Kiddo enjoys sending me messages encrypted in runes, and I enjoy brute forcing an interpretation like that scene in Cryptonomicon.

On vient d’annoncer que l’ascenseur au travail sera en panne toute la semaine prochaine. Il faudra que je réfléchisse sur les conséquences pour mon vélotaf.

As far as I can remember, EVERY situation in which I’ve experienced multiple “Spencers” in a group and we’ve had to distinguish ourselves from each other has been in a Mormon-adjacent context. (“Greenhalgh” is also a disproportionately Mormon name, but that has fewer practical consequences.)

“My anxiety is really high; taking some time off during spring break would be the healthy thing to do.” vs. “Not using spring break to get caught up is making me anxious about work I feel behind on.”

I REALLY like “Take on Me,” but I can’t watch the music video without complaining that comic books don’t look like that (except maybe the low-quality first Tintin album, but even then, not really).

So, it turns out that spending time with Jacques Ellul’s mid-20th century critiques of systematization, abstraction, “productivity,” and “efficiency” does NOT make it any easier to write letters evaluating colleagues’ progress toward tenure.

This afternoon was going pretty well until I totally spaced on kiddo’s orthodontist appointment. 😬

This weekend, I read some Star Trek comics, did some cool stuff in Kerbal Space Program, and bought a new tin of my favorite chocolate mint tea. It’s exactly what I needed to let my mind relax for a bit.

I think I’ve finally finished all of my Hugo taxonomy-and-template side projects. Time to write up a summary post and then find something else to do as productive procrastination.

This is the kind of week where I really needed a Friday morning runner’s high, so thank goodness for that.

Okay, also: In the ranking of Khans, Cumberbatch is way down at the bottom, and Montalbán should be clearly at the top, but this Lower Decks!Khan is at least a close second… and might even be my favorite?

C’mon Daylight Savings, read the room.

Nothing like a windy day for a “don’t get blown into traffic” bike commute home.

This is mostly because I grew up in Northern Kentucky, but my favorite Lower Decks throwaway joke so far is the idea of an adopted Orion growing up in Cincinnati.

Does anyone out there have experience with Tannus tire armor on an ebike? My local shop is recommending it, but I don’t know if it’s good advice or if I’m being upsold.

Kiddo accidentally emotionally traumatized a giant shrimp in her first D&D session this afternoon, and I honestly think that’s a great introduction to the game.

I’ve had many good church experiences in my life, but today’s listening over Zoom to a former pastor give her sermon calling out billionaires by name while filling in the last few details on kiddo’s D&D character sheet ranks hiiiiigh.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve seen two different CFPs that apply perfectly to a paper I wrote and then abandoned after a rejection and a paper I’ve wanted to write but had no good reason to. This may be what gets me back into a research groove this semester.

The guy who runs Kentucky high school speech and debate found my name somewhere, remembered me from when I was a student at those competitions, and invited me to help judge a state championship next month. I am dangerously close to Nerd!Uncle Rico territory right now.

Dentist’s office tried to get me to sign away my health data for AI training, but at least I got to talk Astérix with the German dentist and hygenist.

One day, I will develop some more normal hobbies. In the meantime, I’m quite pleased with the custom Hugo templates and taxonomies I’ve built to make my book reviews be a bit more like what I imagine Goodreads would be like.

Verdict on new lobster claw bike gloves: Much better than my older winter gloves (I don’t have to warm my hands under water after getting to office), but the tips of my fingers still feel the cold. I must just have really bad circulation.

My office neighbor is starting a “department and friends” campaign, I asked if there was an age limit, and that’s how kiddo is joining her first D&D game later this month.

I feel like half of ClassDojo’s business model is “let’s prey on parental anxiety.”

I’ll say this much: A snow day is a heck of a lot easier when the university (i.e., mom and dad’s employer) also cancels for the day.

Been waiting for this email all day: the University of Kentucky estimates that the NIH limits on indirect funding, if maintained, would cost us $40 million over the next year.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, what an uncaring dad I have!”

Me, all of December: “Next semester, I have a course release and a once-a-week evening class. I’m going to get so much research done during the day!” Me, on February 7th: “Wow, it’s great to finally be getting to research this semester.”

(Now that I think about it, scanning for digits in a wall of tea tin text is like the brain’s natural regex, and I think that’s beautiful.)

Tea steeping times should always be printed in digits (“4 minutes” not “four minutes”) so that I can scan for digits on the tin instead of having to read through words.

Today is “getting siblings and parents on Signal” day.

Love to be living in a world where a blog I read for tech commentary—and that is more reserved than I would be on a lot of that commentary—is running articles describing current goings-on as “a coup in progress.”

It’s obviously not the most worrying thing about it, but a very specific tragedy about Musk’s DOGE nonsense is that it may end up being the largest (indirect) influence Homestar Runner has had on the world.

Some Bluesky posts are reminding me of what I wrote about how my LDS mission sometimes played fast and loose with immigration documents: https://spencergreenhalgh.com/communities/the-missionary-with-the-expired-visa/

If current events continue to echo the Twitter takeover, we’re about a year out from Elon Musk telling a gathering of world leaders to go fuck themselves for not supporting his agenda.

“Someday My [Chance To Sleep Deeply for An Indefinitely Long Time] Will Come”