Roger surveys LOTRO’s new Kingdoms of Harad expansion, praising its stable, Tolkien-nerd niche while side‑eyeing Middle-eastern stereotypes and another round of gear and virtue grind.
Bhagpuss riffs off Wilhelm’s Palia cash shop post to talk hoarding premium currency, GW2’s storage bloat, and how EverQuest II’s pay-to-play-ish shop still can’t beat his choice paralysis.
Wilhelm reacts to WoW Midnight’s surprisingly early March 2026 launch, Blizzard’s apparent apathy toward TBC Classic, and Hello Games’ dateless Light No Fire tease testing player patience.
Tobold reviews Railroad Tiles, a tile-based spin on Railroad Ink that’s prettier, puzzly, and firmly in “fun filler” territory for his board game nights.
Tipa breaks down Advent of Code’s “Cafeteria” range-merging puzzle and the grim realization that Picotron Lua doesn’t even have a sort to help.
Andrew Plotkin samples late‑fall puzzle fare, from org‑chart sleuthing in A Case of Fraud to fungus‑blasting mystery Ambrosia Sky, digging the deduction but wishing some endings landed harder.
Anarchae continues the tiny-ears saga, comparing JLab Go Pop+, JBuds Mini, and Soundcore P20i while cursing touch controls, gloves, and the eternal hunt for earbuds with real buttons.
Warner responds to Phillip Bump’s Hitler–Trump piece, arguing that even imperfect Nazi comparisons should be warning enough to stop today’s xenophobic politics in their tracks.
Tofutush explains how learning chemistry in Chinese—element radicals, intuitive naming, even new characters—makes the periodic table and inorganic compounds click way better than the Latin-flavored 영어
Bruce Schneier notes that the so‑called vampire squid sports the largest cephalopod genome sequenced so far and opens the floor for this week’s stray security stories.
Scopique weighs self-hosting PeerTube versus using Fedihost, wrestling with Linux friction, AI-meddling YouTube, and how much hassle “owning your videos” is really worth.
Dave Winer muses on WordPress as a stable API, why “AI is autocomplete on steroids” is nonsense, and how Texas gerrymandering might blow up in the GOP’s face.