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A Mysterious Case

November 28, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

Today, a free fiction short from Colby Devitt and the Grist Climate collection:

The Case of the Missing Lake

On the morning of April 8, 2200, Lake Ballona went missing. A pair of hikers ventured down from the Hollywood Hills on a day excursion into the Tongva Wetlands. Where the area’s largest body of freshwater met seawater to create a brackish habitat, they discovered an empty crater. Lake Ballona was gone. Vanished overnight. Only muddy puddles remained where the lake had swelled the day before. There were no signs of violence. 

Excellent opener. I hope you enjoy the rest!

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Photo by Wietse Jongsma on Unsplash

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Positivity Bias

November 27, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate today! Even if this isn’t your holiday, I hope you have a moment to remember the good things in your life.

The Right Attitude to Gratitude – The Atlantic

Gratitude is so effective that if you could bottle it, you’d be a billionaire. But as with so many beautiful parts of life, gratitude is not something you can market like a drug or nutritional supplement: It happens to be completely free—but not so easy to attain. Thankfulness requires neither payment nor subscription, just a commitment to stand up against your limbic system, which is lying to you with its negativity bias—saying that this lovely morning is actually pretty annoying, and that everyone is dissing you.

And if you want to learn more about overcoming your all-too human negativity bias, check out the full article. Because while evolution may be good for the species, it’s focused on survival. It doesn’t care if you have a good day.

Unlike me. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

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Herding Cats Today

November 26, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

Today is officially a crazy day. By that I mean a mad scramble to get day job work done, including the projects I expected and the three others I did not expect. Lots to juggle, and while I may have bobbled one tiny little thing, it all worked out fine in the end.

I also managed to get up early and write a very (very) short story before all the craziness began, so I’m calling it a win!

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Photo by Duygu Güngör on Unsplash

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When Simple Is Good

November 25, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, and more complex. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”

― E.F. Schumacher

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Photo by weston m on Unsplash

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Staying Sharp

November 24, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

— George R.R. Martin

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Photo by Frontiersman on Unsplash

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Chocolate Buttercreamcheese Frosting

November 23, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

Today, an addition to my recipe collection so I know where to find this next time I need a light, perfectly sweet, flavorful chocolate frosting to go with my favorite chocolate cake.

This is my new go-to frosting recipe. 

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting – Sally’s Baking

  • 339g (12 oz.) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened
  • 170g (12 Tbsp; 3/4 C.) butter, softened
  • 420g (3 1/2 C.) confectioners’ sugar
  • 55g (2/3 C.) unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 t. pure vanilla extract
  • 1–2 T. milk or heavy cream
  • pinch salt

For full instructions and more, head over to Sally’s.

Mr Man’s rating: “Yes, please and thank you!”

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Photo by Muhammad Hasnain on Unsplash

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Interesting and New

November 22, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

For whatever reason, today I’m walking around seeing everything as component parts. 

For example: instead of seeing the comfy red chair in my office, I’m seeing that chair (so comfy!) with all of the materials that went into it lined up in a row. The tree that provided the wooden legs, the cotton growing in a field before being harvested, carded, spun, dyed and woven, the metal ore that needed to be mined, processed and extruded to make the wire frame, the stuffing made of… you know, I don’t know what it’s made of so let’s insert “amorphous, fluffy cloud of probably polyester fill” here.

It’s weird but also fun, like looking at a room upside down. Suddenly, everything is interesting and new.

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I even went with a dog pic today instead of one with a cat. Crazy! Photo by Max Bvp on Unsplash

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How to Think

November 21, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”

― Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear

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Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.portraits) on Unsplash

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Most Mystical Incarnation

November 20, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

I have a thing about fog.

Waking to a day where the view is swathed in white, neighbors fading into the background while rooftops peek above a hidden world. Sight is no longer quite as reliable. Sound is dampened, too. A car appears suddenly, and is then gone, the engine’s rumble muted and distant.

Depending on the mood, the lack of visibility can be threatening, but I tend to see it as an embrace. Wisps of moisture flow past tree limbs and flagpoles, porch steps and windshields. On days like today, those wisps extend, discover, then freeze in place. When the fog lifts, trees are covered in a shimmer of white. Magic made real.

As one writer put it, fog is water in its most mystical incarnation.

I call it a delight.

“And the fog. The purple fog, blue fog and white fog. Film noir fog. How I love the sheer romance of it; disorientating, dominating, concealing and revealing.”

― Caroline Eden, Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels

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Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

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SkyKnit

November 19, 2025 by J.R. Johnson

As a sometime knitter and pattern designer, I thought this story about a neural network learning to knit (or not!) both funny and telling.

SkyKnit: How an AI Took Over an Adult Knitting Community

Prodded by a knitter on the knitting forum Ravelry, Shane trained a type of neural network on a series of over 500 sets of knitting instructions. Then, she generated new instructions, which members of the Ravelry community have actually attempted to knit.

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Shane nicknamed the whole effort “Project Hilarious Disaster.” The community called it SkyKnit.

It’s been a few years since this project started (the article is from 2018) and I’m sure AI has progressed since then. Still funny!

Full disclosure: I have been known to visit Ravelry. It’s an excellent resource, most of the time!

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Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash

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