I first attempted NaNoWriMo in 2004. It was the last time I would do so.

I have yet to discuss it here, but I read a lot of fiction.

Nope, sorry; that didn't come out correctly:

I read a LOT of fiction.

Short stories. Novellas. Novels. Ten-volume, epic arcs I return to every three or four years, once my memory softens the details. (I have two of those arcs on my list of faves! And they got official sequels! 😀)

It's midterm election season here in the US. These days, that comes with a pretty reliable side of Kind, Yet Angry People (KYAP, for ease of typing) trashing the candidates on the political left, speaking out against the effectiveness of voting, and wishing there were more they could do.

My KYAP friends – and you are my friends, and I am as kind, as angry as you at all of this – there is something you can do if you're frustrated with this entire system.

You can stockpile weapons, find like-minded KYAP, organize, up your off-com OPSEC game, and start killing your oppressors.

That's not the only option, and there are no "magic wands" here. The system of government in the United States is V A S T, and it's designed to slough off pressures and changes from outside. Let's take a moment to partially outline that vastness:

Reading the comments on a video discussing (and, admittedly, debunking) the practicality of humankind crafting a Dyson swarm, using Mercury as a matériel source – it's an experience.

This is an absurdly visionary project; perhaps not vastly beyond our current capabilities, but certainly an idea that demands huge investments of time and materials, and a few technological breakthroughs. It is a wild, speculative, creative, and hopeful option that might solve a future problem; a person considering it or talking about it might expect the same style of thoughts and comments. Hopeful. Wild. Creative.

Sadly, every time I see Just Folks discussing a blue-sky idea like this, comments tend to fall into one of two camps:

• "uh, maybe in a million years"
• "sure, if we invent (semi-ridiculous ultra-technology) first"

Boiled down to their respective essences:

• "we'll never get there"
• "we're not even capable of doing the things we'd need to begin"

How incredibly defeatist! There's very little wonder, almost no imagination in those reactions; they are responses more appropriate to confrontation than presentation.

First post time.
If you don't know me already, I'm a bit shocked you're here! I'm Thraeryn, The Embodiment of RED. This is my new blog.
I often find myself wanting to write pieces a bit too long for most social media, and after reviewing the submission process for the New York Times' "Opinions" section, I thought:

Why not start a new blog?
. . . Again?

So! Here we are, using a static site generator – which is such a decidedly new thing for me – called Zola. It takes funny little Markdown files, tosses them into a court-bouillon of templates and inheritances, and produces a fine course of HTML dishes. Zola requires I learn its ways and methods, then think in them; it's A LOT, and I might not get to explore some of its more involved or nuanced capabilities for a damned long time.

For now, it's enough to have this, here, ready when needed.