Mostly just lurking
Uncharted Desert Isle
Joined June 2008
- Tweets1.9K
- Following871
- Followers156
- Likes42.2K
...And The Rest retweeted
I can’t believe we are on year in on @explodeybook I’m so proud of this massive accomplishment. Nearly 1200 pages of awesome original stories and activities encouraging kids to draw, right, read, and be creative.
I’m going to show you some of my favorite parts of these books. If at any point along the way you feel Iike trying one out, get your first book for 9.99 here explodeyworld.com/sp/light-t…
...And The Rest retweeted
Don’t worry, they’re still available for preorder! cosmicbackground.io/products…
...And The Rest retweeted
Gregory wanted to say thank you for all the calendar orders 🙏
He hopes it brings you joy all year long!
...And The Rest retweeted
The Kickstarter is live!!! In addition to the wraparound cover art, the book will have 9 interior illustrations (created with ChatGPT). I've wanted to do illustrations for a long time, but it wasn't practical until recently.
...And The Rest retweeted
I will take it personally if you help me raise Stephen the final $20k so he can record his symphony.
Big donors, here: scruton.org/a250-symphony
...And The Rest retweeted
Unbelievable that this account doesn't have 1 million followers.
The most important project on X right now.
REMEMBER: once your culture is gone, it isn't coming back.
Government education has failed to teach the Great Books of the West for decades. Deliberately failed.
That's why we started an independent group to study the Western canon, together. We're reading the books that form the mind and shape the spirit — the books our ancestors read.
It is essential that we continue the Great Conversation of the West. Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton are not just names in a syllabus, but guides to a more beautiful life.
Join our group and study the great works alongside us. We read a new classic every 4-6 weeks, and meet biweekly to discuss.
We are just about to start Augustine's City of God.
This is a foundational work. Possibly the greatest work of Christian philosophy. You do not want to miss this.
Take out a paid subscription if you'd like to support our mission and join the discussions directly — it makes a huge difference to the time and resources we can dedicate.
You'll get:
- Live book club discussions (biweekly)
- Essays to guide you through the Great Books
- Access to our incredible community chat
- All past recordings, essays, and podcasts
- Ability to vote on what we read next...
athenaeumbooks.com/welcome
See you inside!
...And The Rest retweeted
Hi there! It’s been a long time, but I’ve come back to share some big news. I’ve got a new book coming out October 2nd! It’s a romantic comedy called Wooing Jane, and it would mean the world to me if you would pre-order a copy. You can find more info here: amazon.com/Wooing-Jane-Faith…
...And The Rest retweeted
The Pendragon Cycle is finishing its second day as the #1 fantasy show in America.
I couldn't be more grateful.
Our culture is starving for good stories. Pendragon is connecting with audiences and is giving us just a hint of what’s possible when we dare to tell bold stories.
To all the amazing cast and crew who bled on the field to make this show happen, thank you.
And to the audience who has chosen to give it their time, thank you, too. It means more than you know.
...And The Rest retweeted
I finally have a chance to do a bit of reading. I am using the time to make my way through "Dwellers in the Deep" by @WoodFenton
...And The Rest retweeted
My favorite capture of the night: The moment the moon's shadow split the sunset in half, leaving a diamond ring in the sky and a breathtaking view. I call it "Shadows on the Balearic Sea".
I'll have prints available for this one linked in my bio for a few days only.
...And The Rest retweeted
In March 2024, at the age of 35, I was diagnosed with stage IV rectal cancer with a metastasis in my liver. This was a shock: I had no family history, and none of the doctors suspected it. After two years of chemotherapy, radiation, and multiple surgeries, I'm still not cured. Now I'm asking for help to get a personalized cancer vaccine.
This is my story so far.
Following diagnosis, I was treated with total neoadjuvant therapy at UCLA. I had 6 weeks of radiation and chemotherapy (Xeloda). This was followed by 6 rounds of oxaliplatin infusions and Xeloda. I tolerated this unusually well. During this period, I managed to hike up to over 11,000ft multiple times in the Sierras, and I wrote the main text of a 72 author meta-analysis paper and submitted it to Nature where it is still in review.
I showed a good clinical response, and at the end of October I had surgery: I was under for 9 hours, and they cut out a bit of my rectum, 1/3rd of my liver, and gave me a temporary ileostomy. Waking up from this was probably the strangest experience of my life: I felt more machine than man, and I had wild hallucinations form such a large dose of anesthesia.
It took a while to feel OK after that surgery. However, I still had the ostomy. I had that reversed at the end of January in another surgery, which took a greater toll on me than I expected.
I only just started to feel OK again and I got bad news: I got a positive circulating tumor DNA test (ctDNA), the signatera test from natera. Unfortunately, the ctDNA carried on rising, and in July 2025 a new lesion appeared in a lymph node near my liver (periportal).
I was treated with irinotecan and panitumumab infusions, which showed a good response, followed by live MRI guided SBRT radiation treatment to the lesion. However, after finishing this treatment, the ctDNA remained positive and began rising again. I restarted irinotecan and panitumumab infusions, which brought ctDNA back to negative (signatera), although it remained positive on the more sensitive Personalis assay.
During this period I had begun to develop stomach pain and digestive symptoms. Then I collapsed vomiting blood while out in Santa Monica and was rushed to the ER. They found out I had a duodenal ulcer that had bled. I had some blood transfused, and I was sent home to complete an intensive course of antibiotics for H. Pylori infection.
However, after about a week, I started to get very weak. I collapsed again and went back to the ER in an ambulance. They found my hemoglobin was 5g/dL, a dangerously low level (normal is over 13.5). Multiple blood transfusions didn't bring it up and I collapsed again in the night after passing a large amount of blood. They took me to intensive care and performed an emergency endoscopy where they clipped and sprayed the ulcer. Thankfully this worked and I was discharged after another 3 nights in hospital.
Unsurprisingly, nearly bleeding to death wasn't good for me, and my ctDNA began to spike rapidly. I had a PET-CT and it revealed 3 new disease sites in abdominal lymph nodes. I restarted irinotecan and panitumumab infusions after barely recovering from the ulcer incident. This showed an excellent response, with the sites resolving on imaging, although ctDNA remained positive.
I've now started bot/bal immunotherapy, a not yet approved immunotherapy treatment that is the first of its kind to show strong results in my kind of cancer, micro-satellite stable colorectal cancer. This was possible thanks to a donation from an anonymous benefactor and supporter of free and open inquiry in science.
Hopefully this treatment will be effective, but it is unlikely to be enough on its own to prevent future disease recurrence.
I am asking for help to get a personalized neoantigen cancer vaccine, which could substantially increase my chances of surviving this deadly disease that is likely incurable under standard care.
While cancer vaccines have shown promising results, they are not yet approved, meaning one has to pay for the design, manufacture, and administration of the vaccine. The total cost of which is $104,133, beyond my means or those of my family.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! I've started a GoFundMe here: gofundme.com/f/cancer-vaccin…. Please donate and share with anyone who might be interested in helping.
I've carried on working throughout this period and I'm still running a research group in statistical genetics at UCLA. I'm hoping to continue making contributions to science for as long as I can, hopefully longer with your help.
...And The Rest retweeted
The Cash for Clunkers program, which Congress passed in June 2009 and burned through its $3 billion budget in under two months, destroyed functional wealth on a national scale, and somehow they called it "stimulus."
The mechanics were simple: trade in a working car, receive up to $4,500 toward a new one, and watch government employees pour sodium silicate into the old engine to make it seize permanently. Around 700,000 vehicles got crushed. These were not rusted-out death traps. The eligibility rules required the trade-in to be drivable and insured. You were watching the state systematically annihilate usable capital because Keynesian demand theory told it that destruction generates recovery. Frederic Bastiat explained why this is wrong in 1850, in an essay short enough to read on your lunch break. Congress ignored it.
The ripple effect hit people the government never mentioned in its press releases. Mechanics lost repair work. Used-car dealers watched their inventory evaporate. Low-income buyers who depend on the sub-$5,000 market faced prices that jumped roughly 10% in the years after the program. Free market economists call this "seen versus unseen." Politicians only showed you the gleaming new Chevy Malibu driving off the lot. They never showed you the single mother in Akron who needed a $3,000 Corolla and found nothing affordable left on the lot.
Even the environmental justification collapsed under basic scrutiny. A 2009 study by Resources for the Future calculated that the program cost between $237 and $365 per ton of carbon dioxide reduced. The voluntary carbon credit market at the time priced a ton around $10 to $20. The government spent up to thirty times the market rate to achieve an environmental outcome the market was already pricing far more efficiently.
This is what central planning always does. It takes your money, destroys real assets, and transfers wealth from the poor to auto manufacturers and their financiers. The program's designers received awards. The Akron mother paid higher prices. The engines sat crushed in junkyards. Nobody in Washington answered for any of it.
...And The Rest retweeted
Been trying to do movie trailers in Ai going for speed. The first 30 seconds I used InVideo and it took about a week. The entire rest of the trailer I did in one day (2 minutes of material!) using just Grok. The music was my first attempt at a soundtrack on Suno. Edited the whole thing in iMovie this afternoon.
Process was to screen grab 2D images from a PDF of my Cardboard graphic novel, use Grok to make a 3D rendered still then have GrokImagine animate it. Going for volume not accuracy.
My goal is to one day make a feature doing 3 minutes of finished animation a day for 30 days and essentially make a 90 minute stop-motion styled movie in a month by myself for about $ 7k in my spare time.
...And The Rest retweeted
A quick health update...
A month back, I had a mega chemo blast followed by the reintroduction of my own healthy stem cells into my blood stream. After an unexpected hospital stay and a rougher recovery than expected (a month of nonstop nausea is deeply unpleasant), yesterday I had my 30-day post-transplant tests.
Good news: my body fully reintegrated my good stem cells, my white blood cell and platelet counts have already returned to the healthy range, and the nausea finally (finally!) relented.
So, in about 2 months, they'll do more tests of my blood and bone marrow, see if any cancer cells remain, then recommend some form of maintenance plan, likely a mild medication regimen. God willing, it looks like I'm through the worst of it. Just need to work on getting my appetite back, exercise to counter the deep fatigue, and ... paying the freaking bills!
For those interested how to help with that, here's a link, which I shared once shortly after my diagnosis last November. The main thing I need, of course, is any and all prayers you care to offer. Since the start, they've made a huge and noticeable difference. THANK YOU.
gofundme.com/f/ukz26-support…
