Update, January 1, 2026

It’s been a few weeks since I last did an update, because I haven’t added a whole lot of stuff. Early on in the week after the 14th, it hit me that a lot of the work I have been doing on my various sites is basically shouting into the void. It’s not, by its nature, work that brings in a lot of profit – in fact, I’m pretty sure that over the nearly two decades I’ve been doing various parts of it, I’m running at a loss.

And the rise of AI plagiarism, and the borking of most major search engines by AI-powered idiocy means that’s only going to continue to be the case. So I’ve spent some time thinking it over, and decided to take a step back from all these things. They’re all staying up, and I will continue to work on them (and on some other projects yet to see the light of day), but they’ll go back to being something I do for the fun of it, rather than out of any expectation of seeing a return.

I do have some projects I’ve been working on that are a little more likely to bring in some money – a mobile phone app and the launch of my own small press rpg label – but for the time being, I’m just chilling out and reconsidering what I want to do.

These updates will continue, but I’m not sure quite how often. For the time being, I think I might make them monthly. We’ll see.

Hoping 2026 is a better year for all of us.

Weekly Update, December 14, 2025

So, I completely forgot to post this last weekend… and then kept procrastinating all week long every time I thought of it.

But it’s been an okay fortnight, for the most part. In addition to the list below, I also wrote the first version of a game (which was just one of those random ideas that come to you every so often) across this last week, and playtested it yesterday. I still need to incorporate the changes from the playtest, but it was very satisfying to watch the game getting better in front of my eyes as my players said “What if instead it worked this way?”

On my sites this week:

Pharmacoepia Fantastica:
New drugs added this fortnight: Adara’s Rose, Alphanella Seeds, Athsat, Bentlam, Cererbocreatine, Clarity, Coltari, Compound V, De-Tox, Dream, Dreamgum, Fast-Penta, Fayalin, Giagra, God’s Breath, Hadive, HFS, Insuleze, Joy, Khatura, KT-28s, Ladolian, Loneliness, Love Potion No. 9, Niathol, Nitrolabe, Nullergin-200, Penzerol, Pitrolux, Prisoner’s Honey, Progenitorivox, Red Skeezix, Somnacin, Super-Aktion, Synergine, Tateen, Thionite, Thor’s Hammer, Vee-Two Gas and VXN Gas for a total of 248 drugs now described on the site.

Weekly Update, November 30, 2025

A slow week for the most part, as I squandered how close I’d got to having one project ready to launch by starting an entirely new other project. Sigh. That said, progress continues, just more slowly than I’d like.

Pharmacoepia Fantastica:
New drugs added this week: Cake, Cloveritol, FX7, Ghostdancing, K-Pop, Love, Nembucaine, NLG, Oleum Martyris, Plomox, Snow Crash, TC-6, TimeSerum and Vertigo for a total of 208 drugs now described on the site.

Weekly Update, November 23, 2025

Finally finished a medium-sized project this week, much to my delight. You can now https://www.thecentrecannothold.net/frontpage/watch-a-random-bluey-episode/ whenever you wish (assuming that you can use ABC iView).

Also, I was more productive than I remembered last week – I added a new Explainer on Something For Cate, mostly for the purpose of clarifying the situation for my American friends: The Dismissal of the Whitlam Government (or “or: Why Are Australians So Weird About November 11?”).

On my other sites this week:

Pharmacoepia Fantastica:
New drugs added this week: Ambrosia, Bynogol, Communion, Drive Right, The Fix, Friends, Gazer Root, GKD, Icpathua, Incredulox, Linoten, Muzon, PRO-Vyril, Triceratops, Turbo T, Tylerin, Ungu, Zembla-4 and Zyme for a total of 194 drugs now described on the site.

Weekly Update, November 9, 2025

A slow week, as I eased back into work after my leave ended. In fact, one of the major things I got done was adding the Proudly AI-Free badge, which you can now see here and on my other sites (this is still ongoing on some of them, but should be completed later today).

Pharmacoepia Fantastica:
A bunch of new drugs added this week: Carvati’s Cure, Kosh, Poudre de la Mort Vraie, Provasic, RC-12, Rejuvenex, Returné, Shrilanka and Zydrate for a total of 175 drugs now described on the site.

Reading Orders:

The Omen Series Viewing Order

Weekly Update, November 2, 2025

Taking a bit of a break this week for me – I’m on leave from work and I’ve been mostly chilling and riding for the Great Cycle Challenge – which I completed last Thursday.

On my other sites this week:

Pharmacoepia Fantastica:
A pair of new drugs added this week: Aldetox & Praist for a total of 166 drugs now described on the site.

Reading Orders:

The World of the Five Gods Reading Order (update)

Weekly Update, October 26, 2025

Well, you’re probably not surprised that I’ve been riding in the Great Cycle Challenge – I finished my planned 400km, but I had ten days still to go in the month, so I added another 100km to my target, because why not?

More surprising, and considerably more inconvenient, my laptop died during the week, and between replacing it and setting up the new one, I’ve got very little productive work done this week. Two steps forward, one step back.

Weekly Update, October 20, 2025

A slow week for me, between my full time job and my riding for the Great Cycle Challenge – indeed, I did a 40km ride yesterday that caused me to be late posting this week’s update. But I’ll be back to regular Sunday posting next week.

On my other sites this week:

Pharmacoepia Fantastica: A handful of new drugs added this week: Black Forest High, Ca-Fix, fijana, Painaway, Relaxon & Scramble for a total of 164 drugs now described on the site.

Reading Orders: Updated The Saga of the Skolian Empire Reading Order .

Weekly Update, October 12, 2025

This week I have actually done a shitload of work on one of my larger projects… and it was all mostly admin, which while it does help me reach my goals, doesn’t create anything directly visible for you to see. Yet 🙂

I also shared the great Keating! The Musical with some good friends who hadn’t seen it, and got a lot of riding for the Great Cycle Challenge done. And when I say a lot, I mean that on Friday, the tenth day of the challenge, I passed the midpoint of my riding target. I also smashed my fund-raising goal for the year, taking my all time funds raised over the nine years I’ve been doing this to over $10,000.

So I’m not feeling too bad about having very little else to report.