Kiddo got excited when the number 67 came up in the D&D actual play podcast we’re listening to. I thought at first that it was a “six seven” joke, but it turns out she liked that it sounded like 6d7.

It is very strange to go back and read Shortpacked after a couple of years of reading Dumbing of Age, and now I wonder how people felt doing things in the opposite order.

One consequence of tracking my reading over the past few years is seeing which authors and artists I read most—and realizing that the list is dominated by white dudes. Need to make a deliberate effort to diversify my reading.

A faculty candidate visit for tomorrow just got moved 100% virtual, and while this sucks for all of us in so many ways, it also means I don’t have to clean out my car for fear of being embarrassed by the mess when giving the candidate a ride.

Kiddo has decided that she can get away with ignoring requests so long as it’s because she’s reading something. The most annoying part of it is that she’s right that we’ll grant a lot of latitude for that in particular.

Kiddo was asking me questions about the manuscript I was writing, that got us talking about science fairs, and then she basically reasoned her way into the idea of a meta-analysis.

Thinking about how 90% of what I post to social media is links back to my blog and how that’s probably not great for attracting followers but also it’s exactly what I want.

There are scenes in Superman 2025 that are very, very funny if you have spent time at the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Kiddo objected to my using the word “enshittification” in a family conversation just now—not because it contains a swear, but because it was too complicated a vocabulary word.

Me, a weakling who has just started doing regular 6-12 minute bodyweight workouts: “Ah, yes, now I too understand why people talk about ’leg day.'”

Months ago, I submitted a paper to a CFP outside my area—and immediately wrote my co-author a list of what I thought probably still needed fixing. Reviews came back today with both reviewers recommending “ready for publication.” Academic writing is unpredictable, but I’ll take it in this case.

I did not expect Walter Brueggemann’s writing to remind me of anarchism, but I think what has appealed to me in anarchist writing is what I would eventually find in Brueggemann.

Finally realizing that I accidentally removed my site’s commenting overlay a few months ago and getting it back up. 🙃

Il y a des jours où c’est bien pénible, le vélotaf, mais aujourd’hui, c’était le premier vélotaf de 2026, et j’en étais bien content.

Wrapping up a one-way car rental and once again bemoaning the lack of rail infrastructure in this country.

One of my political science professors in undergrad studied Chavista populism in Venezuela and, with the rise of figures like Sarah Palin, was considering pivoting to populism in the US when I TAed for him. Anyway, wondering what’s going through his head this morning.

Family TTRPG session ended with the players using blackmail to become part owners of the in-universe famous restaurant whose owners gave them their initial quest. Feels like success.

I genuinely think I’ve hiccuped more this weekend than in the preceding decade. It sucks, and I’m starting to wonder what minor deity I’ve offended.

The thrill I feel at wrapping up grading has been immediately destroyed by the email from my Kentucky state rep reflecting on the theological significance of Christmas. C’mon dude, at least pretend to separate church and state.

Kiddo learned an effective “stop hiccuping” technique from a podcast months ago, but tonight was my first bout of hiccups since then, and I was skeptical. Well, it turned out that it worked, and now she’s really smug about it.

In the ~2 months since The Verge launched ad-free podcasts for subscribers, I’ve listened to more of their audio content than in all the years that I’d been reading them previously.

Reading about Apple’s manufacturing practices and thinking about Fairphones again.

Woke up this morning from a dream about curriculum redesign. How’s your end of semester going?

Today, on the last day of class, a student shared some of their ongoing efforts to mess with local Flock cameras and develop makeup patterns to defeat facial recognition. It was like realizing I’d had a Cory Doctorow character in class all semester, and it brought me joy and hope.

Because I only use Mastodon as an extension of a POSSE setup, I missed the rollout of quote posts, but I’m thrilled that (as I expected) they’re a simple syntax translated by the Masto software into a specific presentation. Means that I can probably build it into a POSSE workflow somehow.