Anecdotal evidence reliable? One man says “yes”.

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It’s not just you — we are all more forgetful during the pandemic, experts say. Here’s how to fix it

Pandemic living can make it much more difficult to form a memory at all, let alone call it back when we need it, said Yassa, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. “Sometimes we’re a little bit harder on ourselves. We think, ‘Oh, how…

The #Blender3D #eevee denoising filter gives off a pretty amazing Caldecott prize-winning illustration effect.

The filter won’t replace real hand-drawn art, but the imperfections give some life to a CGI scene. Similar:I wish I could credit the designer. This is brilliant.PersonalThe Abomination of Ebooks: They Price People Out of Reading Random House, which jacked up its eboo…BooksI'm enjoying "William Shakespeare's Star Wars" more than I expectedI didn’t expect a…

In February, 2002, I was blogging about…

In February, 2002, I was blogging about Robert E. McElwaine was a conspiracy theorist who had a habit of spamming multiple newsgroups with his political, religious, and social ideas. He used an account at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, and was very active until around the time I started teaching at that school. Animator…

Timescape (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 25) Time bubble aliens lay eggs in Romulan warbird’s artificial black hole, apparently

Rewatching ST:TNG Picard, Data, Troi and LaForge are lounging in the back section of a runabout (seen only in this episode), reflecting on a conference they just attended, when they start running into pockets of space where time moves at different rates. They find the Enterprise-D and a Romulan Warbird frozen in time, apparently in…

In January, 2002 I was blogging about…

A 20-something former CEO takes a fast food job The death of Astrid Lindgren (creator of Pippi Longstocking) at 94 Isadore, patron saint of web surfing (who remembers when “surfing the web” was the dominant metaphor?) Teenager created a glove to translate ASL finger positions to speech On the implausibility of the Death Star’s trash…

Space:1999 design aesthetic merged detailed miniatures with curvy Euro-futurist interior design

Clearly influenced by Kubrick’s 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 1975-1977 British TV show Space:1999 features our protagonist riding a gleaming off-white almost empty shuttle to a gleaming off-white space station and then on to a gleaming off-white moonbase. A delightfully consistent design ethic created a seamless connection between the sets where the actors…

Recording my lines for a student escape room project.

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Rightful Heir (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 23) Worf’s quest for the return of a fabled Klingon threatens the Klingon Empire’s status quo

Rewatching ST:TNG Worf is uncharacteristically late for a shift because he was distracted by a ritual to invoke the fabled warrior Kahless. He tells Picard that since meeting the young Klingons who grew up with no knowledge of their heritage (s6e16&17 “Birthright“), he has felt “empty,” and feels the need to test his faith. Picard…

In one small prairie town, two warring visions of America

Great writing and great photography in this story about a small Minnesota town where conservative Lutheran pastor Jason Wolter denies that COVID-19 vaccines work. “You’re lying to people,” he says, “You flat-out lie about things.” Wolter is speaking of Reed Anfinson, his next-door neighbor, who is the editor of the Swift County Monitor-News, “[a] contemplative man…

The eagles in Lord of the Rings are a plot hole, but also an us problem

Part of my enjoyment of genre franchises is looking for and appreciating continuity. The other side of that coin is, of course, pointing out continuity gaps. But a plot hole is just a plot hole, and means nothing without context. A logical inconsistency in a tense psychological courtroom drama would be more serious than a…

Finland’s Museum of Contemporary Emotions

A history of the beginning of the pandemic, oragnized around emotions. More recently, the Museum of Contemporary Emotions—a project of the Finnish government’s Finland Forward pandemic communications initiative—picked up Ekman’s work as its scaffolding. The Museum, really an interactive website, is a kind of digital archive of experience during the Covid-19 pandemic, styled with the sans-serif…

Suspicions (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 22) Crusher narrates murder-mystery flashbacks

Rewatching ST:TNG A defeated-looking Crusher tells Guinan her career is over, and, film-noir style, narrates how “it all started when…” After meeting a Ferengi scientist at a conference, Crusher invites him to the Enterprise-D to demonstrate his unorthodox technobabble technology. Only four scientists accepted Crusher’s invitation to witness the demonstration — a Klingon (not much…

The Chase (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 20) Planet-hopping archaeological DNA mystery

Rewatching ST:TNG A well-done mystery that could have, *should* have, redefined our understanding of intelligent life in the Star Trek storytelling universe, but did not. Picard’s beloved archeology professor shows up after 30 years with an invitation to join a mysterious expedition. I respect that the writers don’t ask us to believe that Picard is…

Anyone capitalized in a standard how way without no lowercase pretension down.

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Chess again with my son.

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Any pasta can become a pasta salad when the office microwave stops working!

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Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, Now a Rich Man, Receives a Letter from His HOA

Dear Tevye, This letter is to inform you that you are in gross violation of the rules of this Homeowners’ Association (HOA). Please note the following infractions: Your contract allows for a modest structure in the prevailing style of the neighborhood. It does not allow for a big tall house with rooms by the dozen.…

I Cannot Begin to Tell You How Proficient I Am in Microsoft Word

Is this satire? It doesn’t matter. It gave me feels. For me, though, it was Word Perfect and Broderbund Print Shop that were there for me as a teenager finding my voice. Bold and italics are the oils that grace my palette. Cut and paste the strings upon my lyre. Fonts, bullets, columns, indentations—these stubborn…

Frame of Mind (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 21) Riker is an asylum inmate who hallucinates he’s a Starfleet officer rehearsing a play about an asylum inmate

Rewatching ST:TNG Riker overprepares for a role in “Beverly’s play,” which distracts him during his briefing for an undercover mission, so that Worf accidentally cuts him while demonstrating a ceremonial knife. The night of the performance, the crowd applauds enthusiastically, but Riker is disturbed when he notices in the crowd a humanoid alien he had…