They are about to start work on the riverfront trails near my house, eventually connecting to 27 miles of riverfront trails. They’ve been trying to make this happen for as long as I can remember. Would be fun to ride a bike from the suburbs along the river to downtown Columbia.
In a lecture at the University of South Carolina, NC State’s Helen Armstrong emphasized the importance of designers learning to use AI as a tool, collaborating with data scientists, and overcoming student anxieties about AI’s impact on the design profession.
Long day ahead of me today. A couple of important meetings, a 3-hour grad seminar, more meetings… and then if I have the energy, I’m going to try to go to a talk on campus about AI and art.
I’m taking an asynchronous class on survey development. The professor’s comments on assignments are constructive and helpful, but her grading rubric is massively complex. We’re talking fractional points with varying weights. I’ve been a grad student for a really long time and I’ve never seen a grading scale this complicated. I’ve read over my last assignment several times and I can’t figure out for the life of me how I got an A.
I’ve pretty much stopped posting to Instagram. I have issues with Meta, but that wasn’t the driving factor. In fact, it wasn’t really an intentional shift… I just stopped enjoying Instagram. Now I’m posting images to Micro.Blog and cross posting to Bluesky and Threads.
Shots from last night at Craft and Draft in Irmo. Lizzy was very entertained by, well, everything.
It’s easier to destroy than to govern.
Proud of Jilly. Honorable mention in the district science fair.
The senior citizens in the doctor’s office waiting room are talking non-stop. So many personal details being screamed out across a whole room of strangers.
Tapestry is a new iOS app that functions as a unified feed reader, allowing users to integrate various social and RSS feeds without algorithms, while providing customization options for managing content visibility.
It’s almost time for the college baseball season to start. Beautiful day at Founders Park.
My 17-year-old daughter wanted to listen to her new “Oldies” playlist on the way to school. First song: U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Yep, the “Oldies” playlist is an 80s and 90s playlist.
Sigh.
She’s not wrong, but I feel so ancient this morning.
It’s dark. And my son is still in the backyard getting ready for tryouts next week. Trying to make the high school JV lacrosse team as a 7th grade goalie.
Sitting on a bench on the Horseshoe and A SQUIRREL JUMPED ON MY KNEE and then took off. I think he was as startled as I was.
Enterprise has me in their system as “Roberta” instead of “Robert A.” They just called asking for Roberta, and were very confused.
Almost as funny as how Pet Smart has me in their system as “Bub” instead of “Bob.”
Today would have been my mom’s 80th birthday. Thinking about her today.
After two weeks of kids being sick and snow days, today I have the rarest of occurrences… a normal day without a single scheduled meeting. If you are looking for me today, I’ll be at my desk getting things done.
Big party at Craft and Draft Irmo to celebrate their 5th anniversary. That’s right, the opened in January 2020 right before COVID shut the world down. So glad our favorite local bar is still thriving.
In one of my early grad school classes, we had a conversation and some readings on parasocial relationships… mostly one-sided relationships you “build” with people that you watch on tv, listen to on the radio, or subscribe to their podcasts. We think we know these people. Maybe at some point we met them, but our real “relationship” is surface level. We might know their favorite athlete or actor, but have no idea what their spouse’s name is.
Six years ago, I wrote a blog post encouraging people to ask “why” they post to Facebook? I reread it last night and at the end, I found this gem:
Now the hard part: Start asking “why” before you post? Understand the impact of your words before you comment. Or like. Or share. In all likelihood, this exercise will cause you will post less. Comment less. Like less. That’s okay. The only person who will get upset that you are using Facebook less is Mark Zuckerberg. (And honestly, he’s too busy trying to collect all your personal data to notice.)
Still true today. And not just for Facebook.