Broadsheets for a Portable Civilization
Published irregularly by Castalia Institute
Useless Acts is Castalia’s broadsheet publication: a place for communiqués, instructions, field reports, experiments, rituals, technical designs, feasts, and other intellectual contraband for those attempting to carry a human world through the machinery of optimization.
Each post may be called a useless act. The publication is distinct from The Inquirer, which examines; The Castalia Gazette, which accompanies daily life; and Useless Acts, which destabilizes and provokes.
| Function | Form |
|---|---|
| Long serialized essay | Portable Civilization |
| Short polemic | Communiqué |
| Practical piece | Instruction |
| Experimental intervention | Useless Act |
Posts in main/ are the editorial source of truth. Add Markdown with the
front matter below, then run npm run process:main to generate a reviewable
Substack bundle in output/ and an A3 printable broadsheet PDF in
output/pdf/ for each article.
---
title: "A title"
subtitle: "A deck or standfirst"
author: "The Castalia Institute"
date: 2026-08-30
slug: a-title
tags: [communiqué]
status: draft
genre: communiqué
---Substack publishing remains a human review step. CI builds and uploads the bundle; it does not store browser credentials or publish automatically.
The PDF is ISO A3 size (297×420 mm), portrait-oriented, and designed for
printing or folding. Generate one article directly with
npm run broadsheet -- main/your-article.md.
Not everything worth doing can justify itself.
Useless Acts publishes broadsheets, communiqués, instructions, provocations, field reports, and intellectual contraband for those attempting to carry a human world through the machinery of optimization.
We proceed through useless acts, because intelligence begins where utility ceases to command.