This One Really Hit For Me.

CNN

James Harrison, blood donor whose rare plasma saved millions of babies, dead at 88 | CNN

James Harrison, a prolific Australian blood donor famed for having saved the lives of more than two million babies, has died at age 88.

It's worth noting that there are some extraordinary people in the world who have been quietly doing the work for decades, and they should be celebrated with all the fervor that we denounce the villains. I first read about Harrison twenty-odd years ago, when he'd already been doing this for about fifty years, and this is one of those guys whose life can, indeed, be summed up by his headline.

James Harrison saved millions of lives. Millions. Not with anything flashy or dramatic, not with profound speeches or brilliant strategy or any of the things we insist are the ways to impact the world. He simply kept himself as healthy as possible so that every few weeks he could go and sit quietly in a room and give away a fundamental part of himself — quite literally his lifeblood — to people he'd never meet, for no pay and no expectation of acknowledgement. (He was, it should be said, acknowledged quite a lot per this article, but that's beside the point.)

When we talk about the kind of people we want to elevate and celebrate in our societies, I often think of people like James Harrison. I hope we get more of him; not just for his blood, but for his heart.

Need is and always has been the wrong metric.

We don't NEED movies or most any art at all. I forget which ancient Greek it was that settled on needing not even a cup to drink to from once he learned to use his hands. We NEED very little, and that's assuming the the need at all is to survive.

I want six+ more sequels to James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, and I'm interested in seeing one or two more of those holiday portals from The Nightmare Before Christmas, amongst other as yet non existent concepts from my own head or other stories. Obviously I don't NEED them, but if done well, it would be enormous fun and/ or satisfying, and that's what I want.

This is critical for everyone to understand about social media.

Any engagement encourages the algorithm. It's a skill to cultivate only your stuff, and on most meta platforms, impossible by design. They sneak (and often sledgehammer) stuff in to just engage you, especially stuff you might hate.

An explainer for why I don't fuck with algorithmic social media

If you give a pigeon a little button to peck that releases pigeon food, it will push the button when it's hungry.

If you give a pigeon a button to peck that releases food every 5 pecks, it will peck it more often.

If you give a pigeon a button to peck that releases food at a randomly selected, always shifting number of pecks, the pigeon will peck that fucking button all day long.

Algorithm based social media is not set up to give you the best most fun stuff all the time, it is set up to give you a bunch of stress and nothingness with a randomized reward of something that actually makes you happy, because they want you pecking that button all damn day. It is a slot machine of content, meant to keep you putting in quarters made of your time and attention till you've nothing yet.

At least if I'm having a shit day on my own Tumblr feed it's because I've made a bad choice about who to follow and I can fix it.

Remember, history was awful. Never trust the romantics.

Oh hello, Tumblr

A flavor cross section of Mother of Runes and and the many/ reprints of Samite damage prevention cards (which fell off hard after New World Order, as they are very intense in combat math), this card was a fun build around with color - changing (usually Blue) creatures. Even Transguild Courier didn't exist yet.

A fun, potentially powerful build around from a former era. Fun times for me, and still a view worth the climb today.

Samite Elder

Artist: Terese Nielsen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

An favorite- efficient, relevant creature types, strong flavor text, and awesome art.

Nielsen's comfort with alt-right groups is such a deep disappointment because the art is so fantastic. Excommunication is and was necessary.

Gaea’s Skyfolk

The grace of the forest and the spirit of the sea.

Artist: Terese Nielsen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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When you discuss set complexity, what do you mean? I prefer a set with lots of mechanics being used in unique ways or in ways not seen the first time around, but I don't like complex/wordy effects.

There are three basic types of complexity:

Card complexity - Can you read the card and understand what it does?

Board complexity - How hard is it to understand what's happening on the battlefield, how the individual cards interact with one another?

Strategic complexity - Do you understand how to best play the card?

You dislike card complexity, but seem to enjoy some amount of board complexity (and I'm guessing strategic complexity).

On a separate axis, there are numerous mental skills that Magic cards can tap into and some are probably easier for you than others. For example, maybe you're poor with memory tasks, but good at picturing hypotheticals (aka future board states).