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Interview: Tony Chatman on Bias and the Uprising

This interview is with my friend Tony Chatman, a speaker and a corporate relationship specialist who works with organizations to create a more healthy and inclusive culture. As an uprising galvanizes the United States in response to police killing unarmed Black Americans like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, Tony speaks to me about unconscious and implicit bias, and the psychology of police brutality. This post’s crowdfunding proceeds go to bail funds and racial justice organizations across the United States.

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Representation Tier List

Would you care for a slightly more organized and precise way to discuss representation in media? Do you promise not to reduce discussions of representation in media to just this method of organization? Yes and yes? Cool. Here’s a tier list. Casual media enjoyers may find it fun to mess around with. Critics might get a little more use out of it, though many experienced critics already have favorite rubrics of their own. But if you’re in the business of creating fiction, or especially of helping others deepen diverse and marginalized themes and content in their work—cultural consulting, for inst

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Raindrops on a Pool

Sometimes, when people learn I’m a cultural consultant, they ask me why queer people, or people of color, or religious minorities, or disabled people, or any other subaltern population seem so sensitive about trivial things. A lot of the time, it’s this …

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Thousand Arrows is back in print!

On the cover of the Thousand Arrows ttRPG, a samurai in armor and a wide-brimmed hat smirks and brandishes her musket while a multi-tiered tower burs behind her. Art by Yoshi Yoshitani . Reload your muskets. Rally your troops. The battle to unify Japan begins anew. Thousand Arrows is back in print with Evil Hat Productions ! The tabletop roleplaying game of samurai warfare and drama, powered by the Apocalypse, returns with revised text and layout. Get it in PoD and PDF on 21 July! By the way… if you like games about East Asian historical settings, player characters in command positions, politi

James Mendez Hodes · EN

Day 5, 6, and 7: Krakow, Warsaw, and Kaunas.

The next two days were busy ones. First stop was Katawice. Here we stopped at a Lego store to get my passport stamped and pick up a few toys. I love some of the large display models and am putting photos up here for my daughter who got me started on Lego. I hope I will not bore you with the photos. Ready for Halloween We didn't manage any puzzle shops as they were all closed for the day by the time we arrived. Who shuts their doors at 3 pm on a Saturday when they should be open for me to shop? 😂 Can you spot our car in this sea of campers. I guess we are the poor folk now. Slumming it I think

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Day 8, 9, 10 Riga Latvia, Tallinn Estonia, and Äänekoski Finland

Today was a wasted day. We spent last night in a hotel so we had a long sleep. I went to charge around 11 and went back to get George at noon. Talk about having a lazy start. The room was amazing for such a small town. Black marble everywhere and just the sweetest place. We booked out the entire Diamond svećiu nami. Because we arrived so late, the owner had to stick around and wait for us to arrive. You see, the only downside of driving a Tesla is that other people do as well. We had to wait for over 30 minutes to get onto a charger, and since our battery was pretty low, we had to wait another

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Days 11 and 12: Kajaani Finland

Outside temperature today 5 degrees. Roxanne's use of Finnish language: 0%. I am going to start this blog with a quote from Tomas Linden: Btw. I enjoyed reading your travelblog! Especially the end when you write that you are coming to ”Vessa”. Vessa is toilet in Finnish The city you will be visiting is Vaasa (in Finnish, Sannas mothertongue) and Vasa (in Swedish, my mothertongue). OOPS. Messed that one up didn't I? When we arrive, I'll be sure to comment on the toilet(iness) of the city. Nah, I've been before, it is beautiful. I can't wait to go again. The main purpose of this trip was to come

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Vassa and another long overdue visit with Tomas

I first visited Vassa in 2014 . At this time, I was on a trip for my studies. This time, it was all puzzles. Kajaani itself had quite a few very nice buildings and some interesting 'graffiti'. After we finished in Kajaani, we headed to Vassa (not Vessa-lesson learned!). But first, a photo... This was our first of 3 loads. I only got the one. But you get the idea. We sent home a lot of boxes. And guess what!?! They are already in our beer garden. Have no fear, they are not sitting out in the weather, they have all been brought inside awaiting our return. The road to Vassa is amazing. It reminds

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Vassa part 2

After a good nights sleep, we went to work with Tomas. He is a woodworking instructor at a local community place. I'm being vague because I honestly don't remember the name of the place. We went in and George participated in a wood working lesson. I went to mail a few more packages, and buy some gloves because I stupidly sent them back to Panicale. Before I left though, I took loads of photos of man tools! (Another Heavy Photo post) That is a lot of man tools! This place is incredibly clean too. I mean, there is dust and all, but for the number of people inside working, I was surprised. I took

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Ferry from Turku to Stockholm

I messed up. I thought we were to get the ferry from Vassa to Stockholm but it actually leaves from Turku. We got up the next morning and left around 8:30~9:00. It was a wet miserable day, and I'm glad we decided to go straight to Turku without stops other than for charging. When we arrived, I headed right to the pier to find my way. We wanted to visit other puzzlers, but with the construction going on, it was quite confusing. We arrived around 4, but it took us a good 2 hours to find where to drive the car onto the ship. When we got there, we decided to wait it out rather than leave again. On

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a city we have both been to many times so we decided to stop and visit with friends instead of sight see. Our first stop saw us with AnneMarie. She lives part time in Panicale and has invited us numerous times to her home. We had a few hours before meeting with our host for the next two nights so we stopped by. She has a lovely apartment with an amazing view. When we arrived, there was an author there whom we had met in Panicale very briefly last year so it was nice to catch up again. AnneMarie put on a nice spread and after a bit to eat, George took a nap while we sat and chatte

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

On the way to Billund

Since we were doing this trip and connecting it with DCD, we decided to make the trip to Billund as well. After leaving Philip's house, we headed over here. I wanted to travel to Aarhus because it is a city on the Eurorails map that we haven't visited, but in the end we decided the one hour detour was too much. We've been on the road too long, and when the notification popped up telling us we could get our room early, we didn't hesitate. Our first night we stayed at the Legoland Village Pirate Inn. This place is a hoot. First, it is self checkin, so I did. But then what do I do? Where is my ro

Notes from Puzzle Palace · EN

The Morning Ruck

2.2 miles. 35 pounds. By any standard, it’s a simple walk outside. For me, and I’m sure anybody else who gets up at 0530 to get some physical work in, it’s the discipline. The routine. [...]

| Hildebranski.com · EN

Recommend by Jack Carr

For most of my life, I’ve been a non-fiction reader, but Jack Carr posted a tour of his library that flipped a switch. In this video, he walks through the authors who he read and [...]

| Hildebranski.com · EN

Night Cornfield GSAR Training

After Action Reviews. Debriefs. Hot washes. A great way for any of us to improve our efforts, whether they be on a personal level or in a team environment, is to capture what went well, [...]

| Hildebranski.com · EN

He Will Handle It

Sometimes, the right words with the right message come to us. Sharing one here from Deacon Greg Kandra on Philippians 4:9 courtesy of Living Faith.

| Hildebranski.com · EN

An Amazing Homily

Deacon Glenn Vanek’s delivered a homily on over the September 19/20, 2026 that brought me to tears. https://www.youtube.com/live/ZiXaKkA7iys?is=5AwIwHhfIpXz8UMy

| Hildebranski.com · EN

Remote Playlists with iTunes

With Tom's help and a bit of AppleEvent sniffing, here's a script/application that allows you to create shared playlists on a shared iTunes library.

chaff · EN

Search Shared iTunes Libraries

Here's a proof of concept script for connecting to and searching shared iTunes libraries with AppleScript.

chaff · EN

Feeding The Daemons

husk.org sports four shiny new Atom feeds. Here's where they are, why they are, and why I don't like you posting del.icio.us links in your own feed.

chaff · EN

Getting My Vox Off

My adventures in blogging at Vox have come to an end, and now I'm finding it painful to extract my entries using the Atom API they barely document.

chaff · EN

A Resolution For 2009

My new year's resolution is to keep returning to old projects and extending them. It's not that exciting, but I hope I can do it anyway.

chaff · EN

If an essayist's primary obligation is fidelity to the inquiry, then one must...

Essayism as method — ad hoc notes home • about • ambition • essayism • search ...

The Essayist's Notebook · EN

Democratizing the Essay

To democratize the essay means stripping away academic gatekeeping and returning to its radical, foundational core: the act of "digging w...

The Essayist's Notebook · EN