Night of the Living Cat, volume 1 by Hawkman & Mecha-Roots
Feb. 11th, 2026 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
Humanity faces its final threat: the common house cat!
Night of the Living Cat, volume 1 by Hawkman & Mecha-Roots
james_davis_nicollHumanity faces its final threat: the common house cat!
Night of the Living Cat, volume 1 by Hawkman & Mecha-Roots
(no subject)
Feb. 11th, 2026 08:00 amskygiantsPicking up a book called Part Time Girl about a high school kid who switches (physically, magically, inconveniently) back and forth between Being A Boy and Being A Girl, I was like, okay, I know pretty much what the vibes of this are going to be. And the first couple chapters in which protagonist Michael/Kayla worries about a Sort Of Girlfriend and a Hot Boy and I Have Taken This Part Time Job As A Girl But Now I Need Girl Clothes, Bra Shopping! So Stressful!! did not really lead me to think anything different!
Then about 40% of the way through the book our protagonist was suddenly running through the woods from evil wizards, and I'm like, okay, this I did not expect.
It turns out the plot of this book is NOT high school drama and figuring out your complicated gender feelings! The plot of this book is that evil racist homophobic wealthy wizards called the Clan (yes) run the world and you have to team up with your traumatized neighbor to fight them, while also figuring out your complicated gender feelings along the way.
Also, the protagonist and the traumatized neighbor bond by hanging out and watching the 2014 kdrama Healer, the plot and cast of which is lovingly described in text. This is in fact plot relevant because they later use their arguments over which cast member is hotter to prove their identities to each other when it's in question. Now I do love Healer but given that it came out, again, in 2014 and I haven't heard anyone talk about it pop culturally in more than a decade, this possibly surprised me even more than the evil wizards.
I can confidently say that at no point did I predict some of the major turns this book took, and I will put them under a spoiler in case you, too, would like to experience this Experience as I confidently believe it was meant to be Experienced: ( here we go! for the ride! )
Then about 40% of the way through the book our protagonist was suddenly running through the woods from evil wizards, and I'm like, okay, this I did not expect.
It turns out the plot of this book is NOT high school drama and figuring out your complicated gender feelings! The plot of this book is that evil racist homophobic wealthy wizards called the Clan (yes) run the world and you have to team up with your traumatized neighbor to fight them, while also figuring out your complicated gender feelings along the way.
Also, the protagonist and the traumatized neighbor bond by hanging out and watching the 2014 kdrama Healer, the plot and cast of which is lovingly described in text. This is in fact plot relevant because they later use their arguments over which cast member is hotter to prove their identities to each other when it's in question. Now I do love Healer but given that it came out, again, in 2014 and I haven't heard anyone talk about it pop culturally in more than a decade, this possibly surprised me even more than the evil wizards.
I can confidently say that at no point did I predict some of the major turns this book took, and I will put them under a spoiler in case you, too, would like to experience this Experience as I confidently believe it was meant to be Experienced: ( here we go! for the ride! )
Dale Yu: Review of Beastro
Feb. 11th, 2026 08:07 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
opinionatedgamers_feed Beastro Designers: Matteo Uguzzoni, Jason Corace Publisher: Hello Mountain Games Players: 3-6 Age: 8+ Time: 30 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Welcome to Beastro, where mythical beast chefs compete to make the best dishes! Beastro … Continue reading
February 11, 2026: Our Favorite Munchkin Second Edition Cards
Feb. 11th, 2026 06:58 amdaily_illuminator_feed
Munchkin Second Edition features bold, modern art that has been fully updated by Munchkin's original artist, John Kovalic. We polled our staff to find out which card is their new favorite!
Thief. You simply cannot go wrong with a good unitard.
-- Allison
Electric Radio Active Acid Potion. I like all the detail John added. In addition to looking cooler, it gave some areas to add more color. Also, now that we can see the eyes of the two holding it, they look a lot more scared.
-- Ben
-- Ben
Steal a Level. A munchkin running away from another player holding a literal level. Peak Munchkin silliness.
-- Brandon
-- Brandon
My favorite card is Friendship Potion. This one is going to be a bit sappy, but the hug the Net Troll gives Spyke reminds me of all the hugs that Andrew Hackard would give me, and I miss him.
-- Darryll
-- Darryll
Duck of Doom. It's just the classic Munchkin card to me. Probably because someone played it on me in my first game of Munchkin.
-- Jean
-- Jean
Leather Armor. The new art seems to be inspired by The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but with a Munchkin twist.
-- Michelle
-- Michelle
Hoard! I like surprise boxes, and this one reminds me of them.
-- Nikki
-- Nikki
3,872 Orcs. Specificity is funny. "My car broke down in Wyoming" isn't as amusing as "My 1978 AMC Gremlin X exploded due to a ferret-related carburetor incident in Chugwater, Wyoming." Similarly, "3,872 Orcs" is funnier than "A Lot of Orcs" or "A Roomful of Orcs" or "Three Thousand Orcs." 3,872 is a very specific number, which makes it funny and memorable even when not playing the game . . . and, no, you may not borrow my ATM card. Also, John Kovalic's depiction is accurate (I counted) and giddily evocative as it depicts its teeming thousands of orcs – none of whom I will permit to borrow my ATM card either.
-- Steven
-- Steven
Don't forget to make your pledge for Munchkin Second Edition on BackerKit – the campaign closes next week!
– Michelle Richardson
Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action
There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!
February 10, 2026
Feb. 11th, 2026 06:24 amheathercoxrichardson_feedAs of yesterday, members of Congress who sit on the House or Senate Judiciary Committees can see unredacted versions of the Epstein files the Department of Justice (DOJ) has already released. As Herb Scribner of Axios explained, the documents are available from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM on computers in the DOJ building in Washington, D.C. The lawmakers cannot bring electronic devices into the room with them, but they are allowed to take notes. They must give the DOJ 24 hours notice before they access the files.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the DOJ to release all the Epstein files by December 19. Only about half of them have been released to date, and many of them are so heavily redacted they convey little information. After members of Congress complained, on Friday, January 30, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said they could see the unredacted documents if they asked.
In a letter dated the next day, Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) immediately asked for access on behalf of the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, saying they would be ready to view the files the following day, Sunday, February 1.
After viewing the files briefly yesterday, Raskin told Andrew Solender of Axios that when he searched the files for President Donald Trump’s name, it came up “more than a million times.” Raskin suggested that limiting members’ access to the files is part of a cover-up to hide Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex offender, a cover-up that includes the three million files the DOJ has yet to release despite the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. One of the files he did see referred to a child of 9. Raskin called it “gruesome and grim.”
Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) added: “There’s still a lot that’s redacted—even in what we’re seeing, we’re seeing redacted versions. I thought we were supposed to see the unredacted versions.”
Material that has come out has already shown members of the administration and their allies are lying about their connections to Epstein. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who lived next door to Epstein for more than ten years, said in October that he had cut ties with Epstein in 2005 after visiting his home and being disgusted. The files show that in fact, Lutnick not only maintained ties with Epstein but also was in business with him until at least 2018, long after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. Members of both parties have called for Lutnick to resign.
Testifying today before the Senate Appropriations Committee, where members took the opportunity to ask him about his ties to Epstein. Lutnick acknowledged that he had had more contact with Epstein than he had previously admitted, but maintained: “I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him.” But even Republicans expressed discomfort with Lutnick’s visit with his family to Epstein’s private island.
Khanna called for Lutnick to resign. “In this country, we have to make a decision,” he said. “Are we going to allow rich and powerful people who were friends and had no problem doing business and showing up with a pedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate? Or, like other countries, are we going to have…accountability for the people who did that?”
In the U.S. there has been little fallout so far for those in the files except the resignation of Wall Street lawyer Brad Karp, senior partner for Paul Weiss—the first law firm to cave to Trump’s demands last March. Material from the files shows that Karp plotted with Epstein to get a woman they disliked charged with a crime and deported.
In Europe the revelation that a leader had ties to Epstein has abruptly ended careers. The former British ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, was fired and has created a crisis for Prime Minister Keir Starmer for appointing him. Two senior Norwegian diplomats are under investigation for gross corruption from their ties to Epstein; one of them, Mona Juul, resigned Sunday from her position as ambassador to Jordan and Iraq. Slovakia’s national security advisor Miroslav Lajčák resigned after messages between him and Epstein showed them talking about women while also discussing Lajčák’s meetings with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
Poland announced it was launching an investigation into whether Epstein was tied to Russian intelligence. “More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services,” Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said. “I don’t need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today.”
Yesterday, Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, testified by video before the House Oversight Committee. She refused to answer any questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her lawyer said she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly” if Trump grants her clemency.
Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, all part of the Department of Homeland Security, testified today before the House Committee on Homeland Security. As Eric Bazail-Eimil of Politico reported, Lyons defended the actions of ICE agents, saying they are properly enforcing immigration laws and that they are the real victims of the encounters that have left protesters dead or injured because the protests put agents in danger. Most Republicans backed them up, saying the Democrats are trying to stop the removal of criminals.
Democrats asked the men about federal arrests of U.S. citizens and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and demanded changes at ICE and Border Patrol. Funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out on February 13, and the administration officials warned members of Congress that a shutdown would disrupt their operations and thus endanger national security. Representative James Walkinshaw (D-VA) later told a reporter: “Look, all of this comes from Stephen Miller’s sick and twisted, deranged Great Replacement theory. Whether these folks here…know it or not, they’re…just pawns in Stephen Miller’s sick and twisted scheme.”
Daniel Klaidman, Michael Kaplan, and Matt Gutman of CBS News reported that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after a federal raid on a popular horse racing venue in Wilder, Idaho, led to the detention of 105 undocumented immigrants as well as the temporary detention of 375 U.S. citizens or lawful residents. Only five arrests ended in criminal charges, all for unlicensed gambling.
Answering allegations that agents had used zip ties on children, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field office in Boise and Homeland Security spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin flatly denied the allegations. “ICE didn’t zip tie, restrain, or arrest any children,” she said. “ICE does not zip tie or handcuff children. This is the kind of garbage rhetoric contributing to our officers facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats.” But after photographic evidence of zip-tie bruises on a 14-year-old female U.S. citizen as well as personal testimony, the FBI changed their assertion to say no “young” children were zip-tied.
Court documents unsealed today show that the FBI raid on the warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, that led to the seizure of 700 boxes of ballots and other election related items was based on debunked claims of fraud from 2020 election deniers. As Ashley Cleaves and Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket explained, the affidavit that informed the search warrant came from Kurt Olsen, one of the lawyers who worked with Trump to overturn the 2020 election and whom Trump has recently appointed director of election security and integrity. In the affidavit, Olsen recycled a number of debunked theories.
Legal analyst Joyce White Vance notes that, aside from the merits of the case, it appears that the statute of limitations has run out on any potential election crimes stemming from 2020. She goes on to expose the weakness of the case itself and, finally, to point out that both the General Assembly and the Georgia State Election Board that said there was no intentional fraud or misconduct in the counting of the Fulton County ballots in 2020 were Republican led. White suggests the raid was “less about bringing a meritorious criminal prosecution against specific individuals and more about casting suspicion over Fulton County’s voting system and ability to conduct a fair election.”
Today the National Governors Association cancelled its annual bipartisan meeting with the president that usually involves a business meeting and a dinner. Trump had disinvited two Democratic governors, Jared Polis of Colorado and Wes Moore of Maryland, prompting the rest of the Democratic governors to refuse to attend. “Democratic governors have a long record of working across the aisle to deliver results and we remain committed to this effort. But it’s disappointing this administration doesn’t seem to share the same goal. At every turn, President Trump is creating chaos and division, and it is the American people who are hurting as a result,” the Democratic governors wrote. “If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year. Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states.”
Moore is the vice-chair of the NGA. Yesterday its chair, Oklahoma’s Republican governor Kevin Stitt, wrote: “Because NGA’s mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association is no longer serving as the facilitator for that event, and it is no longer included in our official program.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “I just spoke with the president about this. It is a dinner at the White House. It’s the ‘People’s House.’ It’s also the president’s home, and he can invite whomever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.”
In Washington today, a grand jury refused to indict six Democratic members of Congress for breaking a law that makes it a crime to “interfere with, impair, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military or naval forces of the United States.” Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy captain and astronaut; Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst; and Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, a former Army Ranger; Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, a former Navy officer; Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, a Navy veteran; and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, a former Air Force officer, recorded a video last November reminding service members that they must refuse illegal orders.
Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
Although the bar for an indictment is so low that grand juries almost always return one, the Trump administration’s attempts to harass those he perceives as opponents have been so outrageous that grand juries have repeatedly refused to go along. The New York Times called today’s refusal “a remarkable rebuke.”
—
Notes:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1426091/dl
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/09/epstein-files-unredacted-congress-doj-review
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/10/trump-epstein-files-jamie-raskin-unredacted
https://www.ms.now/news/lawmakers-say-some-epstein-files-remain-redacted-despite-dojs-pledge
https://apnews.com/article/jeffrey-epstein-files-howard-lutnick-2ead9f281ba2491e0581aced50a0533d
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/woman-rapist-epstein-files-france-vpfkfvcr8
https://www.politico.eu/article/slovak-adviser-resigns-jeffrey-epstein-revelations-disclosures-fico/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/10/jeffrey-epstein-brad-karp-woman-deported
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/ice-hearing-cbp-uscis-congress-immigration/
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/10/ice-todd-lyons-dhs-funding-hearing-00774309
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/feds-zip-tied-14-year-old-girl-idaho-raid-ice-tactics/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5731782-governors-association-skips-trump-dinner/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/02/10/dc-grand-jury-kelly-slotkin-pirro/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/us/politics/trump-democrats-illegal-orders-pirro.html
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26927576-fulton-county-affidavit/
Bluesky:
thebulwark.com/post/3mehjzvw45a2o
demoting a dedicated employee, asking for more vacation time, and more
Feb. 11th, 2026 05:03 amaskamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. We have to demote a really dedicated manager
I’m involved in a small, local nonprofit animal shelter. I started as a volunteer and am now an officer of the board. Two years ago, our very competent office manager quit. After two crash-and-burn failed hires, one of our part-time kennel help wanted to try to step up into the position. On a trial basis. Over a year ago. And while she was never officially given the job, things just … limped along. Kasie is awesome in many ways, great with people and incredible with the animals. But she lacks the initiative and judgement to successfully fill this role. I will add she is open about having ADHD, which (from what I’ve read) is probably the source of her shortcomings.
For the last year or more, we have been operating with the board president fulfilling way too many of the manager responsibilities for Kasie, which is not sustainable. One of our long-time board members, Jane, is willing to step into the job and has been hired with a tentative start date soon.
Kasie is a very dedicated employee, and being manager of our animal shelter is way more than just a paycheck to her. I’m comfortable stating this is her dream job. She knows Changes Are Coming and has voiced she has no plans to leave, but I want to make this change as smooth as possible.
I guess I’m looking for advice on moving someone who is dedicated to a cause to step down to a lower position and accept a new manager. I’m also wondering if ADHD is (or should be) a factor in dealing with any of this.
Has someone been giving Kasie feedback all along and is she aware that the board didn’t think she was performing the role successfully? If so, this is a lot easier because it will be a logical extension of that conversation, which you can frame as, “As you know, we’ve been concerned about X and Y and need someone in this role who can do Z. The work has been suffering in ABC ways and we’re now at the point where we need to bring in someone to run things differently. We’d like you to move to focusing on DEF while Jane takes over the manager role.”
But if no one has been giving Kasie clear feedback, this is messier! You’d still use the basic framing above (without the “as you know”) and be candid about the ways in which things haven’t been working … but in that case, the board should recognize its own role in making this harder, and use this as impetus to commit to being more forthright about concerns in the future.
Also — make sure you’re not hiring Jane just because she stepped up, or you risk the same situation you had with Kasie. The board needs to be really clear with Jane (and with itself) about what doing the job well looks like and needs to be more hands-on about ensuring the new staffing decision is working out.
2. Our training about hostile work environments feels like a hostile work environment
I work at a small but thriving business with a small group of employees at headquarters (myself among them) and a larger contingent of contract workers at other locations.
Our city and state require all employers to adopt a sexual harassment prevention policy and to provide employees with sexual harassment prevention training. While most places I’ve worked complete this requirement using an online curriculum consisting of pre-recorded videos and multiple choice questions, this business teaches it live via video call with a member of the C-suite who is not in charge of HR. (In fact, as far as I can tell, we don’t have a dedicated HR team; HR-related duties are instead spread across a number of directors and execs along with their other duties). This class happens in a video call with the executive (“Kyle”) and about 20 other participants at a time, cameras are required to be on, and he will call on anyone and everyone at some point during the class to answer questions.
I’m sure this format works fine for some people, but I find it deeply uncomfortable. His blunt delivery on some of these topics leaves a really bad taste in my mouth (“Pop quiz, if nobody else is in the office and two coworkers at an equal level decide to have sex on their desk, is it technically harassment? Jane, you’ve been quiet, I bet you have an opinion on this”). There are also scenarios in this training that are sadly relevant to my personal history in a way that other people in the office are definitely aware of (and to a certain extent Kyle is also aware of), so I feel really exposed having my face on camera for that — or worse, being called on to answer pop quizzes that hit too close to home. I’m sure other people aren’t thinking about me as much as I am in those moments, but after the last session I wound up in the bathroom crying and I really don’t want to repeat that experience.
I reached out to Kyle and my manager and asked if this year I could fulfill the requirement with a pre-recorded version of the training instead (the city provides one on their website free of charge). I used the word “accommodation” and directly referenced why this training is difficult for me without getting into sordid details. I immediately received a phone call from Kyle stating that he does not believe the training provided by the city government and authorized by the state are legally compliant with city and state regulations (both city and state websites say it is), but further that he doesn’t want to accommodate requests for alternate training because “holding these trainings in-house is a huge source of revenue for the business.” (cleardot.gifYour guess is as good as mine about what that means. If I had to guess, I bet we pass the cost of training the contractors on to their companies as part of the services they contract us for. )
This is bonkers, right? Is it legal? I did ask him if he was saying that the revenue stream was more important than the risk of creating a hostile work environment during a training about hostile work environments, and he did then say I could take the state-and-city authorized version instead, so my immediate problem is solved. But he emphasized that I shouldn’t tell anyone else because he doesn’t want people thinking they have other options, and I’m wondering if that’s as legally shady as it feels.
It’s weird, but as long as they offer accommodations as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, they’re not breaking any law. It’s odd that they want to create their own (apparently badly done) training rather than using the ready-made one offered by the city (and even odder that they’re trying to claim the city’s training wouldn’t comply with city regulations), but given Kyle’s remark about it being a source of revenue, I’d bet you’re right that they charge the contractors’ companies for it. (Even that doesn’t fully make sense, but what else could it be? Is unqualified Kyle out there selling this to completely separate companies too?!)
The part about him telling you not to tell your colleagues that you’re getting this accommodation is sketchy — you have a legally protected right to talk with coworkers about working conditions (unless you’re a supervisor, in which case you don’t) — but the rest of it is legal.
3. If I’m graduating this spring, when should I apply for jobs?
I have a question about applying for jobs as a college senior. I can imagine that higher level jobs will have long hiring processes, but for entry-level office jobs is it okay to apply now, even though graduation is four months away? Or is it better to wait until closer to when a person will actually be available to start working?
Yes, start applying now. You might be too early for some jobs, but for a lot of them, the hiring process could easily take four months (if not longer).
4. Are there really so many nonprofit jobs?
You reference not-for-profit vs for-profit sectors a lot. I used to think I understood what nonprofit work was … like the Cancer Society or Doctors Without Borders or something. But you reference it so often, I’m beginning to wonder …. can there really be that many nonprofit jobs the U.S., or am I misunderstanding what it is?
Your international audience thanks you.
Nonprofits accounted for 12.8 million jobs in the U.S. — nearly 10% of private-sector employment — in 2022, the latest year with data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and there are 1.9 million registered nonprofits in the U.S.
But nonprofits aren’t just the type of advocacy or service-based charities you’re thinking of; they also include arts organizations, museums, trade associations, religious institutions, private foundations, fraternal organizations, chambers of commerce, civic leagues, and lots more.
5. How to ask for more vacation time instead of a raise
I’ve been with my employer for the better part of a decade. I’m a senior-level employee and have a lot of capital, get great reviews, etc. The work is challenging and rewarding and we help a lot of people. We aren’t expected to put in crazy hours, but I often feel like I’m close to my limit in terms of what I can reasonably do without sacrificing quality, and the work can be very draining. My employer is a small-ish but growing local business.
I’m in the U.S. and employees who have been there a few years get just over four weeks’ PTO annually, only some of which can roll over. We don’t have separate sick leave, so PTO covers illness and vacation.
What I want more than anything is more time off. I’d happily forgo a salary increase for a few years if I could get more PTO. I’m wondering how I can try to negotiate for this, what arguments I could use, and how much to ask for. I’m sure they won’t love the idea but I don’t think there’s any downside to asking, and if I was successful, it would be incredible. I’m even open to periodic unpaid leave. I just want more time to rest.
The next time it would be appropriate to ask for a raise, ask for this instead. You can be pretty straightforward about it: “The thing that I really want right now more than a raise is additional PTO. Would you be open to giving me two additional weeks of PTO per year in lieu of a raise?”
I picked two weeks because it’s a good solid chunk while still being reasonable, and also gives them room to come back with one week if they balk at two. You could also run the math on how many weeks of pay a typical raise there would be equivalent to, and factor that into your thinking too.
The post demoting a dedicated employee, asking for more vacation time, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
When is a bug not a bug?
Feb. 11th, 2026 03:05 amzarfhome_blog_feedIn my last post, I asserted that it was not a bug that the cyclops did not fight. (Not according to the combat rules that govern the troll and the thief, anyway.) There was some Patreon and Discord discussion about that; I'm pulling it out into a new post.
(Is my blog going to just be a stream of Infocom trivia for the next two years? Maybe! I'm winging it here.)
Why doesn't the cyclops fight? Well, it's these lines of code:
<SET CNT 0>
<REPEAT ()
<SET CNT <+ .CNT 1>>
<COND (<EQUAL? .CNT .LEN>
<SET RES T>
<RETURN T>)>
<SET OO <GET ,VILLAINS .CNT>>
Translating to more familiar pseudocode:
CNT = 0
repeat {
CNT++
if (CNT == LEN) return
OO = VILLAINS[CNT]
// this monster attacks
}
The VILLAINS table is an LTABLE, meaning it starts with a length field (3). Then entry 1 is the troll, entry 2 is the thief, entry 3 is the cyclops. The loop exits as soon as CNT is 3, so the cyclops never attacks. Simple.
The interesting comparison is Mini-Zork. This was a cut-down Zork, meant either as a demo, a more approachable game, or a version that would run on a cassette-based C64 -- I'm not sure of the precise story.
(Mini-Zork was the first ZIL code to circulate publicly, earlier than the big Infocom source release of 2019. So it got a lot of scrutiny.)
The point is, Mini-Zork has essentially the same logic, except the cyclops has been removed from the VILLAINS table. (His combat responses have been removed as well.) So the table LEN is 2, and the thief never attacks. That is clearly a bug. And the buggy line is <EQUAL? .CNT .LEN>.
(<==? .CNT .LEN>, because this version of ZIL let you abbreviate the operator. Means the same thing though.)
So am I really saying that the same line of code is a bug in Mini-Zork but not a bug in Zork? Sure! A bug is when the code doesn't do what you want. Infocom manifestly wanted the thief to fight but not the cyclops.
What's happened here is that a developer (probably Lebling or Blank, but who knows) made what should have been a simple change: removing one entry from a table. The table length wasn't hard-wired; everything that relies on VILLAINS checks its length. So the change should have been safe, but whoops, it wasn't. It resulted in a bug in Mini-Zork.
That wasn't a bug in the original game. It's what we call "an accident waiting to happen", or a "booby-trap", or a rake or a footgun, or, you know, bad code. Different situation entirely.
(Not a criticism. All IF games are made of bad code. It's just the nature of the beast.)
Let's compare a different bug (non-bug?) which also popped up in Discord discussion.
The strange machine in the depths of the coal mine is defined this way:
<OBJECT MACHINE
(IN MACHINE-ROOM)
(SYNONYM MACHINE PDP10 DRYER LID)
(DESC "machine")
(FLAGS CONTBIT NDESCBIT TRYTAKEBIT)
(ACTION MACHINE-F)
(CAPACITY 50)>
You can refer to it as a MACHINE, or a DRYER (the description says it's "reminiscent of a clothes dryer"), or a LID (so that OPEN LID is a synonym for OPEN MACHINE). Or you can call it a PDP10. A PDP-10 doesn't look anything like a dryer (fridge, sure) but any Zork insider would be familiar with the thing. Both MIT Zork and Infocom's version were developed on PDP-10 hardware.
So, great in-joke. Except it doesn't work:
>examine dryer You can't see any dryer here!
>examine pdp10 I don't know the word "pdp10".
(Infocom's parser reports unknown words whether you've found the item in question or not. So you don't have to journey to the Machine Room to test this.)
Here's a how-de-do! What happened?
To answer this, we must dig into the ZIL dictionary format. These words (MACHINE, DRYER, etc) aren't stored in plain ASCII. They're compressed using the Z-machine's text compression scheme.
In short: a Z-machine character is five bits. A dict entry is exactly four bytes -- two 16-bit words -- with three characters packed into each 16-bit word. So that's a maximum of six characters. The last word has a "stop bit" (the sixteenth bit) indicating that it's the end of the string.
(Then there's three flag bytes at the end of the entry, but those aren't relevant here.)
The six-character limit is well-known. You can type EXAMIN LANTER and the game will accept it. What's not so obvious is that some symbols are more expensive. Five bits isn't enough to distinguish every typable character, after all. So digits and punctuation are actually multi-character sequences: a "shift" code followed by a shifted value.
So the word PDP10 gets encoded as the sequence P D P shift 1 shift 0, or:
10101 01001 10101 00101 01001 00101
P D P shift 1 shift
The final 0 gets cut off, because it's the seventh Z-character.
Like I said, lots of game words get truncated. What's different about this one? It's truncated in the middle of a multi-character sequence. Apparently Infocom's ZIL compiler gets confused by this and omits the stop bit! (Remember the stop bit?) And that confuses the parser, so the word can never be matched.
I looked through the game dictionary and found another example of a missing stop bit. (I wasn't the first to do this.)
<OBJECT DAM
(IN DAM-ROOM)
(SYNONYM DAM GATE GATES FCD\#3)
(DESC "dam")
(FLAGS NDESCBIT TRYTAKEBIT)
(ACTION DAM-FUNCTION)>
The backslash is just a source-code escape. This synonym word is supposed to be FCD#3 (Flood Control Dam #3), but again, the word is not recognized.
So the inevitable question: is this a bug? If so, where?
It could be an interpreter bug. After all, the text encoding spec I mentioned isn't an Infocom document. It came out of the IF community of the mid-90s, a time when we didn't have any Infocom documentation. Maybe the game is correct and my interpreter is wrong!
Well, we can check that. Fire up Zork 1 on the Apple 2!
Zork 1 running on an Apple //e emulator, courtesy of the Internet Archive.
Scratch that idea. My interpreter is behaving correctly, or "the same as Infocom's interpreter", anyhow.
At this point, I'd be happy to call this a bug -- an inferred bug in Infocom's compiler! But in fact we can observe a bit more evidence. Take a look at this object definition:
<OBJECT TREE
(IN LOCAL-GLOBALS)
(SYNONYM TREE BRANCH)
(ADJECTIVE LARGE STORM ;"-TOSSED")
(DESC "tree")
(FLAGS NDESCBIT CLIMBBIT)>
This is a scenery object found all over the outdoors. A couple of locations say "Storm-tossed trees block your way", so they threw in STORM as a synonym. But the -TOSSED part is commented out.
Why? We don't have source code from earlier Zork 1 releases. But we do have compiled game files, and several of them have the word STORM -- with a missing stop bit.
Clearly, this was compiled from the word STORM-TOSSED, and ran into the same compiler bug. But this time, the developers noticed. They figured out what was wrong, and commented out part of the word to avoid the problem. But they missed the parallel situations of PDP10 and FCD#3.
We can also compare Zork 1 release 119, a late development version (never released). This has all the stop bits where they should be. All the funny words work. So by 1988, Infocom had fixed the compiler bug.
Whew. I've either completely narcotized you or opened your eyes to the many dimensions of Infocom game file analysis. Tune in next time when I count every individual one of the 69105 leaves!
(This entry is cross-posted to the Patreon site.)
Buffy/Angel Rewatch continues....
Feb. 10th, 2026 08:35 pmshadowkatA few comments on the Buffy S7 and Angel S4 rewatches. Or take-aways.
I'm at the end of both seasons - have about four or five episodes left.
Watched up to and including Dirty Girls on Buffy, and up to and including Players on Angel. Players is the better episode. I don't know why? But the writers just didn't know what to do with Faith on Buffy.
S7 has one too many extraneous characters - so the main character relationships get a bit lost in the shuffle at times? ( Read more... )
That said - it does some things rather well.
( Read more... )
I could do without Caleb. I'd forgotten how annoyingly cliche that character trope is. It is a horror staple though. So there's that.
Still enjoyable. I don't know if I can watch Empty Places again. We'll see.
***
Angel? The Cordelia arc should work - I mean all the foreshadowing is there? ( Read more... )
***
It's warmed up. Practically balmy at 30 degrees. 31 degrees now. I had to open a window and turn on the window fan. I go from frozen water and 64-66 degrees over the weekend in the apartment to a hot apartment. With a window open - it's 75 in the living room, and 76 in the bedroom. With it closed? Close to 80 degrees.
Gotta love NYC in the winter.
***
I'm at the end of both seasons - have about four or five episodes left.
Watched up to and including Dirty Girls on Buffy, and up to and including Players on Angel. Players is the better episode. I don't know why? But the writers just didn't know what to do with Faith on Buffy.
S7 has one too many extraneous characters - so the main character relationships get a bit lost in the shuffle at times? ( Read more... )
That said - it does some things rather well.
( Read more... )
I could do without Caleb. I'd forgotten how annoyingly cliche that character trope is. It is a horror staple though. So there's that.
Still enjoyable. I don't know if I can watch Empty Places again. We'll see.
***
Angel? The Cordelia arc should work - I mean all the foreshadowing is there? ( Read more... )
***
It's warmed up. Practically balmy at 30 degrees. 31 degrees now. I had to open a window and turn on the window fan. I go from frozen water and 64-66 degrees over the weekend in the apartment to a hot apartment. With a window open - it's 75 in the living room, and 76 in the bedroom. With it closed? Close to 80 degrees.
Gotta love NYC in the winter.
***
(no subject)
Feb. 10th, 2026 09:13 pmsorcyressToday was a busybusy day, but I did manage to get my prep and stuff done before leaving the building, huzzah. The very last work thing I did was have a brief check-in with my favourite admin, which turned into a longer check-in as we transitioned from talking about a specific student to just like...propping each other up in this hellish current events. It is nice to have at least one admin who I can trust to say "yeah, the 2026 political climate is fucking bullshit" and have her already fully radicalized and on board because it sure fuckin' is.
After work, I managed to do an actually useful "I'm gonna spend thirty minutes playing dumb phone games and getting my brain to sort itself out" and then I did all my prep in time to leave for therapy. I was a couple minutes late getting home, but not badly so at all. And therapy felt as good as it can! Like, I don't think I'm doing great right now, but I think it was a good space to process some of the things that are going on in my brain and it's good to have a therapist who tells me not to borrow trouble.
Almost straight from therapy to friend Ruthie's house to celebrate her birthday! I really enjoyed getting the email invite from one of her partners the other week saying "hey, it's 2026 and logistics brain is hard so my birthday present is that I'm organizing this party for her, please RSVP and tell me your food needs" and man, I'm very pleased to have gotten a party invite that slotted exactly between my Tuesday plans. I ate too much good Thai food and subsequently not enough good cake and my stomach still feels very pleasantly full, several hours later.
Left the party just on the early end (it's an early end to the party because it's a worknight and also Ruthie has a toddler with a bedtime) so I could make it home in time for the TMC zoom meeting. yayyyy organizing Scottish dance stuff, I suppose. It was pretty painless as these meetings go.
Now I have a few hours to spend to myself and then I'm gonna try to go to bed more on time than I have been. We'll see.
I love you.
~Sor
MOOP!
After work, I managed to do an actually useful "I'm gonna spend thirty minutes playing dumb phone games and getting my brain to sort itself out" and then I did all my prep in time to leave for therapy. I was a couple minutes late getting home, but not badly so at all. And therapy felt as good as it can! Like, I don't think I'm doing great right now, but I think it was a good space to process some of the things that are going on in my brain and it's good to have a therapist who tells me not to borrow trouble.
Almost straight from therapy to friend Ruthie's house to celebrate her birthday! I really enjoyed getting the email invite from one of her partners the other week saying "hey, it's 2026 and logistics brain is hard so my birthday present is that I'm organizing this party for her, please RSVP and tell me your food needs" and man, I'm very pleased to have gotten a party invite that slotted exactly between my Tuesday plans. I ate too much good Thai food and subsequently not enough good cake and my stomach still feels very pleasantly full, several hours later.
Left the party just on the early end (it's an early end to the party because it's a worknight and also Ruthie has a toddler with a bedtime) so I could make it home in time for the TMC zoom meeting. yayyyy organizing Scottish dance stuff, I suppose. It was pretty painless as these meetings go.
Now I have a few hours to spend to myself and then I'm gonna try to go to bed more on time than I have been. We'll see.
I love you.
~Sor
MOOP!
Periodic reminder that "good billionaire" Marc Benioff is still a massive piece of shit
Feb. 10th, 2026 11:34 pmjwz_org_feed
This is an example of "Silicon Valley CEOs and their inability to divorce ICE and the complete lack of understanding of why that makes them monsters," a Salesforce employee told 404 Media. "Employees are going absolutely apeshit in internal Slack about how completely awful it was." Another employee told 404 Media that Benioff "then followed it up with a joke about not understanding the message of Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance. On its own just seems out of touch, but coupled with the previous joke it does seem worse."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Crosspost. Phones and legs and Jews against ICE
Feb. 10th, 2026 06:58 pmvvalkyriWell I just posted this over on FB:
The Jewish thing I'm referring to is This group of Jewish groups who plan an anti ICE protest. TBH there's a bunch I'm not familiar with, along with a bunch of local synagogues I am familiar with, along with only one or two groups I'd usually not want to deal with, and so far as I can tell, NOT the one group I'd say fuck no to.
I'm impressed by the webpage's clear "ok it might be cold (it actually won't be), and it'll suck to park becauase of the snow, and here are songs to listen to ahead of time, and here are sign suggestions and good things to bring or wear and please don't bring flags."
I hate that there's a couple chats I'd ordinarily signalboost local stuff to but it feels fraught.
I also initially shared the fb post from T'ruah, but then decided that was a rabbit hole of right wingers, although some of the comments were a good reminder of how lonely it is as a Jew in a lot of progressive spaces where once upon a time we helped with so many causes. I read recently that a good half of the non-Black freedom riders were Jews.
Anyway. Tired, and I don't know why. Not sure what's going on with the rest of my night. And I don't know how I'm ever going to get anything set up for the weekend, either. I need to at least know what I want.
In other news, enjoyed going out to Volt's for Superbowl and then staying up entirely too late but a lot of talking. And it's been fascinating reading more about the various cultural references in the show. (This particular article doesn't mention that was a real wedding he'd been invited to but couldn't attend because Superbowl.)
In still other news, Discord plans to start enforcing age verification by requiring pictures or IDs. Urg.
One thing about FB deciding I'm a "digital creator" is I get to see how many times it has served something and to how many people.
I'm saddened by how low those numbers are for my post about the Jewish event tomorrow compared to those for other posts, although I guess I should compare against other screencap posts which it's probably smart enough to understand aren't the same as other pictures.
At this point the conflict I thought I had turns out to be WAY earlier in the morning (like requiring getting out of the house a couple hours earlier than I've lately been waking) so maybe I can get there, but then there's the whole "it would be so nice if my ankle and TA weren't mad, to the point of waking me mad." And I have a pretty on my feet planned weekend coming up. But I guess it's also reasonably warm tomorrow, warm enough I could grab a bike. Tho I'd probably be wearing my skirt with the stars on.
I got out to Best Buy today and have a low end phone it seems I could transfer my life over to. Of course the advice I got AFTER buying something with a $45 restock fee has me far more comfortable with doing that factory reset on my own current phone, now that I understand how transfers and backups work a little better. Bleh. Still kinda want some handholding.
I also was at costco and am amused by all the preserved duck eggs and indeed things like quail eggs (which Lynn mentioned and they're $5something rather than $8 so I bought a pack.) I tried one a few minutes ago. Tasty, but with each of the 54 quail eggs in the pack being individually wrapped it's an appalling amount of packaging. THAT said, though, it's pretty portable. Which reminds me maybe I should hardboil some eggs ahead of the weekend.
There was also a sample of a protein and sugar free cinnamon toast crunch like cereal which I was tempted to buy but decided I would fail miserably at portion control.
Yesterday my leg wasn't bothering me during the day and I hadn't taken any aleve. Today it is and I have. Feh.
I would add some pics but they were sent to me over SMS and, well, there's a reason I just bought a backup phone. Maybe I'll add some later. But if I can't get both phones behaving at the same time then moving things over will become difficult.
I should go load the dishwasher. Or pack. Or something.
I also should contemplate where I'm willing to post about tomorrow's thing, because too many places seem likely to invite harrassment :(
The Jewish thing I'm referring to is This group of Jewish groups who plan an anti ICE protest. TBH there's a bunch I'm not familiar with, along with a bunch of local synagogues I am familiar with, along with only one or two groups I'd usually not want to deal with, and so far as I can tell, NOT the one group I'd say fuck no to.
I'm impressed by the webpage's clear "ok it might be cold (it actually won't be), and it'll suck to park becauase of the snow, and here are songs to listen to ahead of time, and here are sign suggestions and good things to bring or wear and please don't bring flags."
I hate that there's a couple chats I'd ordinarily signalboost local stuff to but it feels fraught.
I also initially shared the fb post from T'ruah, but then decided that was a rabbit hole of right wingers, although some of the comments were a good reminder of how lonely it is as a Jew in a lot of progressive spaces where once upon a time we helped with so many causes. I read recently that a good half of the non-Black freedom riders were Jews.
Anyway. Tired, and I don't know why. Not sure what's going on with the rest of my night. And I don't know how I'm ever going to get anything set up for the weekend, either. I need to at least know what I want.
In other news, enjoyed going out to Volt's for Superbowl and then staying up entirely too late but a lot of talking. And it's been fascinating reading more about the various cultural references in the show. (This particular article doesn't mention that was a real wedding he'd been invited to but couldn't attend because Superbowl.)
In still other news, Discord plans to start enforcing age verification by requiring pictures or IDs. Urg.
Bundle for Two 4 – all-new duet RPGs through Wed 18 Feb
Feb. 9th, 2026 06:55 pmbeyondthebundle_feed
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the all-new Bundle for Two 4 brings you – for only a fleeting moment, through Wednesday, February 18 – a fresh-faced fourth Valentine collection of two-player RPGs. Lure that special someone with short, quick-play games about Regency romance heists – a monster and prospective victim dining together – a millionaire courting a soulmate who may be The Right One, or may be Totally Wrong. Or take date night in new directions: Explore an alien structure that will kill you – play mad scientist versus eldritch creation – become a former supervillain just trying to enjoy retirement. Then there’s I Have the High Ground, a game of – well, it might make your rendezvous, uh, memorable.
Pay just US$9.95 to get all seven complete games in our Duet Collection (retail value $55) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:
- Chiron’s Doom: You’re on the latest expedition into a weird alien structure that tore apart all your predecessors.
- I Have the High Ground: A pre-duel warmup of melodramatic threats, slashing wit, cape flourishing, and smouldering tension.
- Insatiable Cravings: The Monster’s Admirer is making a meal for the Monster, as the Monster decides whether to make a meal of the Admirer.
- Million Dollar Soulmate: A millionaire looking for love has found – well, someone – who brings out either the best or the worst in both parties, and you don’t know which until the endgame.
- A Modern Prometheus: A scientist uses dark forces to animate a creature; you both play to see which of you is a monster.
- Retired: The Ordinary Life of a Former Supervillain: After a couple of decades of mayhem and robbery, you just want to live your ordinary life. Why won’t the world leave you alone?!
- Stealing Your Heart: You are two young people in the Regency period looking for love. Or is one of you, in fact, a Scoundrel?
Make a date with this Bundle for Two 4 before it fickly departs – heartbreakingly quickly! – Wednesday, February 18.
Update on legal cases: one new victory! :) One new restriction :(
Feb. 10th, 2026 03:03 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
denise posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_newsBack in August of 2025, we announced a temporary block on account creation for users under the age of 18 from the state of Tennessee, due to the court in Netchoice's challenge to the law (which we're a part of!) refusing to prevent the law from being enforced while the lawsuit plays out. Today, I am sad to announce that we've had to add South Carolina to that list. When creating an account, you will now be asked if you're a resident of Tennessee or South Carolina. If you are, and your birthdate shows you're under 18, you won't be able to create an account.
We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)
Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/
In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.
I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update fordw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability.
In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)
In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.
I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to updatedw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to.
I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.
We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)
Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/
In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.
I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update for
dw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability. In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)
In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.
I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to update
dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to. I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.