Rascals (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 7) Transporter glitch tween-ifies Picard, Ro, Guinan and Keiko
Rewatching ST:TNG A glowing Space Thing causes the transporter to revert Picard, Guinan, Ro and Keiko into 12-year-olds, with their adult memories intact. The four child actors do a fantastic job channeling the personalities of characters we already know well. Tween Picard tries to carry on giving orders as usual, and contemplates returning to the…
Schisms (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 5)
Rewatching ST:TNG Riker is having trouble sleeping, except during Data’s poetry recitation. (“O Spot! The complex levels of behavior you display / Connote a fairly well developed cognitive array.”) As the ship faces a labor-intensive task of charting the Space Thing of the Week, LaForge has made some adjustments to the deflector grid. Riker’s dozing…
In November 2001 I was blogging about
In November 2001, I was blogging about Florida recounts would have favored Bush (contentions election famous for a Florida ballot that many voters found confusing) Is this a burger which I see before me, / The soft bun in my hand? Come, et me clutch thee. / I eat thee not, and yet I want…
Students Don’t Read Syllabi, Exhibit 58623
https://twitter.com/ConnorMEwing/status/1469369756138590209/photo/1
After some long-delayed recabling, these are the bits I culled from my work setup.
Axios journalism style delivers traditional news content in scannable format
In addition to the fact that it’s good news that a federal judge is responding rationally to science, logic, and our basic human obligation to care for the most vulnerable members of our society, I’m also interested in the way Axios labels each paragraph of this news story and supplies details with bullet points. It’s…
Students who grew up with search engines might change STEM education forever
The headline is oddly STEM-specific, but yes, it used to be that if you worked with computers at all, you had to understand your computer’s file directory structure, so all college instructors could expect that their STEM majors had probably learned this concept as part of their earliest computer training. But the “search” function on…
Hear That? It’s Your Voice Being Taken for Profit.
Why do tech companies give us these cool free digital voice assistants? (Hint: If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product being sold.) Because of recent major advances in natural language processing and machine learning, individuals will soon be able to speak conversationally not just to their phone assistant or smart speaker but to…
Many things in the world are awful, but my latest #Blender3D work on my #steampunk control panel brought me great joy over the weekend
One of many steampunk control panels I’ve designed for pleasure.
My new inspiration as I work on my syllabuses
I applaud you, person who, halfway through the job, asked, “Why am I drilling these handrails directly into the sidewalk when I can just stick them into the ground?”
“Link In Bio” is a slow knife
We don’t even notice it anymore — “link in bio”. It’s a pithy phrase, usually found on Instagram, which directs an audience to be aware that a pertinent web link can be found on that user’s profile. […] For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can…
A Successful Failure: The TI-99/4A Turns 40
My family had one of these when I was 12 or 13. The games I remember include a Pac-Man clone called “Munchman,” but I think I remember learning BASIC, blocky computer graphics, word-processing, and using a speech-synthesizer. The TI-99/4A was a great computer to learn on. I remember making a Star Trek combat simulator (based…
In February, 2001, I was blogging about computer nostalgia, Napster, a horror typing game, usability, and web blurbs.
In February, 2001, I was blogging about Computer nostalgia and text adventure games.“Walking into a room rendered in the Q3 engine can be lovely and impressive, but when you’ve only 16K to tell a story, you have to rely on the gamer’s imagination to provide the details. Just the words ‘you are on a beach’…
Texas lawyer trapped by cat filter on Zoom call, informs judge he is not a cat
A Texas lawyer accidentally left a kitten filter on during a video conference call with a judge and was unable to change it, eventually responding to a judge’s query about why he was being addressed by a digital feline by saying: “I’m here live. I am not a cat.” Later, the judge wrote: “These fun…
Figured out how to configure my iPad as an external monitor for my laptop. Much more efficient when working between errands at the mall. Ready for Spring 2021. (Finally!)
My son just handed me my serving of noodles in the butter substitute container. Recycling.
The Myth of North America, in One Painting
Fascinating art history — a thoughtful close reading of a painting. Great example of multimodal journalism. The clouds are heavy and black. A grim day for fighting. In the air is the smell of damp, and mortar fire. It’s a little after 10 a.m. on Sept. 13, 1759. The battle is almost over. In the…
Cursor*10
Great free Flash game, emulated at the Internet Archive.
In November 2000, I was blogging about the US Presidential election, mirrors, Arts & Letters Daily, and more
In November 2000, I was blogging about Ursula K. Le Guin Why we perceive mirrors reversing things left/right but not up/down Pioneering blog Arts & Letters Daily (just a year older than my own blog) Nick Montfort’s constrained poem “Upper Typewriter Row“ The 2000 US Presidential Election controversy (ballot design, hanging chads, recounts, political cartoons)…