My wife is about to start a PhD program. She has a Dell PC for work, but her home computer is an iPad with a keyboard case. It works for what she needs now, but looking ahead to grad school, some of the apps she’ll need won’t run on the iPad. We’ll get her a Mac, but if Apple wants people to use iPads as primary devices, they need to lift some of these restrictions to allow for more complicated computing needs.
Just had a fun conversation with my girls about how Gen X and Gen Z use social media differently. They are baffled about what I post to Instagram. I didn’t even try to explain how I use Micro.Blog. 😂
I’ve always picked up wiper blades from my local auto parts store, but I have two really short blades on this Buick that are hard to find. So I went to Amazon and found a company that will assemble a set of all three blades specifically for my car. Massive timesaver and significantly cheaper.
Now that the semester is over and I’m not teaching classes or taking classes, I’m really looking forward to working on some personal projects. I want to do a little more customization to my Micro.Blog theme, I’ve got some fonts to finalize, and some merch to design.
Connections Puzzle #329
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
I haven’t been playing Connections lately, but today, I got them all, but from the hardest answers to the easiest. Never done that before.
Strands #61
“A shade envious?”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵
I’ve been playing the NY Times’ Strands for a couple of months. Still in beta, but a lot of fun. Didn’t need any hints today…
Bad Batch finale was wonderful. Loved every moment.
Glad to see Instagram is trying to shut down the accounts that simply rip off original content. I’m interested to see how well the algorithm changes work.
I’m noticing a tension growing between national organizations and their local affiliates. Just three recent examples that have crossed my path: I was once an AIGA1 chapter president and stepped down to go back to graduate school, but I was also disillusioned with the mission and how the national organization treated its chapters. Now AIGA National is struggling with finances and relevance, while member’s loyalty (and all the value of the membership) is tied up at the local level.
Every time I’m reading online and a “subscribe today” box pops up over the top of what I’m reading, I just leave the page.
Explaining to my teenage daughter what microfiche is, and how we used it for research before the internet.
Today was rough. Not sure why, exactly. Nothing particularly significant happened. It just sucked the life out of me.
My inlaws were getting “Breaking News Alerts” from Messenger. Someone was sending them “news” through Facebook, and because they have notifications on, they looked like legitimate news updates.. But they were a bunch of MAGA nonsense that was probably actually Russian disinformation.
An incredibly strange accident, but my wife and son are fine. Two weeks ago, Liz and Ryan were driving to school early in the morning in a midst of a rain storm when a pine tree blew into their path and impaled their 2020 Buick Envision. The tree was about 24 feet tall, passed through the headlight, through the engine, through the firewall, through the dashboard and extended several feet into the passenger cabin, between the front headrests.
NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth. It’s amazing how NASA has kept Voyager 1 and 2 operating. The probes were launched in 1977. 🪐
The last few weeks have been a blur… busy at work, wrapping up the semester as teacher and student, dealing with the aftermath of my wife’s car accident (she’s fine), buying a new car, my son’s lacrosse season… but I think I’m starting to round that corner back to some semblance of normalcy. 🤞
I watched a couple of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer tonight. The show was once one of my favorites and creator Joss Whedon could do no wrong. I loved Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I even watched Agents of SHIELD. But eventually, it came to light that Joss wasn’t the feminist he claimed to be, repeatedly cheated on his wife, and verbally abused many of the people he worked with, especially Charisma Carpenter.
Turned in my final paper for the class I’m taking this semester. Not completely happy with it, but finished with it for now.
Finalizing a paper for grad school on a rainy Sunday. Soundtrack is the new Pearl Jam.
Dealing with replacing my wife’s totaled car is a full time job.