Whenever I book travel for work, I pull up the Amtrak website to see if it would be in any way practical to add a rail component to the trip to replace flying (or driving, but it’s rare that I drive for work travel). Given the state of American rail, this is most often an exercise in disappointment. My only success story in four years at this job was when I attended a conference in Bordeaux; I flew into Paris and then took a low-cost OuiGo TGV for my trips between Paris and Bordeaux.

Shortly after last week’s mostly-successful experiment with Hypothesis, I noticed Chris Aldrich posting to Micro.blog about the software and started up a conversation. I’d followed Chris a few weeks before in trying to get more into Micro.blog (perhaps my favorite indie social media platform out there, though I’m also enjoying getting into Mastodon) by following academia and academia-adjacent folks, and was pleased to see an area of common interest. It wasn’t until a separate conversation on Mastodon this morning that I remembered that my Hypothesis setup was dependent on my manually checking annotations on my website.

Francophones, quelle est votre traduction préférée du mot « tag » dans un contexte technologique ? J’ai des applis qui disent « étiquette » et d’autres qui disent « mot-clé ».

The more I work with WordPress site builders, the more they annoy me.

A few months ago, during a weekend where my family was out of town, I binge watched both seasons of « Au service de la France », a hilarious spy comedy available on Netflix. One of the running gags of the series is the (fictional) French secret service’s obsession with bureaucracy. So, for example, when the service suspects a mole in its midst, one of the responses is to make sure that every piece of paperwork is signed multiple times before being stamped twice.

As I’ve been working on updating this website and revamping my web presence over the course of the summer, one of the items on my to-do list has been to add a commenting feature to the website. I love Hugo, but the absence of any in-built commenting feature is definitely a downside. I’ve looked over various Hugo-compatible commenting systems, but I honestly don’t know how much commenting activity I’ll see, and I’ve been hesitant to pay a third-party platform to do all of this for me.

I remember the first Floppotron, and 3.0 continues to be delightful. I may have to show this in class next year. link to ‘This PC orchestra, built from 512 floppy disk drives, is wondrous to hear and behold - The Verge’

I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks how to best add commenting to my Hugo static site, and it just hit me that I could embed Hypothesis and use that as a social layer. Very excited about this idea.

J’ai découvert un podcast sur le jeu de rôle en mileu Star Wars (que j’aime beaucoup) qui est en français canadien (dont j’essaie d’améliorer ma compréhension). Ça tombe bien !

Very excited for this show. I hadn’t been all that concerned about the changing of Kamala’s powers, but this article brought up some good points about how that changes some of the messaging behind the character. link to ‘Ms. Marvel review: Kamala Khan’s new series feels like the MCU’s future - The Verge’

Ce weekend, j’ai regardé une émission sur la ligne ferroviaire Lausanne-Échallens-Bercher qui m’a beaucoup plu: Quand j’ai vécu à Renens pendant quelques mois, c’était toujours un plaisir de voir passer une rame du LEB en me promenant sur l’Avenue d’Échallens. Je n’ai jamais eu l’occasion de voyager sur cette ligne, mais j’ai fort envie de retourner dans le Vaud pour l’essayer. Regarder des vidéos comme celle-ci (ou bien des vidéos « en cabine » qui montre les gares différentes ainsi que le paysage vaudois) me donne une nostalgie profonde pour le temps que j’ai passé tout près du LEB.

I hope it will be the last. End it while it’s still good. link to ‘Ted Lasso season 3 might be the show’s final one - The Verge’

Just this weekend, I was trying to figure out if I could do this to improve some video quality. Neat! link to ‘You’ll soon be able to use an iPhone as a Mac webcam - The Verge’

I don’t know how many folks are subscribed to this blog via RSS, but if you are, chances are that you subscribed out of an interest in my professional writing. I’m making some big changes to the blog in part to give me the freedom to start writing on some other topics as well. You’ve probably seen some of these posts already, but I want to make it clear that it’s going to continue.

There’s a SomaFM internet radio station that plays NASA recordings of Apollo missions over calm electronic music. I don’t listen to it often, but I love it when I do.

I’m interested in this argument about Star Wars feeling like a TTRPG campaign setting. Throughout much of middle and high school, I played the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars TTRPG, and that made even the prequel movies beloved because they became a setting to explore rather than movies to be unsatisfied with. link to ‘‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Is a Mashup of the Things That Make Up Star Wars’

Il y a plusieurs années, un ami m’a prévenu qu’il y a tant de jeux de mots dans les albums Astérix qu’un Américain ne les comprendraient jamais pleinement. Les chansons Stromae me donnent maintenant la même impression.

Woke up to a They Might Be Giants song stuck in my head, which I choose to interpret as a good sign.

Not really interested in the new Stranger Things, but it does make me want to get serious about a Tales from the Loop campaign (surtout avec le supplément « La France aux années 80»)

Very happy to learn that the whole run of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is now available through my library. I am several years behind and eager to catch up.

Recently bought a used ABBA greatest hits CD for next to nothing, which has led to a comically difficult effort to get access to an optical drive so that I can actually listen to the music.

Il y a un an, j’ai regardé ma première Eurovision, Je l’ai ratée cette année (conflit avec un anniversaire en famille), mais j’espère y retourner en 2023.

Il y a trop peu de monde qui aime les podcasts et apprécie aussi RSS pour d’autres fins.

Je suis impressionné par le nombre de BD francophones disponible aux bibliothèques du Kentucky, mais c’est quand-même hyper decevant de lire une BD francophone en traduction.

Since April, I’ve gotten sucked into the Slow Horses British spy series after really enjoying the Apple TV+ adaptation. I’ve been powering through all the full-length novels and am now reading 2021’s Slough House, which features a character who’s survived a bullet wound to the head. Her description stood out to me for one particular detail, though: Her hair was different. Maybe that’s what death does to you. I twas still mostly red but now punkishly short, with a white stripe across her left temple where the bullet had passed…

I’ve been a big fan of audio-only media for a big chunk of my life. I grew up listening to NPR radio shows like Car Talk and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on Saturdays while my dad drove us around to do errands. TV wasn’t allowed in my family on Sundays, but the NPR Sunday Puzzle was—depending on what time church was that year, we’d listen to it on our way to Sunday meetings.

Voyage pour le boulot qui s’approche, et j’essaie donc de proposer un trajet mi-avion, mi-train. C’est vraiment le trajet le plus efficace, mais comme j’habite dans un pays ferroviphobe, il me faudra de la chance…

So excited! This has been a great show, and this season seems topical. link to ‘For All Mankind sets its alternate timeline sights on Mars in S3 trailer | Ars Technica’

The more I learn about and work with the DNS, the more impressive and frightening it becomes.

Messing around with my Hugo static site between other, draining tasks may be the only thing that got me through today.

It’s a testament to Apple TV+’s adaptation of Slow Horses that I am now reading the whole book series and that I can only imagine the characters as the show’s actors.

J’suis pas hyper doué en cuisine, mais comme il reste rien à manger demain matin et comme j’ai une recette pour le muesli fait maison, je suis en mode Farmer Croc, là.

Tentative de publication depuis mon site web.

Now checking that the tagging system works fine.

Testing a new Siri Shortcut for remote posting to Hugo.

Is this just mastodon.social? Seems like it, but that’s not the only instance getting a bump, and sloppy reporting to ignore how federated instances work—that’s one of the reasons we’re all moving there. link to ‘30,000 New Users Signed Up for Mastodon After Elon Musk Bought Twitter’