As an engineer, one of the most absurd things on the Interwebs is the profusion of tech nonsense… wishful thinking, art projects presented as reality, and the industry of audiophile pseudoscience. I love stereo systems that are on the performance asymptote as much as any other paleogeek who grew up with vinyl, but I bristle…

Read More

Stomp, Aura, and Minions by Anakim the Abominable When I began the project of collecting literature from the IDUniverse, I began by negotiating with a rogue monk in a back corner of the Pit of Perdition for the three-volume set from Anakim the Abominable. I was excited when I got home, opening the box on…

Read More

by Steven K. Roberts updated: November 17, 2023 Latest updates: Gabriel does an IDU run with a smuggled VR headset, and we chat with Salvo the Unmerciful (the author of Brutal Arrows, modeling his formal robes in the photo). The full collection of 27 pieces is in the timeline below. In the virtual world of…

Read More

This article is my own theorizing based on a systems-engineering approach to neurological analysis. In other words, please note this disclaimer and don’t make life-changing pharmacological decisions based solely on this! I present it as a data point of possible interest to others affected by similar phenomena. (There is related subtext in the graphic above,…

Read More

When the Microship project ran out of steam in 2002 after a decade of work, I had the urge to get on the water without any more complexity than necessary. Of course, that is a highly subjective subject, and with my technomadic affliction it would not do to merely hop in a kayak and paddle around.…

Read More

By 2002, the Microship project was starting to feel like work… creeping featuritis, endless landing-gear refinement, and complex integration of electronics that we had developed so long before that the whole network side (originally done in FORTH on 68HC11 boards) was being re-designed with modern tools. I had started the Inside Microship book project, but there was…

Read More

During the 12 years I spent in the woods of Camano Island, I took on a few essential battles. The one about roadside spraying was fiendish, and this letter was an attempt to depolarize a bit and get people to approach the subject with caution regardless of their political affiliation. by Steven K. Roberts Stanwood/Camano…

Read More

This is a bit of a departure from the main content thread on this site, but is included in the interest of completeness. When I bought a house and built a lab in the woods of Camano Island, I unintentionally took on a very protective attitude toward that beautiful and fragile place… a slender slice…

Read More

This is one of my letters to the editor of the local newspaper during my protracted attempts to scale back the careless resource-harvesting of Camano Island, where I lived for 13 years. This was mostly a time of total immersion in the Microship project, but protecting the quality of life was a major priority. The…

Read More

During my 13 years living in the woods of Camano Island, Washington (house shown above), I became very protective of our forests and other natural resources… and found myself butting heads occasionally with developers and “cash for timber” logging businesses. Much of this was casual participation in the local environmental group (CARE – Camano Action…

Read More