I really do love unsettling things. Music, costumes, film & television – seeing people create unsettling art, or making some myself, gives me the warm fuzzies inside. It truly comforts me.

Why? How in the heck can I find comfort and joy in things meant to disturb?

I really am glad that I sat down, 24 years ago, and created an entirely new name for myself – one I could use when being creative, or making new friends, or needing the slightest obfuscation. One I owned so entirely that I could hand it out to others with whom I felt kinship.

I literally printed out a sheet with two-letter combinations I liked the nebulous "feel" of, and a Scrabble rack and tiles, to make something 8+ characters long that would be accepted by username fields.

(This post originally appeared on hackers.town.)
I don't know when, where, how long ago I first read (and really ingested) the idea that the word "but" basically tells a reader/listener "yeah, just throw out my previous statement".

It stuck with me, whether I recall the circumstances or not.

First, a note: There's something at thraeryn.red now. Not much, but it's there.

My buddy Bæ Grylls said something that caught my eye today.

Okay, razing everything to the ground and starting over isn’t a sophisticated enough solution for some of you but baybeeeeeee…

Reform doesn’t go far enough.

There are so many reasons why I agree with his statement, complete with examples. The world's societies may have started as simple recipes, but each and every one has, with time, become such a complex casserole that attempting to pick out the bits we don't like is a task that could take lifetimes.