful swing from the right, and vice versa for the left.
  • “Your character is subject to physics, your inputs must work in harmony with them.”
  • “Let go of LMB at any time to perform a feint or abandon your attack to defend instead.”
  • “To deliver significant damage you must land clean hits with the correct part of your weapon.”
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Vinyl, tape, books, lifestream

Vinyl record covers are nicely-sized artworks for displaying in a room.

Listening to an album you love, while taking the time to flip the record or tape, or taking the time listen to an entire album in your streaming service of choice, helps you to notice things and be present.

Recommended film: Perfect Days by Wim Wenders.

Recommended book: Bridge of Waves by W.A. Mathieu.

In 02026: Slow down, and fix things.

Slow is smooth.
Smooth is fast.

GTA and Thief series in The RPS 100: Reader Edition 2025

Some more words from here, this time about the Grand Theft Auto (at number 38) and Thief (28) series over at Rock Paper Shotgun’s reader edition of the best 100 games of all time.

Stream marker tool 𐦮

A screenshot of the tool.

Time to slow down and take my time when traveling in digital worlds during live streams that become videos in 2026.

To help log elapsed timestamps for making video chapters for YouTube livestreams, I made this 𐦮 stream marker tool to be used thus:

  1. Press Start when beginning your stream.
  2. Press Add Timestamp or Spacebar to add timestamps. These auto-save in 10 seconds if you don’t start typing. Click Titles to edit, press Enter to save.
  3. Press End & Save to save yyyy-mm-dd-hhmm-stream.txt with log entries with elapsed time in chronological order, and also copy the log to your clipboard so it works in an Open Broadcaster Software browser dock, which blocks file downloads. Paste the text into YouTube video descriptions for video chapters. You can also use it to log elapsed timestamps when observing anything, like your own daily stream of life.

A screenshot of a text file generated by the tool.

If you find it useful you can File → Save… the tool to your computer and use it where you like, locally or on a server.

Wishing you a good 2026 ❤︎

PS. See Mindful Timer for help to take a break from screens.

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Year calendar on single sheet of paper

Here’s a live demo for 2026. There are several URL parameters, too.

Beached things fall from the sky in Death Stranding

In my recent stream in the Sound Space series I noticed that Beached Things (BT’s) periodically fall back down from the sky, perhaps after being sent up from the nuclear explosions of oil, in Death Stranding.

The PC version of Death Stranding 2: On The Beach should be out in February, and I’m wondering if I should continue my playthrough of the first game, given its length, with so many other good games to play.

I lost an episode or two of my streams in my move from NYC, so I’d need to redo some of the beginning, or start it again and this time play on easy difficulty for a more action-adventure feel.

Jagged Alliance 2 in The RPS 100: Reader Edition 2025

JA2 and my little blurb about it made it into Rock Paper Shotgun readers’ top-100 games of all time at number 88. Yay!

Making a live sky tracker for Elite: Dangerous

Maybe the most impressive Elite: Dangerous project I’ve found thus far, by Cmdr Lysander666 (Zell Ak’inyi):

This is part of what I call “downscaled play”, whereby the commander exists in the Elite world for depth rather than breadth. I personally live on a single moon - Hypi Bra EV-P d5-78 6 a (Nahla) - and have done for several months. I do this because I fell in love with its look and feel, and I use it as a ‘monastic cell’ to do other work from. It helps me focus, keeps me immersed, and I find it productive.

OK, so what would happen if we just threw all the EDSM data INTO the tracker’s code and have Keplerian physics work the whole thing out for itself? Well, this would be fine IF Elite manifested perfect Keplerian physics, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. It simulates it. In such a case you would just be correcting the physics and the tracker code over and over again, relentlessly debugging and getting nowhere. It would be a black hole of broken JavaScript which you would have to endlessly ‘fix’.

So how do we fix it?

How did the ancient astronomers do it before Kepler? How did anyone? Regular observation. I use what I call the “Sumerian method” which is not specific to Sumer but I like the terminology. It’s record-keeping, observation and prediction refinement.

Always a moment of pure happiness when finding projects like this sky tracker for a remote moon in a simulated version of our galaxy.

Elite is an inspiring game, filling one with the urge to create things.


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