I was made aware of an unexpected generational divide today when one of my first-year students announced that as far as he was concerned, there were only six Star Wars movies.

Keeping an eye on this! E-bikes are exciting. link to ‘This chainless drive system could revolutionize e-bike designs - The Verge’

Passing a car through an intersection or keeping up with it in a roundabout is one of the greatest pleasures of commuting by e-bike. link to ‘Anne Hidalgo demande aux cyclistes de ne pas dépasser les automobilistes pour éviter de les humilier’

This article is what got me to read the Wikipedia article in the last post, and now I want some of this merch (especially the “in this house we believe” one). [link to ‘There’s merch for long-time nuclear waste warning messages | Boing Boing’](https://boingboing.net/2021/08/30/theres-merch-for-long-time-nuclear-waste-warning-messages.html?utm_source=rss

This is an unexpectedly fascinating Wikipedia article. link to ‘Long-time nuclear waste warning messages - Wikipedia’

Interesting story about efforts to write a story about the greater Geneva area that transcends national borders—and the project’s difficulty of transcending national borders. Reminds me of the time I was driving through Meyrin, took a wrong turn, and accidentally wound up in France—or when I would get from one side of the canton to the other during the awful rush hour by leaving Switzerland and taking a French autoroute around.

Very interesting speculative fiction. link to ‘Beauty Surge, a new short story by Laura Maylene Walter.’

If there is a better way to end the first week of classes than Ted Lasso and Marcel Pagnol, I don’t know what it is.

A great way to insert a bit of hesitation into your next viewing of Firefly is to think about how among all the other Western tropes in there, Mal and Zoe are essentially coded as former Confederate soldiers.

Great conversation in this podcast about the danger of dismissing comics as simply “easier to read.” I appreciated the discussion of the literacies needed to understand a comic. link to ‘Ariol, vingt ans d’un héros de la bande dessinée jeunesse’

Adding this to my to-read list. link to ‘How a French Novelist Turns the Tables on History - The New York Times’

I have been enjoying these posts from a Micro.blog user documenting his cross-countey Amtrak travels. link to trains are people

I am up late on the busy week before the semester starts trying to write an Alfred workflow for generating Hugo blog posts and a Siri Shortcut to support a new approach to linkblogging, so…

Papers Please is one of the finest and most moving games I have ever played. It deserves all the attention and all the praise. link to article

I know it’s an obvious choice, but including « Gentleman cambrioleur » in the soundtrack for the Lupin finale was just perfect.

I am offering the name Marky and the Lafayettes to any group that can make good use of it.

Having poutine with goetta, which is like the food at the center of the Venn diagram of my life.

Microsoft Word spellcheck (set to U.S. English) is offering the English “television” and the Spanish “televisión” as corrections to the French “télévision” in my manuscript. Great example of algorithmic values.

It never ceases to amaze me how much more helpful a screenshot is than just a text description when trying to solve a tech issue.

It really bothers me when browsers hide anything after the domain name in a URL. Sure, it’s cleaner, but there’s so much important information (and low-key surveillance) embedded in a URL, and I want to know about all of it.

Je relis de vieux plans de leçon cet après-midi pour un projet, et je repleure donc l’assassinat d’Ahmed Merabet.

It is a coincidence that I’m visiting my local independent bookstore the same day Bezos went to space, but it’s a happy one.

I have Doug Forcett on my mind, and it’s not even noon on Monday. Looks like it’s going to be an existentially demanding week.

I have just learned that “leapfrog” is called “leapsheep” (« saute-mouton ») in French AND that, by extension, a “sheep-leap” (« saut-de-mouton ») is the name for a particular kind of railway junction. Don’t know which delights me more.

I am generally not a sports person, but one of my favorite memories ever is seeing Geneva celebrate after Switzerland beat Spain in a 2010 World Cup match. Would have loved to be back there last night.

I have twice bought a Francophone book based on the title, and both were winners. « Vers Saint-Gétorix » was as enjoyable as the pun, and « Kiffe kiffe demain » delivered on its promise of a story from la banlieue.

The sudden ubiquity of ad-delivering screens on gas pumps feels like a subtle but firm step toward dystopia.

Turns out a great way to get distracted from a Disney+ show you’re enjoying is to think “this franchise should be in the public domain by now.”

Listening to the 1940s anti-KKK Superman radio serial while cleaning up lunch dishes.

Won a $25 gift card to local indy bookstore from local library. Went to bookstore and wound up spending an ADDITIONAL $50, so it looks like everybody won this round.

Just got a phishing email that was subtle and well thought out enough that I almost didn’t recognize it. Those are the scariest kinds.

Today is “change my files and folders scheme and see what software breaks” day. Grateful for here::here() so that I’m not terrified of implications for #rstats.

One of my pettiest of peeves is the conflation of the term “UFO” with “aliens” even though the entire value of the term is in acknowledging the unidentifiable without reading any more into it.

Got stitches in a pinky finger last night, and adjusting my touch typing, while annoying, has gone surprisingly smoothly. May help that I had a thumb in bandages for most of my first semester of college.

If dozens of CAPTCHAs are any indication, Google’s working hard on traffic lights, crosswalks, and fire hydrants today. So proud of all I’m contributing to AI without compensation because it’s the only way to access this site.

Was not expecting the S2 “For All Mankind” finale to influence my feelings on nuclear disarmament that much, but here we are.