It amazes me how many people there are who think it’s acceptable to ride a scooter or a skateboard the wrong way down a bike lane.

I immediately connected with this emoji the first time I saw it. Also, I remember writing a paper in high school arguing that emoticons were legitimate “language.” The paper was horrible, but I still believe in that central thesis, and I think emojis are vindicating it. link to ‘The Melting Face Emoji Has Already Won Us Over - The New York Times’

TGV forever link to ‘The train that shrunk France… and Europe | Ars Technica’

So far, I’ve only watched the pilot and am not sure how far I’ll make it in the series, but this article reinforces my belief that 2021 can do more with the premise of the series than 2002 did. link to ‘Y: The Last Man’s Collapsing Infrastructure Scariest Part’

Currently reading Hervé Le Tellier’s « L’Anomalie », and it is so dang good. An English translation (The Anomaly) is coming later this year, so I’m going to go ahead and recommend this book to everyone.

This weekend, after over a decade of off-and-on attempts, I finally read the entire run of Y: The Last Man. Turns out the upcoming Hulu adaptation was a good motivator.

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.