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…

He dedicated years of his life to QAnon. One day made him question it all.

Thoughtful analysis structured around one man’s personal journey away from QAnon. No single online platform is responsible for QAnon’s rapid rise. YouTube hosted the videos that many members credit with their “red pilling,” the favored term for a supposed enlightenment or exposure to conspiracy theories. Facebook allowed for easy conversation, meme sharing and organizing. Twitter, Justin’s…

Lessons (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 19) Picard and a new officer bond over their shared interest in music

Rewatching ST:TNG When Picard is up in the middle of the night amusing himself with his archaeology hobby, he’s annoyed to find that Stellar Cartography has taken communications, library systems, and the replicators offline.  When he heads down there, the officer in charge is taking some sensor readings that are so delicate they can be…

Media Bias Chart (Ad Fontes, v. 9)

Objective news reporting is an ideal. Wherever humans are involved, there will be bias. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with journalism that reports with a particular slant, but informed consumers of news who want to understand a complex issue aren’t served by one-sided media coverage that flatters and amplifies their world view. This chart sorts popular…

Smalltalk through masks is hard; I really was glad to see so many familiar upper halves of faces at last night’s six-theatre Sondheim tribute

If you said hello to me recently and I didn’t seem interested in smalltalk, but just raised my eyebrows, made friendly sounds, and drifted on, I hope I didn’t seem indifferent. I really was glad to see so many familiar upper halves of faces at the Lamp Theatre last night, but it was also kind…

Birthright, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 16) Worf learns his father may still be alive; Data dreams

Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D visits Deep Space Nine, so that the producers can take advantage of the beautiful promenade set and jam in a guest appearance from DS9’s Dr. Bashir. O’Brien doesn’t appear in this episode, but he’s mentioned in a brief and completely unnecessary scene where LaForge complains the pasta on DS9 “tastes like…

Signage failure at Seton Hill, c. 2008.

Similar:I played hooky from work to see Wild Robot with my familyI played hooky to go see Wild Robot this…AestheticsSledding in Spring Break SnowMy wife suddenly decided I should be a G…Current_EventsYounger friends, can you write or read cursive? I’m curious.CultureFrog and Toad at the Mountain Playhouse with the daughter.Frog and Toad at the Mountain…

Academics want to preserve video games. The game industry is fighting them in court.

For decades, champions of the video game industry have touted gaming’s cultural impact as the equal of literature, film and music. Traditionally, the classic works from those mediums have been preserved for study by future generations, and amid gaming’s global rise in relevance, a group of video game scholars and advocates is pushing to preserve…

Mask up.

Similar:Fancy a game of whist with your nemesis? The prospect of ruin adds piquancy to the pleasur…PersonalPict Classic Theatre Romeo and Juliet. PersonalA pleasant Independence Day photo shoot with the daughter.AestheticsAmazing show. Young lovers, a witty (but often stupid) servant, speeches, rants, exaggerat… PersonalBeam me up, Chewie!AwesomeYesterday we took advantage of a rare free day.At the Carnegie…

Safety is a good thing.

Similar:Three different sized buildings. Still working on variations for the biggest one. #blender…Three different sized buildings. Still w…AestheticsSpent the morning in a socially distanced recording studio.PersonalAnother 10sq cm of a beautiful #steampunk control panel for a personal #neovictorian #blen…AestheticsThe Princess and the PaintFriday night, my daughter will be playin…AestheticsMy daughter found where all the missing…

My daughter was five or six when she created the character “Moonbot” for the #steampunk bedtime role-playing story that we kept going until she was 10 or 11. #blender3D

  Similar:Faculty Senate meet & greet. With food. In the parlors till 6. AcademiaA few Dwarven Moments in Stage Right's Snow WhiteThe dwarf scenes were a real hoot. …DramaHeadphones, Croutons and RhetoricME (with crouton tongs in one hand and s…CulturePrivacy and reporting on personal livesInteresting guidelines, phrased as sugge…CybercultureSo, What's in It for Me?All in…

Face of The Enemy (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 14) Troi role-plays as a feared Romulan intelligence officer

Rewatching ST:TNG Troi wakes up, looking like a Romulan. When Subcommander N’Vek tells her she’s impersonating the imperial intelligence officer Major Rakal, and that she’ll be killed if she doesn’t play along, he invites her to use her empathic powers to see whether he’s lying. He’s not. He’s using the assumed authority of “Rakal” to…