Vault · archived work, not current thinking
Six pieces from earlier versions of this site, spread across fifteen years. The shorter link-share posts are collected on the Linkblog (2004–2008) page instead.
The two oldest are from the fall of 1993 and predate everything else here by a decade: An Honest Look at Hunting and Physician Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die. Both turned up in a phpMyAdmin dump while I was looking for something else. They argue the way I still argue, which was a strange thing to find out this way.
If you only read one, make it Underappreciated Talent, a short 2008 blog post about an underappreciated yo-yo virtuoso that turns out — when you read it now — to be the closest thing I have to a written manifesto for what the Stalefish Labs name had already been pointing at for six years, and an articulation of a philosophy I’m still working through. Worth three minutes.
Hatin' on Puzzles
August 24, 2008
A 2008 piece on crossword puzzles, solitary games, and online discourse. The 'keyboard warrior culture' observation about online polarization is preserved, looking less prescient and more documentary every year.
Unconventional Passwords
August 15, 2008
A 2008 blog post wondering whether songs or movies could replace text passwords. Aged in interesting ways — passkeys mostly went the biometric direction the post called for, not the media-signature direction it weighed.
Underappreciated Talent
July 27, 2008
The 2008 blog post that turned out to be the origin document for both the Stalefish Labs name and the philosophy behind the ILYM romance series. Eighteen years between recognizing the thread and acting on it.
Using Fun to Repair the American Family
October 1, 2002
An unfinished 2002 manifesto from the founding year of Stalefish Labs, arguing that the answer to technology pulling families apart isn't nostalgia but using technology better — and that social games are one of the best tools for it. The earliest statement of the philosophy the company was built on.
Physician Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die
November 22, 1993
A 1993 essay written while Michigan was prosecuting Kevorkian, arguing the right to die by inventorying the deaths society already permits without objection. The analogical method that runs through the current essays, fully formed and thirty-three years early.
An Honest Look at Hunting
October 31, 1993
The oldest piece of writing on this site. A 1993 essay that spends its first third clearing gun control off the table so it can argue with hunters on the merits, then ends by asking them to be honest that the real driver is the rush.