July 9, 2026: The Most Depressing Fun Game You'll Play Today

. . . Or is it the most fun depressing game you'll play today?

Gerrymandle is an online game that challenges you to draw fake (abstract) district maps to favor different voting groups. Can you win more districts than anyone else even though you have just 38% of the vote? What if you only have 10 percent of the vote?! It's easy with a map, a few clicks of a mouse, and one weird trick.

It's entertaining, it's informative, it's downright sad – you'll [EMOTE] until you [EMOTE]! (On the positive side, it uses hexes . . . which are pretty fun all by themselves.)

-- Steven Marsh

July 8, 2026: I'm Going To Worldcon With The Chaos Machine!

I think I just put the whole post into the headline.

I first ran the Chaos Machine more than 20 years ago! It has not been out in public for several years, more's the pity. But it was very well received at the previous LAcon in 2006, and they asked if it could come back. Well, yes. Yes, it can. I really enjoy playing with this toy; the way you play with it is by introducing others to it and watching what they build! To quote an old description: "a giant communal build-it-yourself project that's a cross between an Erector set, model trains, a pachinko machine, and a jungle gym . . . " We will get a starter frame set up on Wednesday, and people will add to it all weekend. This is what you get when you buy a number of "Chaos Toy" sets, put them together, and invite people to get hands-on. (I just tried to link to the Chaos Toy company and they are no longer at their old . . . [more]

July 7, 2026: Please Pass The Greeblies

You may not be familiar with the word greeblie, but if you've seen a sci-fi spaceship, you've likely seen greeblies in action. They're the small details used to add complexity to a shape.

Adam Savage was a professional model maker for Star Wars movies, so he has a lot of experience adding greeblies to projects. He has a great deep-dive video. There are greeblies in that video too, but he speeds through adding them without the deeper insights of the first video.

Handmaking is the traditional way to make these kinds of models (and is a lot of fun), but digital tools have expanded what's possible. Digital sculpting tools and 3d sculpting get better every day, and a perfect example of what has become possible recently is this video from Tabletop Time. They built a diorama of the Death Star trench run with a combination of digital sculpting and traditional greebling. There's . . .

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