Aaron Helton

@aaronhelton

He/Him Library systems dev @ UN Library en/es TTRPGs, ♾️ DM Reader. Writer. Digital Humanist in training @ CUNY GC. William Blake stan. AI Hater. 📍Vienna, Austria www.aaronhelton.com and blog.hilltown.studio Likes/Reposts ≠ endorsements.

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Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· 26d

I'm convinced there are the bones of a publishable article in this, if I knew a venue. I think I would like to expand on both the labor economics and the consent landscapes around open movements. dhintro2025.commons.gc.cuny.edu/reflections-...

But labor isn’t the only consideration. There’s a question of what consent to open access means in the long term, and at least some of that also comes down to whether the uses to which the author agreed originally still hold if new uses arise. What are the conditions, for instance, under which authors can revoke consent to open access? Is such a thing possible? Suber offers us several models of permissiveness with respect to copyright, but is selectively waiving moral rights a one and done activity? Moral landscapes change, and context is key. I think both the scale and scope of use must also inform the discussion. This is especially important in cases where misbehaving bots constantly scrape and mine the contents of open access repositories, causing outages, degrading service, and in some cases inflating the costs associated with hosting and maintaining the repositories. Ben Zhao’s closing keynote speech at Open Repositories 2025, which I was fortunate to attend, addressed this.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· 27d

Just this week I discovered there's (finally) an in-development Dolmenwood system module for Foundry VTT. Several times in the past couple of years I picked up the idea of making one myself, but even though I *do* program, I hadn't learned enough about Foundry development to make a go of it.

Screenshot of the Dolmenwood Foundry VTT system module in action. I've converted my OSE-based world and imported the bestiary I had meticulously hand-entered. This screenshot shows the monster sheet for the Bog Salamander, which has some errors.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Jul 1

New annoyance unlocked. Audio exposure limit warnings are apparently required here (no way to turn them off), and iOS happily warns me twice a day that I've exceeded my 7 day exposure limit. But the readings are wrong. I have my over-ear headphone wired in AUX->USB-C, and the volume at 20-25% max.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Jun 12

My face when you tell me you consulted “AI”.

A statue of an armored knight, zoomed in on the head and shoulders. The knight’s face is uncovered, with chain mail hanging from the helmet to under the chin. The expression is dark and disapproving, with the eyes shadowed beneath the helmet.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Jun 7

Well, okay, Vienna. Just be dramatic.

A mostly empty, grungy, and graffiti-adorned canal curves away in the distance. It is flanked by Viennese apartment blocks. A construction crane looms above a distant building. Clouds overhead give the scene an overly dramatic look.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· May 25

Here come the mushrooms! Spotted this array walking through my neighborhood.

Several mushrooms sprouting on a rotting piece of wood next to a road. Queens Village, NY.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· May 15

A 10 year old guitar? Probably worth less than what you paid for it. A 40 year old guitar? Might go the other way around! I'm (sadly) selling my Ovation Celebrity, the first guitar I bought with my own money. I spent $125 on it at a pawn shop in Borger, TX, 30 years ago this month.

The guitar in question. It's a dreadnought acoustic/electric body in natural finish with no cutaway, and the sound hole has an ornate surround. It's on a stand awaiting its fate.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· May 15

A rare glimpse of the definitely not saintly dog behind this account. Last night I presented the project my partner and I have been working on for the last 4 months at @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social. I'm really proud of what we've made.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· May 9

Post your warning sign

A sign reading “Queer kids run this town. Nazi assholes fuck off!”

Spotted in Astoria, NY on 1 September 2017.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Apr 27

Another round of cleaning out my desk at work. In theory I can read this. I did write it, but Russian is hard to make and maintain progress learning.

A photograph of a page of handwritten Russian cursive text. I can barely decipher it because I insisted on learning cursive.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Apr 20

What do you know? The output file still needed to be filtered, but I was able to find another 1,600ish emails to cull. I set the threshold at > 100, but I can also try filtering by domain.

Screenshot showing the invocation and output of a command line program to filter unreplied senders with an input file and a threshold.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Apr 20

The first target was the obvious mailing list and stale notifications clutter, while deferring some decisions about what to keep otherwise. By Saturday night I had whittled it down some.

A screenshot showing my Google mail archive purge in progress: 64,193 messages, of which 7,587 remained unread.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Apr 20

Once in a while I get a truly wild idea that I can't let go of. Over the weekend, the latest wild idea was to do something about this deplorable situation. This is an account I've had open since 2008. Which is to say it's old enough to graduate high school if it were a person.

A screenshot depicting the size of my Google mail archive. At the time I had 92,794 messages, of which 13,452 remained unread.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Apr 2

I made this the other day, thinking I was being cheeky. Reality has other ideas, I guess.

A card that says "You ask your chatbot. I'll ask my tarot cards." It has an orange background with white text.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Mar 12

Have we considered trains in space?

A desktop wallpaper using imagery from the 1979 anime film Galaxy Express 999. It depicts a train leaving a planet and heading into space. The train is marked 999 in a red circle on the front. There are stars and another galaxy in the background over the planet's horizon.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Mar 9

It was worth spending a few minutes to distill these. Going through this process helps clarify my thinking. This is a summary of the current magic rituals I think I want in my game, as well as some touchpoints for the kind of gross magic I'm considering.

Summary of Wyrdwegas

Bind: Hold something or someone in place
Dead-spræc: Speak with dead
Freond: Improve the disposition of an animal, person, or spirit toward you
Gast-bind: Bind a spirit to carry out your commands
Scinn-were: Wear the prepared skin of a person or animal to convince others you are the person or animal whose skin you wear.
Swamm-ærende: Send and receive messages across vast mycelial networks
Swefn-hunta: Stalk someone in the dream world
Swefn-weard: Protect against stalking in the dream world
Sweord-han: Magically sharpen a blade
Tungan-spræc: Speak another language
Undead-rǣr: Animate a corpse to do your bidding
Undead-steor: Take command of an undead creature
Undead-unmac: Destroy or turn away an undead creature
Wyrd-wite: Gain an understanding of prevailing fates for more favorable outcomes
Wyrdweg-ondo: Counter a wyrdweg ritual or effect that is in progress

Weird and Gross Magics of Weardcynn

And even here there are lines that cannot be crossed.

1. Parasites (federas/eteras) and diseases (seocnessa) as vectors of magic.
2. Toxins (atru) that open gateways to the sublime, serve as curatives, and offer protection.
3. Ritual scarification (dolgswaþu), tattooing (skin painting), and bloodletting as stores and channels of power.
4. Manipulation and/or consumption of spoor, offal, organs, blood, and body sheddings as tools of divination and empowerment. Includes playing around with the recently dead.
5. Skin changing.
6. Pickling, mummification, and other forms of preservation as stores of knowledge.
7. Manipulation and/or consumption of the long dead.
8. Burning, stewing, muddling, and compounding foul ingredients.
9. …

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Mar 9

Thought I'd be clever and search for Holzlöffel Wien in an attempt to find places that sell decent wooden spoons. This is the kind of thing that occupies my time while I'm waiting to put my move in motion. Anyway, enjoy some 14th-15th century wooden spoons from an archaeological site. Link in alt.

14th or 15th century wooden spoons found at Werdertorgasse 6, Vienna, Austria.

Link to the article in German: https://stadtarchaeologie.at/umweltfreundliches-essgeraet/

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Mar 8

Hmm.. I could definitely make use of the Speak with Dead list for my (languishing back burner) game's Dead-spræc wyrdweg. An unpublished version is below.

Dead-spræc

Manipulate mortal remains to answer your questions. You may ask three questions of any deceased mortal being who had speech and whose skull you can find and hold. Once your final question is answered the wyrdweg fades and the subject falls silent. A set of remains may not be questioned again for a year and a day. While the wyrdweg is in progress, you appear to be in a trance and cannot hear or see what is around you. To determine the disposition of the target, make a normal Reaction roll.

Ritual: Holding a skull in one hand, trace on its forehead with a flowering sprig of galbanum or similarly active herb the rune representing the divine spark of life, then place the herb where the being’s tongue is or once was.

Ritual Time: 1 Round

Wyrdweg Duration: Until the third question is answered.

Spend Points: To increase the odds of a favorable reaction. Each success contributes one point to the target’s Reaction roll.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Feb 8

Lol well that’s what I get for moving letters around and not paying attention to where they are. It was still going to net me only 12 points, and think that’s the best I could have done.

A NY Times Crossplay board with the word “onset” played vertically but missing the 2W square by one even though it would have reached had I paid attention to what I was doing.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Feb 5

Huh, now this is interesting. I hadn't really considered how symbol manipulation like language expands the field of object manipulation. But it makes sense. From L.S. Vygotsky's book Mind in Society:

Observations of children in an experimental situation similar to that of Köhler's apes show that the children not only act in attempting to achieve a goal but also speak. As a rule this speech arises spontaneously and continues almost without interruption throughout the experi-ment. It increases and is more persistent every time the situation becomes more complicated and the goal more difficult to attain. Attempts to block it (as the experiments of my collaborator R. E. Levina have shown) are either futile or lead the child to "freeze up."
Levina posed practical problems for four- and five-year-old children such as obtaining a piece of candy from a cupboard. The candy was placed out of reach so the child could not obtain it directly. As the child got more and more involved in trying to obtain the candy, "egocentric" speech began to manifest itself as part of her active striving. At first this speech consisted of a description and analysis of the situation, but it gradually took on a "planful" character, reflecting possible paths to solution of the problem. Finally, it was included as part of the solution.
For example, a four-and-a-half-year-old girl was asked to get candy from a cupboard with a stool and a stick as possible tools. Levina's description reads as follows: (Stands on a stool, quietly looking, feeling along a shelf with stick.) "On the stool." (Glances at experimenter. Puts stick in other hand.) "Is that really the candy?" (Hesitates.) "I can get it from that other stool, stand and get it." (Gets second stool.) "No, that doesn't get it. I could use the stick." (Takes stick, knocks at the candy.)
"It will move now." (Knocks candy.) "It moved, I couldn't get it with the stool, but the, but the stick worked."13

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Jan 23

Ew, gross. Like, I know we're a Microsoft shop now, but come on. Still, something tells me this innovation fund and training will not increase our capacity to *pay* for AI services. Oh, and as I've said before, using these products directly undermines the UN's climate goals.

**Microsoft

A couple of things I want to flag. First, that yesterday Microsoft announced that it will support our UN80 reform efforts. The measures include support for a proposed UN80 Innovation Fund, initiatives to improve the affordability of core digital tools across the UN system, expanded training to strengthen AI and digital readiness among the UN workforce, that would include me, and the convening of private sector partners to complement UN led reform efforts.

Through this initiative, Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, in his role as an SDG Advocate, is offering practical support to help equip the UN to respond effectively to today’s global challenges amid rising demands and constrained resources.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Jan 20

In case you think I'm kidding... Big Ed's Hamburgers in OKC has a family burger that's a bunch of meat and cheese on a 12" bun, sliced up pizza style. www.restaurantji.com/ok/oklahoma-...

A poster for Big Ed's Burgers. Above, it says "Oklahoma Original Since 1974". The title text of the poster says "Big Ed's is big on more than hamburgers". Below the title text is a photograph of Big Ed presenting his foot-wide family burger on a platter. The rest of the text reads:

Big Ed's is big on taste, value, variety, service, quality, families, kids, large helpings, fast friendly service, USDA Choice meats, convenient locations, call-in orders, cleanliness, freshness, tater-tots, grilled onions, fresh French fries, bacon burgers, polish sausage, chili dogs, chicken breasts, patti melts, hickory burgers, bushels of extras, BLTs, salads, child size servings, grilled cheese sandwiches, corn dogs and a large selection of cool soft drinks. Big Ed's is the big value in town. BIG ED'S IS BIG ON YOU!

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Jan 6

The updated map. There are things I would do differently if I made another one, but that's something I'll save for another module.

A point crawl location map for the Greater Muenster Hill Region. From the top, left to right: It includes Behemoth's Keep, Stilton Warren, Yarrow Marsh, The Cemetery, Muenster Hill, The Wyrdstone, Widowmaker Lane, Foxtower, Sassafras Grove, Churlwood, and Copperford Mines.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Dec 22

In other news I'm gonna use some of the Christmas break to update Dead I Am the Rat, my Mausritter adventure, based on my playthrough in October. I'd love to make more art for it, but that probably exceeds my available time. If I did, though, I thought up this nice little Mouscopalian church.

A digital painting of a mouse-scale church building consisting of an amanita mushroom (red cap, spots) joined with a morel (brown, conical cap, spongy) as its bell tower.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Dec 22

Not a tree as a person, but similar vibes. Original: bsky.app/profile/aaro...

A windmill sits next to a leafless tree in the Texas High Plains. A clear blue sky forms the background. A dirt track wends through dry grass beside the windmill and disappears in the distance.

Feb 2017, between Plainview and Amarillo, TX.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Dec 16

I am disappointed to see that someone has unsealed the forbidden puzzle. They have forgotten the last time we unsealed it.

An opened box containing a 2000 piece Ravensburger puzzle depicting Rembrandt’s painting The Night Watch.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Dec 13

David Arora offers this explanation. It's an idiomatic redundancy to indicate lots of little people where a simple plural doesn't do the job. That's fascinating to me. I can't think right off of a similar construction in English that has this effect. PDF here: i.warosu.org/data/sci/img...

Xiao ren ren are widely known in Yunnan province, China, at least at the mid-elevations where Han Chinese and Yi people predominate. The phrase means “little men” or “little people” (xiao, little; ren, man or person, the redundancy being an idiom to indicate lots of men or people, which the standard plural form renmen does not necessarily connote). Xiao ren ren are typically glimpsed or experienced after dining on inadvertently undercooked, blue-staining boletes of uncertain identity. The people of Yunnan seem almost universally amused by the xiao ren ren rather than fearing them or revering them.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Nov 29

In very corporate TTRPG news, I found out Burger King commissioned a game in Italy called Burger King's Quest, based on the fantasy setting it created in the 70s as a response to McD's Playland. Compare with the Wendy's game Feast of Legends. burgerking.fandom.com/wiki/Burger_...

A photo showing the cover of Burger King's Quest, a tabletop roleplaying game released in Italy in November 2025.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Nov 26

Alright, here's my contribution to weird occult deer art. I had intended to develop this into a linocut, but as usual, I got distracted.

This is an image of a robed, shamanic figure wearing a deer skull whose horns form a triquetra. Above the figure's outstretched right hand floats a triskelion. It is drawn on grid paper.

Aaron Helton@aaronhelton· Nov 26

Okay, just for fun, here's an overpowered Mausritter weapon. Hopefully it has enough ridiculous drawbacks.