Hier soir, j’ai rêvé d’une France post-apocalyptique où les Parisiens ne reconnaissaient plus les noms des villes « en province ». Juste avant de me réveiller, je partais à pied explorer un pays oublié et enneigé.

I’d love to complete a seminary degree one day, but I’m also having to convert the ten hours of video lectures for the non-credit church class I’m taking to audio so I can squeeze them in at 2x speed while I do dishes, so I doubt I’ll get to that part of my bucket list anytime soon.

English speakers who insist on pronouncing “coup de grâce” without the final /s/ sound are actually saying “coup de gras,” which evokes pelting someone with a lump of fat.

Après un vélotaf sous la pluie, une tisane à la réglisse fait beaucoup de bien.

Le vélotaf exige de l’effort—surtout quand l’ascenseur est en panne au bureau et on doit monter son vélo électrique au 2ème étage par l’escalier.

Kiddo has gotten really into this series of books focused on coding concepts (which I have mixed feelings about, but at least they’re by Gene Luen Yang) and that led to the adorable moment of her trying to pronounce ifelse as though it were a word unto itself.

I kind of suck at most home maintenance/repair tasks, so I like to ask my dad for help when he’s in town. Either he knows what to do, and we take care of it, or he doesn’t know either, and I feel more like I can be a successful adult despite my lack of skill in this area.

ClassDojo sent me an automated “see how this week went!” email today even though school hasn’t been in session all week, and I feel like that’s telling.

I mean this as a general observation and not generational handwringing, but it’s amazing how many cues my students take from YouTubers when recording video presentations for my class.

It’s a Chromebook-heavy “non-traditional instruction” snow day for kiddo today, and I’m having a lot of thoughts about Larry Cuban and that recent UNESCO report about emergency remote teaching during the COVID shutdowns.

I know that the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie isn’t actually good, but there are bits of it I like, not least the “Zaphod Beeblebrox for President” track on the soundtrack.

In our family this January, severe weather means checking three different schools’ responses before figuring out what our day looks like. Today’s combination of decisions has worked out, but we’ll see how the rest of the week turns out.

On one hand, doing replacing snow days with “non-traditional instruction” feels performative and inequitable, and I don’t think I like it. On the other, if kiddo isn’t going to have school tomorrow, I don’t necessarily mind her having things to keep her occupied while I do some work.

TNG episode where Picard realizes that all voice interactions with the Enterprise’s computer are being sent to servers in Cupertino to be processed there; and that Future!Apple employees listen in on some for quality control.

I like peer reviewing manuscripts that cite my work, and I especially like correcting manuscripts that misunderstand my work, but my favorite is reviewing a manuscript that gives my work too much credit so that I can say “hey, this guy doesn’t know as much as you think he does.”

I have lots of concerns about LLM training, but I think it’s better to think of the issue in terms of digital labor, not copyright. My blog is licensed for reuse, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less exploitative for someone to scrape it all to develop software that will make them rich off my work.

I have unexpectedly hit a point in my life where I associate the voice of Alec Guinness with George Smiley instead of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I didn’t learn to swear until I was in my 30s, so I have a lingering suspicion that I wind up sounding like Captain Kirk in Star Trek IV.

Normalement, je me débrouille assez bien en français, mais quand il s’agit d’une conversation au téléphone, j’ai vraiment du mal !

One of my favorite perks of academia is finding a personally interesting book through the university library.

Two minutes into her first experience with a main-series Pokémon game, kiddo realized she could name her rival “Chicken,” so I’d say we’re off too a good start.

It’s that time of year where I have a text editor open alongside Canvas so that I can strip out all the extra HTML tags that LMSs like to add to my content.

It’s been a feature for ages, so I feel silly that I’m only now beginning to appreciate the ability to take Markdown notes in Things 3 tasks and projects.

My department has a copyright class on the books that’s never been taught—even when I offered to take it on after being hired. I understand why that offer wasn’t taken up, but I can’t help but think about all I could do in that class with Mickey Mouse this semester.

I don’t understand why Buc-ee’s has such a following. Every time I enter one, I feel like I’ve entered my personal hell.

Update: Kiddo’s learning binary led to bedtime stories being partially replaced by a discussion on how number systems work, binary and hex, and how Daddy used to pass notes encoded in base 3 to his best friend in middle school.

Kiddo surprised me today by learning how to count in binary from a library book. I’d checked out the book for her, but I wasn’t expecting such an immediate pay off. I’m skeptical of the “kids gotta learn CS” agenda, but I’m also proud of her when she does.

Shoutout to the girl who made an impromptu gift of a McNugget Buddy to my kid at tonight’s Christmas potluck. Didn’t even know those were a thing until kiddo became a recipient of one, but it was a cool thing to do.

I may run a one-shot for my siblings over the holidays and need to decide on system. I like the simplicity of Lasers and Feelings but also the improvisational collaboration of Ironsworn: Starforged. Wondering if I could hack them together…

I was invited this week to give a sermon in January for an online congregation from Toronto. Last time I preached there, I referenced a story from Astro City and got told in a YouTube comment that mixing comics and the Bible was bad taste. Tempted to double down in January, but that would be petty.

A while ago, a mental health counselor suggested I leave headphones behind while running and treat it as a mindfulness exercise, too. That’s been genuinely helpful, but it’s so darn cold this morning that if I don’t motivate myself with an actual play podcast, I won’t make it past the front door.

I love knowing that there’s a webcomic-to-children’s-book IP pipeline out there. Gives me some hope for humanity.

Kiddo’s grade is learning about how “other countries celebrate the holidays,” but I’m afraid the result will be reinforcing US Christian supremacy. Framing Hanukkah as Israeli suggests that it is foreign to the US, no? I also worry that there will be a class assigned to do Kwanzaa “from Africa.”

Kiddo learned what a bulletin board is from Stardew Valley’s quest mechanic and made one out of construction paper for asking for help with things around the house.

My rule is that if it’s a personal project, but I learn some regex and bookdown along the way, it still counts as professional development.

Cher.ère.s francophones, je n’ai rien contre vos emprunts de nos mots anglais (nous-mêmes, on a souvent emprunté des mots français). Pourtant, je ne comprendrai jamais pourquoi vous avez transformé notre “walkie talkie” en « talkie-walkie ».