Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Myself”
can one forgive reality for its inherent brokenness?
If life were fair, I’d be out on a morning run right now, but life isn’t, so I’m not. The immediate unfairness getting in my way is a flaring up of my retrolisthesis; in short, there’s a vertebra in my lower back that isn’t inclined to stay in place, and my core muscles aren’t always successful in convincing it to. Things aren’t as bad today as they were a week ago, when my lower back was experiencing so much stiffness (and, to a lesser extent, pain) that I couldn’t even bend at the waist, but despite my improvement over the past seven days, I woke up stiff enough this morning that I knew going for a run would probably make things worse.
poursuivre un master en français ?
Tous les matins, l’Université du Kentucky envoie un courriel à tous ses employés avec des annonces et informations diverses. Ce matin, la fin du courriel affirme qu’il est aujourd’hui le jour de la langue française (c’est vrai en plus!) et nous rappelle que notre université offre plein de cours en langue française et en études francophones.
Vu ma passion évidente pour tout ce qui est francophone, je savais déjà depuis longtemps qu’ils existaient déjà, ces cours.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Obsidio, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
After the weak middle volume in the trilogy, I wasn’t sure that I’d revisit the final one, but I’m glad I did. This book gets back to what made the first one so interesting: A mix of YA tropes, epistolary creativity, and moral complexity. It was self-indulgent at times, but it earned it by not shying away from the horror of the conflicts its teenage characters were the heroes of.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèli Clark
I wasn’t sure about this novella at first, which was a bummer because it’s beloved by the folks at The Incomparable. As I kept reading, though, I got sucked in and wound up loving it! It makes the most of its short length, easily working in the wordbuilding and even lampshading the tropes it uses to do so. The characters are fun, but what stands out the most is how deliberately and delightfully non-Western it is.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe
This is a frank, vulnerable memoir that I learned a lot from; I’m glad for Kobabe’s willingness to share eir story. I also appreciated the art style. I’d been meaning to read this in print a while ago but had checked out too many books from the library and had to return it before I got to it. I’m glad it was available on Hoopla so I could read it on my phone instead of mindlessly scrolling through TVTropes.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Gemina, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
This book has a lot going for it: Good worldbuilding, an interesting “disaster dominoes” plot, and a good audiobook performance. I love the first book in this series, so I ought to like this book too! I did enjoy listening to it, but I just don’t find the characters as interesting, and it feels more like it uses YA cookie cutter archetypes than the last book. Enjoyable, but not my favorite… and leaving me wondering about whether to finish out the trilogy.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 10, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Well, this is the last of the PDFs I got from the Humble Bundle, and I think that means I’m caught up on Saga in trade paperback format. I’m hooked, though, so I’ll have to find other ways to keep up with it!
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 9, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Heck of a volume right here; I can see how it would be frustrating for the series to go on hiatus right after this, and I’m glad I’m reading the series post-hiatus. It’s interesting to see just how willing Vaughan is to change things up hard, and I wonder how this will affect the running themes of the book moving forward. As usual, it’s also fascinating to follow the beautiful, very weird art.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 8, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
This volume is a perfect encapsulation of everything Saga: I think it hits on all the main characters, it’s weird in delightful ways, it tackles heavy subjects (but sometimes veers into edgy for edgy’s sake), and it left me excited to read more.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 7, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
At this point, I’ve read so much Saga this week that it’s hard to remember what happened in what volume. That said, even if Volume 7 ended on a downer, I remember that I liked what I read here.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga Volume 6, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
I don’t know what it is about particular volumes of this series that makes them rise above the rest, but this was one of them. Maybe it was adorable Ghüs becoming a badass when needed or a father-daughter reunion or something else. Whatever it was, this series continues to deliver.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 5, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Still reading, still enjoying! It’s interesting to watch the stories and themes play out (sometimes slowly) over time.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 4, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
I still love so much about this series and am looking forward to continuing it. Vaughan is blending together characters and plot threads in interesting and new ways, and I’m eager to see where he goes with it. This didn’t get as high as a review from me as the last volume, though. Maybe it’s because there was some more of the gore that’s my least favorite part of this, or maybe it’s because I don’t like media about couples going through rough patches, even if it’s well done.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga Volume 3, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Okay, no more caveats. I’m really into this series now. The themes (the difficult love of family and the creeping destruction of war) are more clear, and the art and weirdness continue to be excellent.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 2, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
You know, I still feel like Saga leans into being a comic for adults by putting adult material in there just because it can. That said, I’ll admit that I have a certain amount of inherent prudishness that may be coloring my thinking there. More importantly, I enjoy the art, the story is getting better and more interesting, and I’m eager to keep reading.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga Volume 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
I gave Saga a try a few years ago, but it didn’t quite work for me (or my prudishness), so as good of a reputation it had, I didn’t stick with it. I just got the first ten volumes through a Humble Bundle, though, and so it’s time to give it another try. I’m no longer bothered by swearing and sex like I was a decade (or whatever) ago, though I’ll admit that casual gore is not something that endears me to comics.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Paizo bans AI-generated content to support ‘human professionals’ - The Verge'
Very interesting! I know some critics will describe this as a morally panicked response, but I disagree. I think it’s smart to ask how AI will affect human creators and for companies/communities like Paizo to take principled stances. link to ‘Paizo bans AI-generated content to support ‘human professionals’ - The Verge’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Illuminae, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
This is my third time reading this book—I couldn’t resist coming back to it for the “epistolary novel” square of my library’s “Books and Bites Bingo” challenge this year. The print book is amazing, the audiobook manages to adapt a book that shouldn’t be adaptable, and I enjoyed this read as much as the last two. The language and worldbuilding are subtle but effective, it’s morally complex without trying too hard to be, and the characters are a good mix between believable and, well, archetypal characters in a YA novel.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Nigerians in Space, by Deji Bryce Olukoton
I picked this up after hearing about it in the show notes of an EFF podcast the author appeared on. This is not the book that I expected to read, I’m not sure I entirely got it, and it even feels a bit like a shaggy dog story at the end. I still enjoyed it, though, in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s neat to read fiction from deliberately African perspectives, the shaggy dog-ness is probably the point, and the characters are compelling.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Sometimes Open Systems Beat Those Who Try To Lock Them Up: Spotify’s Podcast Colonization Flops | Techdirt'
Happy to hear podcasts aren’t working out for Spotify, because I was always upset about Spotify trying to wall off this garden. link to ‘Sometimes Open Systems Beat Those Who Try To Lock Them Up: Spotify’s Podcast Colonization Flops | Techdirt’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
What a wild listen! I started this right after finishing Doctorow’s Little Brother because it’s recommended in the supplementary materials. It’s a bit odd to read in 2023: The idea of cryptocurrency has been tainted with recent news, it spectacularly fails the Bechdel test, and it seems to me to use more casual racial slurs than the chapters in the Pacific Theater might allow for in the name of realism. Yet, it’s intricately plotted, well written, just absurd enough to make it better, and technical without being overwhelming.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for The Sandbaggers (series 3)
I love the premise and the characters of this show, but it felt like it was running out of steam by the third series (though I’ll admit I don’t know how much the mysterious disappearance of its creator had to do with this—I’d like to read the book on the subject). Burnside got less and less likeable as the show went on (though this might be the point!), and I got tired of how many plots boiled down to “Burnside doesn’t care and goes rogue.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Chroniques de jeunesse, by Guy Delisle
J’ai déjà lu la traduction anglaise de cet album magnifique—Delisle est assez connu aux États-Unis pour paraître (en traduction) dans les bibliothèques près de chez moi. Pourtant, il y a toujours quelque chose de decevant quand je sais que j’aurais lu le lire en français. Quand une ami a visité Bruxelles récemment, je lui ai donc demandé de m’acheter l’album en français. Ayant passé quelques étés dans des usines, l’expérience de Delisle m’a beaucoup marqué.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'with love and respect to Senator John Fetterman and his family – WIL WHEATON dot NET'
I read this when Wil first published it, but I thought of it again today with even more gratitude—for both Wil and Senator Fetterman. I’ve been wondering recently whether I should refrain from making particular commitments or pursuits because of my own struggles with mental health, and knowing that there’s someone with depression serving in the U.S. Senate is giving me hope. link to ‘with love and respect to Senator John Fetterman and his family – WIL WHEATON dot NET’
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
I loved the first Black Panther and am kind of bummed to be disappointed by the sequel. Obviously, Chadwick Boseman’s tragic passing made this movie an uphill battle to begin with, and its wrestling with that loss within the movie is one of its strongest parts. There are also other individual parts of the movie that are really interesting on their own: international intrigue with strong Françafrique overtones! Riri Williams! turning a goofy 1940s comic book character concept into something compelling and decolonial!
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Top 10, by Alan Moore
There’s a lot to love about Top 10, which is why I read it for what is at least the third time (likely more). The story is well-crafted, the concept is interesting, it riffs on superhero tropes while breathing new life into them, and the art is full of so many easter eggs for the savvy reader (my favorite is probably the Astérix and Obélix cameo, but there are lots of other great ones).
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Sandbaggers (series 2)
I’m not sure I enjoyed the second series as much as the first, but over time, it grew on me. The finale nicely tied things together and helped me see how Burnside’s hubris was a running theme of the series (rather than a character derailment). Interested to see what happens in the final series!
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Mech Cadet Yu (Volume 3), by Greg Pak
Still a fun series, and I’m glad it’s short enough that I could go ahead and finish it out. It continued to get more interesting as it went along, but it also didn’t give any of its twists and turns enough time to feel deserved.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Mech Cadet Yu (Volume Two), by Greg Pak
I liked Volune Two more than Volume One: The story breaks free of simple troping and the characters become a bit more interesting. That said, none of this is enough in my mind to really set the series apart. I wonder if this would be better as a long-ish YA novel than as an ongoing comics series.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Mech Cadet Yu (Volume One), by Greg Pak
The premise is fun, and I liked (most of) the art, but I felt like the story moved too fast to move beyond recycled tropes—or let the characters be more than flattish archetypes. It probably won’t stop me from reading the next volume, but I think it’s aimed at a younger audience than me.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Lazy Reporters Claiming Fediverse Is ‘Slumping,’ Despite Massive Increase In Usage | Techdirt'
I’d seen some of the headlines Masnick is critiquing here, but I hadn’t read the articles. I appreciate this critique and overview. link to ‘Lazy Reporters Claiming Fediverse Is ‘Slumping,’ Despite Massive Increase In Usage | Techdirt’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley
I haven’t read this in over a decade, so I recently decided to listen to an audiobook version and see how I liked it this time through. The overall story is excellent! I found particularly compelling the question of scientific (and technological) responsibility, and the creature’s railing against his creator at Chamonix in the middle of the book struck me as almost Job-like. I wasn’t expecting the Chamonix scene to resonate with me as much as the tech allegory, but it will also stay with me, I think.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Swisstory: The Untold, Bloody, and Absolutely Real History of Switzerland, by Laurie Theurer
Swisstory wasn’t awful, but it’s pretty clear it’s written for kids: Lots of playing up the bloody and gross, and not as detailed as I would have liked. I own a French-language accessible history of Switzerland with illustrations by the late Swiss cartoonist Mix & Remix, and I wish I’d reread that instead.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Sandbaggers (series 1)
I only learned about The Sandbaggers last weekend, on an episode of The Incomparable, but I watched the entire first series this week—and loved it. It isn’t perfect: There’s too much 1970s casual misogyny for it to be self-critical in the same way that a modern show set in the 70s would be, and the brown face in one episode is also embarassing. Not setting those aside, I was still impressed with the way the show combined the bumbling hypocrisy of Yes, Minister; the self-serving internal politics of Slow Horses; and the cynical despair of Le Carré into a single, compelling show.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia | Ars Technica'
Fascinating read. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years… I remember learning the news at a Boy Scout activity. link to ‘The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'People Can’t Stop ‘Spotify Snooping’ on Friends, Exes and Crushes - WSJ'
This is dumb and gross, and another reason I’ll never use Spotify. link to ‘People Can’t Stop ‘Spotify Snooping’ on Friends, Exes and Crushes - WSJ’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Les Jones releases 'Burger,' an homage to /mocking of America | Boing Boing'
Franchement, c’est parfait. link to ‘Les Jones releases “Burger,” an homage to /mocking of America | Boing Boing’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Terms and Conditions, by R. Sikoryak
Reading an actual Apple terms of service document can only be so interesting, but at least creating a graphic novel version helps. The sheer audacity of the project is most of why I liked this comic, but it’s also quite fun to see Sikoryak’s homages to different comics, always with a Jobsian twist. It’s weird, and I don’t see myself rereading it, but I think it’s great.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Look, I’m not a cinema connoisseur, and I’m sure this doesn’t hold up in ways that I don’t know. Conversely, I appreciate Weird Al, but I’m not the kind of megafan that would pick up on every joke. All I know is that this movie is delightful for the way it just leans into the absurdity and doesn’t apologize for it. I loved it, and even the dumbest parts made it better.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Amid widespread backlash, D&D maker scales back “open” license changes | Ars Technica'
Seems like good news, but while I’ll be happy to join others’ D&D games, I think my preferences are locked into Paizo games and indie titles. link to ‘Amid widespread backlash, D&D maker scales back “open” license changes | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Paizo Announces Own OGL Due to Dungeons & Dragons Controversy'
Lots of respect for Paizo for doing this. I think my TTRPG future is more in rules-light, story-first indie titles, but if I want something more classic, I wouldn’t mind privileging Pathfinder. link to ‘Paizo Announces Own OGL Due to Dungeons & Dragons Controversy’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Dungeons and Dragons Is Jeopardizing It’s Greatest Strength: Its Ubiquity'
Once again, the more I read about this, the more worried I get. I also appreciate the thesis of this particular article: D&D could lose its status as the ur-TTRPG over this. link to ‘Dungeons and Dragons Is Jeopardizing It’s Greatest Strength: Its Ubiquity’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'RPG fans irate as D&D tries to shut its “open” game license | Ars Technica'
Glad to see more coverage of this so I can be more upset by what’s going on. link to ‘RPG fans irate as D&D tries to shut its “open” game license | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Un art neuf | Collège de France'
Il y a quelques années, j’ai découvert Thimas Römer grâce à un entretien sur le podcast « Le rayon bd ». C’était peu après que j’ai découvert ses leçons sur les milieux bibliques données au Collège de France. J’aime bien écouter ces leçons comme podcast même si elles n’ont rien à voir avec la BD. Ça semble tout réunir d’entendre Römer présenter Benoît Peeters pour des leçons sur la BD au Collège de France, et j’en suis bien content.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators | Electronic Frontier Foundation'
So this is the OGL kerfuffle I’ve heard a bit about recently. This would be a bad move by WotC, but I’m also intrigued by what the EFF has to say here. link to ‘Beware the Gifts of Dragons: How D&D’s Open Gaming License May Have Become a Trap for Creators | Electronic Frontier Foundation’
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Superman: Earth One (Volume One), by J. Michael Straczynski
I’ve read this a couple times before, so I knew it wouldn’t be great, but it was on sale for a dollar at a used book store, and I have a soft spot for it (including its sequels), so I picked it up and gave it another go. I think this retelling makes big mistakes about Superman (believing that destructive fights and interstellar intrigue are what makes the character interesting) and about origin story retellings (gesturing to the reader and including shocking plot twists), but it also asks the important questions about power and responsibility that make Superman stories good.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Slow Horses Season 2
I’ve been looking forward to this since the first season ended. Midway through watching the first season, I’d already begun reading the series, and I may have already finished the second book by the time I saw the trailer for the second series. This season did a great job at making use of the source material while changing and improving things as needed. It’s a fun book series, but I think it’s shaping up to be a better show.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Belonging, by Nora Krug
What a beautiful book! Krug’s story of exploring both what it means to be German and her family’s connection to Nazism is moving, and her multimodal approach—combining text, photos, and drawings—really helps the story come alive. It was sometimes hard to follow all the names and threads, but that’s largely my own fault. I’d been meaning to read this for a while and was pleased to randomly find it on a library shelf.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Bring back personal blogging - The Verge'
Yes, yes, and yes. I don’t know what the future of the social web will look like, but blogs are what it should look like.
link to ‘Bring back personal blogging - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to preserve nonprofit status | Ars Technica'
Mastodon isn’t perfect, but this strikes me as a good sign.
link to ‘Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to preserve nonprofit status | Ars Technica’
quitting scrolling, not just Twitter
Although it’s been a real delight to see so many people joining Mastodon over the past few weeks, I’ve found that there’s also a disadvantage that I hadn’t expected: I’m spending a lot more time scrolling through Mastodon these days than I ever have since setting up my Mastodon accounts.
When I began setting up Mastodon accounts and shifting away from Twitter back in April, I felt like I had made a big leap forward in terms of my online consumption.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Mastodon users embrace columnist's funny error about a fictitious John Mastodon | Boing Boing'
This has been one of the most delightful moments I’ve experienced in my relatively short time on Mastodon. This week has been a good one for Mastodon: Musk’s continued missteps have brought more people, and a meme like this one helps give the fediverse more of a shared culture.
link to ‘Mastodon users embrace columnist’s funny error about a fictitious “John Mastodon” | Boing Boing’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Is Mick Herron the Best Spy Novelist of His Generation? | The New Yorker'
I enjoy Herron’s books, so I enjoyed this article!
link to ‘Is Mick Herron the Best Spy Novelist of His Generation? | The New Yorker’
de petits souvenirs ferroviaires de Suisse
C’est drôle comme de touts petits souvenirs peuvent peser lourds dans sa mémoire. J’ai déjà écrit plusieurs posts à ce sujet, mais cet après-midi, j’ai envie d’en écrire davantage. Je suis en train de faire des corrections pour mon travail comme prof de techologies de l’information et de la communication. J’aime bien ce travail, mais je n’aime pas du tout faire des corrections, et j’ai donc l’habitude de mettre une vidéo « en cabine » pendant que je fais le travail.
microblogvember and the surprising joy of random words
Recently, I was listening to a podcast episode that was touching on deconstruction. It was chiefly concerned with the term as it’s used in religious contexts, but to do so, it was going back to its intellectual roots, with Jacques Derrida and Ferdinand de Saussure. As the host, Jared Byas, summarized the ideas of deconstruction:
we can’t ever escape language and the meaning of language depends on other parts of that language.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Disney+ Releases Complete Version of The Muppet Christmas Carol'
Yessssss! I grew up watching the version with this song and was really confused when I watched it with my kid and the song was missing.
link to ‘Disney+ Releases Complete Version of The Muppet Christmas Carol’
kebab and baklava in Colmar
A few months ago, my father-in-law and two of my brothers-in-law visited Turkey for a week and had a great time. They brought us home an enormous box of Turkish baklava as an edible souvenir, and I spent a lot of September nibbling away at that. It was delicious, and I was really grateful for the gift.
At some point near the end of the box, all of that baklava brought back a memory that I hadn’t thought about for quite some time.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Lego to discontinue Mindstorms robot line after a 24-year run | Ars Technica'
Noooo! I was just blogging about wanting to get into this once my kid’s a bit older!
link to ‘Lego to discontinue Mindstorms robot line after a 24-year run | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Public Transportation – Design Goodiness'
Enilda is great, and I appreciate her thoughts here.
link to ‘Public Transportation – Design Goodiness’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Watch how Peter Howell helped remix the 80s Doctor Who theme'
I love this theme tune, so this video was a delight to watch.
link to ‘Watch how Peter Howell helped remix the 80s Doctor Who theme’
actual play podcasts worth relistening to
Over the past few days, I’ve been relistening to the One Shot podcast’s October 2018 Kids on Bikes episodes (which starts here). There’s so much to love about this six-episode series. I remembered enjoying the characters and the players, but it wasn’t until this morning that I remembered the perfect moment where one player describes the biblical Jacob as “history’s best angel fighter” and summons him to help a science teacher fight off a terrifying seraphim (which I promise makes sense in context).
« Coup de vieux » de Bigflo et Oli
Hier, j’ai regardé pour la première fois le clip de « Coup de vieux » de Bigflo et Oli. C’est une chanson que je connais depuis queques semaines et un groupe que je connais depuis quelques mois, et j’ai beaucoup apprécié le clip :
Je n’ai jamais été un grand amateur du rap, et ça fait donc un peu bizarre de trouver que j’aime tant ce groupe. Pourtant, j’ai beaucoup écouté leur album « La vraie vie » car j’aime bien les paroles de plusieurs chansons sur cet album.
non-appearance on 'The Unlistenable Podcast'
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Lexi Lishinski, a good friend from grad school, to appear on an episode of her podcast The Unlistenable Podcast. To quote the About page for the podcast:
It’s not called that because it has dreadful audio quality, although that may be true. It’s called that because you can’t listen to it, because I’m not going to release the episodes. This solves literally every issue that ever stopped me from recording a podcast.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A tradition ends: Paris says goodbye to iconic paper Metro tickets'
Love the paper tickets, and this makes me sad.
link to ‘A tradition ends: Paris says goodbye to iconic paper Metro tickets’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Not All Bots Are Bad, and Twitter Knows It | WIRED'
This is a good response to Musk’s complaining about bots.
link to ‘Not All Bots Are Bad, and Twitter Knows It | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Sad Clown Joke That Became a Beloved Meme | WIRED'
My optimism about internet culture has been waning for several years, but I still appreciate a deep-dive into how rich and complex a given meme can be.
link to ‘The Sad Clown Joke That Became a Beloved Meme | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Advanced Spellchecker in Chrome and Edge Saves Everything You Type—Even Passwords'
I knew my distrust of spellcheck would be validated one day! Seriously, though, this is bad news.
link to ‘The Advanced Spellchecker in Chrome and Edge Saves Everything You Type—Even Passwords’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Games, Mysteries, and the Lure of QAnon | WIRED'
This isn’t the first article I’ve read comparing Q to an ARG, but I may still send it to my students next semester. I’m also interested in the book this comes from…
link to ‘Games, Mysteries, and the Lure of QAnon | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Belonging: The Potions Master (Book 1, Chapter 8) | Harry Potter and the Sacred Text on Acast'
I am very much here for Matt Potts criticizing Hogwarts for not embracing the humanities and the importance of the humanities.
link to ‘Belonging: The Potions Master (Book 1, Chapter 8) | Harry Potter and the Sacred Text on Acast’
finding awe in MocMoc and other little things
Yesterday, two podcasts that I listened to while doing work around the house lined up in such a perfect way that I wanted to write down my memory of the moment. First, because I was recently reminded of the fantastic podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text (which applies sacred reading techniques to the Harry Potter series, treating it as serious and meaningful without letting it—or its author—off the hook for being problematic), I’ve been trying to catch up with its second runthrough of the book series, in the perhaps-vain hope that I can start listening to episodes as they come out.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Why Race Is Still A Problem In Dungeons & Dragons'
Good article on an important subject. I may have to assign this to my students next semester!
link to ‘Why Race Is Still A Problem In Dungeons & Dragons’
apprendre (enfin) les paroles des chansons franco-canadiennes
J’ai commencé à écouter la musique francophone il y a onze ans. Avant ça, j’avais quelques albums (Caféine de Christophe Willem et la bande originale de Le Roi Soleil), et je connaissais Serge Gainsbourg, mais selon mes souvenirs, j’ai du attendre janvier 2011 pour me foncer vraiment dans la musique en français.
En ce temps, je commençais un poste comme « instructeur étudiant » du français à l’université où je faisais mes propres études.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'With 'What If? 2', Randall Munroe Is Back to Answer Your Impossible Questions | WIRED'
I loved the original book and hope to pick up the second. This was a good interview on how surprisingly many important things this kind of weird project overlaps with.
link to ‘With ‘What If? 2’, Randall Munroe Is Back to Answer Your Impossible Questions | WIRED’
Wil Wheaton on general purpose computing
I am very near the end of Wil Wheaton’s updated/annotated memoir Still Just a Geek, which I bought over the summer on a short family trip. I have lots of thoughts—most of them positive—about the memoir and may write a bit more about it once I finally finish. For now, though, since I wrote last week complaining about companies like Apple and ClassDojo restricting hardware and software to support their bottom line at the expense of users, I was struck by a short passage Wheaton included making a case for general purpose computing:
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s 'high five' photos'
This is a cute story—hat tip to Boing Boing for recommending it.
[link to ‘The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s ‘high five’ photos’](https://www.inputmag.com/culture/wikipedia-high-five-too-slow-photos-mystery-couple-solved?mc_cid=9a3b4e96f5
pourquoi le français ?
Hier soir, juste avant de me coucher, quelqu’un a posé une question sur r/French: Pourquoi les non-Francophones choisissent-ils d’apprendre le français ?
J’ai vu la question peu après qu’elle a été posée, et j’ai dit la vérité : On m’avait offert le choix entre les cours de français et les cours d’espagnol. Il y avait plus de monde qui voulaient étudier l’espagnol, et j’avais envie de contrarier. J’ai donc choisi le français comme acte de rébellion.
Apple and artificial restrictions on file syncing
A week ago today, my MacBook Pro suddenly stopped being able to communicate with its SSD. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I spent most of my Tuesday afternoon wiping everything from the drive and reinstalling macOS so that I could get back to work. While I haven’t kept a physical backup for a couple of years (I accidentally fried mine when moving back into my campus office in Fall 2020), I have all of my most important documents scattered between three cloud services, so this wasn’t too painful of a process.
musical references in TMBG discography
Thanks to a recommendation from Boing Boing, I’ve spent part of this afternoon watching this amazing video cataloging “Every Music Reference & Sample in They Might Be Giants Songs”:
Flood was one of the first albums I ever owned (I think it was beat by the deluxe soundtrack for Star Wars: A New Hope, but not by much), and while I don’t listen to TMBG as often as I ought to, videos like these remind me how much I love the band.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'NASA delays launch of its massive SLS rocket amid engine issue - The Verge'
Sad news. I had the livestream up and was hoping to watch the launch before going into the office today.
link to ‘NASA delays launch of its massive SLS rocket amid engine issue - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Jefferson St: Villain themed bar, restaurant, game club open | Lexington Herald Leader'
Looks like a fun local gaming pub.
link to ‘Jefferson St: Villain themed bar, restaurant, game club open | Lexington Herald Leader’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'M.T. Anderson’s 'Feed' Remains Frustratingly Prescient | WIRED'
I read Feed in high school and found it interesting, but when I read it again in 2019, it was amazing. This review gets at why the book is so good—and important. Maybe it’s time for me to visit it again.
link to ‘M.T. Anderson’s ‘Feed’ Remains Frustratingly Prescient | WIRED’
mon grand amour pour les noms des villes en Alsace
J’aime beaucoup la radio numérique, surtout parce que j’ai la possibilité d’écouter des chaînes radio francophones. Parmi mes chaînes préférées se trouve DKL Dreyeckland, une chaîne alsatienne. J’aime bien la musique, mais ce que j’aime surtout, ce sont les pubs. Normalement, je supporte pas la publicité dans mes médias, mais je fais une exception pour les pubs en français, parce que ça me permet d’apprendre un langage que je n’ai jamais appris dans un cours lycéen ou universitaire.
distant villages turned metro stops
Twelve years ago, I spent a summer in Geneva completing an internship at the NGO Geneva Call ( « Appel de Genève » ). Being the bookworm that I am, I naturally grabbed a few books to bring with me. I know that I read through Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar that summer—I had just started using Ubuntu and was wildly (over)optimistic about the ideals of open source.
schools' Acceptable Use Policies and R. Sikoryak's 'Terms and Conditions'
Kiddo starts at a new school on Wednesday, and I’ve been putting off signing the Acceptable Use Policy and Chromebook Policy because I want to read them carefully. I don’t know how much I can do about anything that I’m really concerned with, but I’m a tech researcher when I’m not being kiddo’s dad, so I feel an obligation to be informed and raise a fuss when something is fussworthy.
easy campaign prep for tabletop RPGs
This summer has been a good one for getting back into tabletop roleplaying. I played a lot of the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG in middle and high school and have been spending most of my life since then wishing that I were still that involved with RPGs. I’ve compensated some by listening to actual play podcast: Total Party Kill rotates through several great D&D campaigns, the original Fantasy Flight Star Wars run of Campaign is so good that I’m listening to it a second time, and Penny Arcade’s Tales from the Loop campaign blew my mind when I listened to it a few months ago.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Sylvester Stallone is a grizzled, disillusioned superhero in Samaritan trailer | Ars Technica'
I was worried this was going to be a gritty take on Astro City, but now I’m just mad they took the name of my favorite superhero for a different story.
link to ‘Sylvester Stallone is a grizzled, disillusioned superhero in Samaritan trailer | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'America Aspires to One Day in the Far Future Build Rail Service Worse Than It Was in the 1940s'
Wild article. We once knew how to do trains, so why can’t we figure it out better now?
link to ‘America Aspires to One Day in the Far Future Build Rail Service Worse Than It Was in the 1940s’
un petit souvenir de Dijon
J’ai déjà écrit cette semaine sur mon amour pour Dijon, et c’est peut-être pour ça qu’un souvenir précis me vient à l’esprit ce matin.
Quand je vivais à Dijon, je n’avais pas d’ordinateur et ce n’était pas encore l’âge de l’ordiphone. J’allais donc chez un cybercafé toutes les semaines pour écrire des courriels à ma famille et à des amis. Le cybercafé que je fréquentais s’appellait Cyberbisey, justement parce que c’était un cybercafé sur la rue Berbisey (ce n’était qu’après plusieurs semaines que j’ai compris la blague).
découverte de deux chaînes YouTube
Ça fait quelques années que mon frère regarde la chaîne YouTube Not Just Bikes, qui parle des vélos, des transports publics, et de l’infrastructure qui les soutient (où pas). Il m’en parle assez souvent, mais ce n’est que récemment que j’ai enfin décidé de regarder quelques vidéos. Vu mon amour pour les sujets abordés dans les vidéos (les vélos, les transports publics, l’Europe), ça m’étonne que je n’ai pas découvert cette chaîne avant.
some scattered thoughts on Superman
When I was in college, I ran into a friend on my way to a professor’s office hours. He saw that I had a copy of Superman for All Seasons with me and gave me a hard time about it—he was much more of a Marvel fan than a DC fan (these were the days when this was primarily a reference to comics, not sprawling cinematic universes) and just didn’t get the appeal of Superman—how could you do anything interesting with a character that powerful?
booking tickets for American high-speed(?) rail
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.
some Hypothesis (and other) updates for the blog
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.
automation, agency, and « Au service de la France »
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.
embedding Hypothesis as a commenting system on Hugo static sites
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.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'This PC orchestra, built from 512 floppy disk drives, is wondrous to hear and behold - The Verge'
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’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Ms. Marvel review: Kamala Khan’s new series feels like the MCU’s future - The Verge'
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’
émission sur le LEB
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.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Ted Lasso season 3 might be the show’s final one - The Verge'
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’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'You’ll soon be able to use an iPhone as a Mac webcam - 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’
to anyone subscribed to this blog by RSS
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.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Is a Mashup of the Things That Make Up Star Wars'
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’
XIII comic reference in Slow Horses series?
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…
small radio delights, everday cultural artifacts, and other thoughts on audio media
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.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'For All Mankind sets its alternate timeline sights on Mars in S3 trailer | Ars Technica'
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’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '30,000 New Users Signed Up for Mastodon After Elon Musk Bought Twitter'
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’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Sometimes in order to reconnect, you have to disconnect – Design Goodiness'
Between Enilda here and Josh Rosenberg’s recent decision to do something similar, I feel that I have a lot to learn from and think about.
link to ‘Sometimes in order to reconnect, you have to disconnect – Design Goodiness’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Marvel Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Podcast Milana Vayntrub Ryan North'
Great news for a tough Monday! This is one of my favorite comics, I love podcasts, and North is writing scripts. Perfect combination.
link to ‘Marvel Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Podcast Milana Vayntrub Ryan North’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A social media reset | Joshua M. Rosenberg, Ph.D.'
Admire what Josh is doing here. I’ve been rethinking my own social media presence recently and want to take some cues here.
link to ‘A social media reset | Joshua M. Rosenberg, Ph.D.’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'NFTs Are Here To Ruin Dungeons & Dragons'
Hard to think of a worse use of the OGL than this. I’m already grumpy about NFTs, but this is making me mad.
link to ‘NFTs Are Here To Ruin Dungeons & Dragons’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Stromae’s Music Delves Into Dark Topics. His Return Is Right on Time. - The New York Times'
Pleased to see Stromae reviewed in the NYT—by someone who liveblogged Eurovision no less. Will be listening all afternoon, I’m sure.
link to ‘Stromae’s Music Delves Into Dark Topics. His Return Is Right on Time. - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Tabletop Designers Rally to Support Trans Kids in Texas'
Shut up and take my money! This is why itch is one of my favorite game-related places on the internet.
link to ‘Tabletop Designers Rally to Support Trans Kids in Texas’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Super Philosophers - Existential Comics'
The last panel is the real gem here.
link to ‘Super Philosophers - Existential Comics’
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'How Board Games Handle Slavery'
Came across this while explaining Puerto Rico to my games and learning class. I love board games, but we have to critically evaluate them just like any other medium.
link to ‘How Board Games Handle Slavery’
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Belgium's new passport features comic faves | Boing Boing'
Anyone know an easy way to get Belgian citizenship?
[link to ‘Belgium’s new passport features comic faves | Boing Boing’](https://boingboing.net/2022/01/27/belgiums-new-passport-features-comic-faves.html?utm_source=rss
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Netflix Reveals New Wallace & Gromit Movie, Chicken Run 2 Cast'
More Wallace and Gromit is always welcome.
link to ‘Netflix Reveals New Wallace & Gromit Movie, Chicken Run 2 Cast’
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'People spent 15 hours roleplaying a McDonald’s drive-thru on Twitter Spaces - The Verge'
The internet is dumb but sometimes in an amazing way.
link to ‘People spent 15 hours roleplaying a McDonald’s drive-thru on Twitter Spaces - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Amazon is retiring Alexa — no, not that one - The Verge'
Why shut down Alexa rankings???
link to ‘Amazon is retiring Alexa — no, not that one - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Taika Waititi to adapt The Incal for the screen | Boing Boing'
Taika Waititi is doing a movie based on a Franco-Belgian comic, and I am very excited. I haven’t read this series, but it’s time to fix that.
[link to ‘Taika Waititi to adapt The Incal for the screen | Boing Boing’](https://boingboing.net/2021/11/04/taika-waititi-to-adapt-the-incal-for-the-screen.html?utm_source=rss
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Bugs Bunny's Official D&D Character Sheet Is A 15th-level Illusionist | Boing Boing'
A fun article that reminds me of my plans to create a Cleric of Trickery based on George Smiley for an upcoming 5e campaign.
link to ‘Bugs Bunny’s Official D&D Character Sheet Is A 15th-level Illusionist | Boing Boing’
🔗 linkblog: just read '42 years later, how 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' has endured : NPR'
Posting this for hoopy froods to read.
link to ‘42 years later, how ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ has endured : NPR’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'A squeaky glove compartment accidentally sounds like light jazz | Boing Boing'
This delights me to no end.
link to ‘A squeaky glove compartment accidentally sounds like light jazz | Boing Boing’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Shang Chi Director: American Born Chinese Series for Disney+'
Tentatively excited! Such a great comic—they’d better do it justice.
link to ‘Shang Chi Director: American Born Chinese Series for Disney+’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'The Melting Face Emoji Has Already Won Us Over - The New York Times'
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’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'The train that shrunk France… and Europe | Ars Technica'
TGV forever
link to ‘The train that shrunk France… and Europe | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Y: The Last Man's Collapsing Infrastructure Scariest Part'
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’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'This chainless drive system could revolutionize e-bike designs - The Verge'
Keeping an eye on this! E-bikes are exciting.
link to ‘This chainless drive system could revolutionize e-bike designs - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Anne Hidalgo demande aux cyclistes de ne pas dépasser les automobilistes pour éviter de les humilier'
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’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'There's merch for long-time nuclear waste warning messages | Boing Boing'
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
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Long-time nuclear waste warning messages - Wikipedia'
This is an unexpectedly fascinating Wikipedia article.
link to ‘Long-time nuclear waste warning messages - Wikipedia’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Un manuel transfrontalier pour raconter l'histoire du Grand Genève - rts.ch - Genève'
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.
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Beauty Surge, a new short story by Laura Maylene Walter.'
Very interesting speculative fiction.
link to ‘Beauty Surge, a new short story by Laura Maylene Walter.’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'Ariol, vingt ans d'un héros de la bande dessinée jeunesse'
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’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'How a French Novelist Turns the Tables on History - The New York Times'
Adding this to my to-read list.
link to ‘How a French Novelist Turns the Tables on History - The New York Times’
🔗 linkblog: just read 'trains are people'
I have been enjoying these posts from a Micro.blog user documenting his cross-countey Amtrak travels.
link to trains are people
🔗 linkblog: just read 'How Teenagers Are Rediscovering An Old Game About Authoritarianism | by Clive Thompson | Aug, 2021 | OneZero'
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
some COVID Thanksgiving thoughts
Weird Thanksgiving. 1st since 2008 w/o family (b/c COVID) and 1st since 2013 w/o a morning run (b/c return of chronic back issues). Still so much to be grateful for—but also conscious this year how much “being thankful” isn’t quite enough. It helps me better appreciate what I have but doesn’t change what others lack. I could stand to do better with the former, but I have much more work to do for the latter.