louis-hypo

[louis-hypo]

[Who]'s Afraid of the Big Shop?

9 August 2025 Hello, it’s been a little while. I’m writing this from my new desk, in my new room. I’ve been here almost a week, and it has been an incredibly packed time, but now I’m settled in. Calm descends as I realise I have a place I can retire after a long day, and put the outside world on hold. I’ve managed to get food from here and there to sustain me through the week, but tomorrow it’s…

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Reversa (short story)

“Oh- what are you doing? Look at the mess, there’s dust everywhere” “Oh, ah, I uh, I-“ “On the seat, on the carpet, even the gearstick” “Sorry, I, I wasn’t thinking” “You could’ve just eaten it outside” “Sorry, I just felt a bit chilly” “Look, it’s fine” “No, it’s not, I should have just eaten it outside” “It’s fine, seriously” “…I could use the Reversa?” “The Reversa?” “You know, the…

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Sickness - I just need to give you everything about me

Cambridge This is a communal experience, and this is very much the exception. Every October sees the world festival of cold strains descend on university campuses nationwide. Welcome to Freshers’ Flu. You are sick, but everyone around you is sick, so you feel like you’re doing alright. You are not the one coughing in the lecture hall, and you take comfort in that fact. You will drink and dance…

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Someone Ghiblified me and now I feel weird

Content warning: discussion of antisemitism In a 2016 documentary from the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), legendary director Hayao Miyazaki was shown footage of an AI model that was learning to move bodies around in a physics engine; he described it as “an insult to life itself”. Admittedly there was some context to this quote, the bodies were meant to be zombies and Miyazaki was…

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The forgotten Russell T Davies Star Wars Spin-off

I’ve been doing a little investigation into the work of acclaimed screenwriter Russell T Davies recently, including the TV shows that were never picked up. You may be aware that It’s A Sin was only commissioned by Channel 4 after being rejected by the other major networks, and even then only for five episodes instead of the originally planned eight. Some shows only just got made, while others…

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The Largest Conceivable Number (Pi Day 2025)

Happy Pi Day. I couldn’t think of anything Pi-related to say that hasn’t already been said, but in fairness the number of words written about it over the centuries is about Graham’s Number. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, after all Graham’s Number is so big that the space needed to write it out is more than the observable universe. However, I was watching the new Numberphile video today and it got me…

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If I have to choose between "doing" and "ok", maybe I'm not doing ok

At the beginning of last month, I realised that I need help coping. I’m being intentionally vague, because my idea as to what “coping” looks like keeps changing. Is it the few things that completely overwhelm me, or my suboptimal reaction to the world around me? I thought I could talk myself into not worrying, but it’s impossible to force the jump from knowing to believing. With this issue…

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Do Shopping Centres Have Bad Vibes?

Three years ago I wrote a little collection of poems, and for some reason I knew that if I wrote another collection it would have to be called “Poems About Land”. We’ll see if that comes about, but if it does there’ll definitely be something about Shopping Centres. The internet has had a ball recontextualising dead American malls into liminal spaces and vaporwave subgenres, but the malls I…

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Johnson Solids & Unsightly Definitions

Something I am fascinated by, beguiled by, is the Johnson Solid, a special class of 3D polyhedron. If I give you the definition of a Johnson Solid, I will have to mention a number of caveats, and I don’t think that’s a nice way to start this article, so let’s do what mathematicians do best and start with something simpler. Quadrilaterals: 4 walls and a rule A quadrilateral is a shape in two…

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Trains in Doctor Who Because It's Doctor Who Day

This article is a list of trains in Doctor Who (just the TV stuff, let’s not get carried away) and my hot takes on all of them. If this isn’t your cup of tea, you just know it’s someone else’s, and hey why not send it to them! If you really don’t like Doctor Who, I have just the podcast for you. Still here? Then let’s begin… Torchwood Estate, 1879 (Tooth & Claw) Before we get into it, you know…