No, not Castro. Wish I'd got this out before then, actually.

No, this week, we lost Scott Eric Kaufman, better known as SEK: a great member of the blogosphere, one of the men who helped to legitimize it as a forum academics could participate in, and someone whose life attracted weird shit at every turn.

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Note: collateral to the story discussed here, I was drawn into some of the online offerings of historian Ada Palmer. Consider this also a recommendation of her stuff, staring with her series on what led to Machiavelli writing The Prince and in the process inventing modern political science and consequentialist ethics, her "Sketches of a History of Historical Skepticism," and her

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Running a search on all stories, I ask: did FIMFiction just cross 100,000 approved and still-published-and-available/up stories (100,011 at time of search)?

Making FanOfMostEverything's "Exotic Goods" the 100,000th?

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Quills & Sofas was the beneficiary of an unusual gift: a manual typewriter left for public use in Quills & Sofas. It prompted an outpouring of spontaneous, mostly anonymous output from the guests.

Here's most of what came out of Friday:

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Thursday was a travel and logistics day, when I flew into Baltimore, hit registration, and got checked in at the hotel. Travel reading for the weekend was mainly Jo Walton’s The Just City, which I’ve not yet finished, but have been enjoying so far.

Friday began with me significantly oversleeping, but fortunately there wasn’t that much I was interested in early that day. It is too bad I missed the comics panel, though.

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As a last act before heading to Bronycon tomorrow morning, a cross post:

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Present Perfect asked for reviews of some of his stories that nobody’s done yet, and I’m happy to provide. Find reviews of “Fluttershy Goes to Narnia,” “Cutie Mark Cancer,” “…And It Was Going So Well, Too…” and “Persephone” below the break.

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Once again we've come to the end of the year, which means it's time to liven up the place a bit. For a few years now, The Descendant has been encouraging users to modify their avatars with Santa hats for the coming month. Since gluing felt and glitter to a computer screen would be both ineffective and probably damaging, I suggest checking out his blog post for the event this year for materials if you

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"How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps" isn't pony, but man if I don't think it, at under 1900 words, is worth your time. I don't actually know if it's fiction or not, and I don't think it matters, because was easily the best thing I've read so far this weekend.

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I figure while I'm plugging one econ crossover, I might as well add another: sci-fi fans might be interested in Trekonomics (introduction and chapters 1 and 8 available at link), a forthcoming book on the economics of Star Trek. Or some of the preview videos on YouTube, like this one on how a post-scarcity society, one of the foundations of the series, relates to the real world,

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