patrickcarlson

@pjcarlson.bsky.social

Living the atomic half-life | Design Lead and Writer | Game systems | The end of the world | My opinions only | More horror than you think

Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.

A red flame in Barad-dûr, based on the conversation in the most recent shelved by genre episode. I wanted the city to look both industrial and unsettling, so I tried to use a real mix of building styles, and avoid too many curves/natural shapes.

A scan of a pen and ink drawing of Barad-dûr, inspired by the conversation in the most recent shelved by genre episode. It shows the moment when Frodo, on Mount Doom, looks towards Barad-dûr and as the clouds part sees a red flame in the highest tower, the only image of Sauron the books give us. The drawing depicts barad-dûr in dense, hatched pen, full of narrow, crowded streets and industrial buildings, shrouded in darkness and cloud. A red pen has been used to mark the flame, the only colour in the drawing.

In the wake of devastating wildfires in Spokane, we’re seeing statewide impacts to air quality. As winds shift through this evening, we expect to see smoke blanket the state from Vancouver to Spokane, including major metropolitan areas like Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett.

Satellite imagery of smoke plumes over Washington and Oregon, with active wildfires marked by orange dots.

It’s kind of wild to consider that there were more than 21,000 games released on Steam in 2025 while only 1200 games ever released on PlayStation 1 in North America. 717 Super NES games released in the US. Just fascinating to think about.

pickup from the Fred Meyer bargain bin tonight. Trying to collect more physical media Chronicles just released in Germany when I moved there for the first time in 2004. My uni student “mirror” and his friends took me like 1 day after arrived. I was so out of it but I still remember that night.

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Ted Sarandos: “Folks grew up thinking, ‘I want to make movies on a gigantic screen and have strangers watch them [and to have them] play in the theater for two months and people cry and sold-out shows… It’s an outdated concept.” What an idiot.

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘The Odyssey’ Power Biggest Collective Weekend in Box Office History With $430 Million

Thanks to the one-two punch of "The Odyssey" and "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," the box office had its biggest collective haul of all time.

variety.com

The PC Gaming cambrian explosion began 13 years ago. Up until July 2013, there were 10-30 releases on Steam every month. Now there are *thousands*, a number that is still growing constantly. And I have dedicated myself to trying to keep track of what's happening, because I am apparently an idiot.

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