Weekly Notes: June 16–22, 2025

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This is actually a week-plus-one-day, because…

  • 🚗 …we spent most of this past week traveling to visit family. We drove down to Portland and visited our respective families in the area, my wife with her mom and sister and niblings, and me, joined by my brother who flew out from the east coast, visiting with our mom. Had some good and necessary discussions with mom, and it was nice to be able to have both of us there visiting her at the same time. And since we drove back home today, it didn’t really make sense to back-date this post by a day just to keep it as a Sunday evening thing.

📸 Photos

Black and white image of a gravestone that just says Batman.
My wife’s mom lives near a cemetery, and it’s a nice place to go for walks. This gravestone makes me laugh every time. I took a few more shots to play with.

Black and white photo of a gravestone from 1909 next to a tree.

A stone mausoleum next to rows of old gravestones with trees in the background.

Two women seen from behind walking along a path through a cemeter on a sunny day.
My wife and her mother walking through the cemetery.

A light brown coyote lying in grass with its nose tucked under its forepaw.
There are a couple local coyotes that regularly run along a path behind my mom’s apartment; this one decided to take an afternoon nap not far outside mom’s window.

My wife, me, and my brother, all crouched on either side of my mom in her motorized chair in front of a human-made lake.
My wife, me, and my brother with mom after dinner on the last night of our visit.

📚 Reading

Finished a Star Trek novel, Dafydd ab Hugh’s Balance of Power, and started Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel Pyramids.

🔗 Linking

Balance of Power by Dafydd Ab Hugh

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Book 33 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️

This is the third book I’ve read by Ab Hugh, and the third to get two stars. It’s obviously supposed to be comedic, but isn’t funny (the conceit of a Ferengi who speaks entirely like it’s “talk like a pirate day” may be hilarious to some; to me, it was increasingly annoying), there are numerous typos and inconsistencies, and it was just a slog. Not looking forward to when I get to more by this author (though I’ll read them, because I’m a stubborn Trek completist).

Me holding Balance of Power

Weekly Notes: June 9–15, 2025

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  • 🎓 This week was commencement week for Highline College! This year, for the first time, we held commencement at the Emerald Downs horse racing facility, and while there were the occasional minor hiccups you might expect with any first-time venue experience, overall, I think it went really well. Hopefully the post-commencement feedback we get is generally in agreement, because I liked this much better than using the local stadium. (Still not as nice as on-campus, but that presents its own set of logistical headaches.)
  • 🇺🇸 Saturday was the No Kings protest, and from my perspective and all the reports I’ve seen since, it went really well, both locally and nationally. Upwards of 70,000 participants in the Seattle Capitol Hill rally and march to the Seattle Center that we went to, with no agitators, no property damage, and virtually nonexistent police presence (I didn’t see any until just before the march reached the Seattle Center, when there were four in regular day wear casually chatting with people walking by, and just as we were leaving, we did see a group of 10 or so bike cops staged in a side street). It felt good. And we need to keep doing this.

📸 Photos

Wide panoramic shot of the Seattle Center's International Fountain crowded with post-march protesters, with the Space Needle in the background under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
People relaxing at the Seattle Center at the conclusion of the march.

Seen from behind, a marcher holds up a large piece of cardboard with the IKEA logo.
It always amuses me when people only decorate one side of their cardboard, because it looks like they’re somewhat confused about their messaging.

A marcher in a crowd holding up a sign that says, "hot girls hate fascists".
This one, seen at the start of the march, made me laugh.

Wide shot of a lot of people wearing graduation robes and caps standing on paths between green hedges.
Students, staff, and faculty, lining up for the commencement processional.

An AV control room with three people watching lots of banks of monitors, most of which are showing an image of a graduation speaker at a podium with captions at the bottom of the image.
Since I’m part of the behind-the-scenes tech team (specifically for me, making sure captioning works properly), this was my view of the ceremony. Not a bad way to do it at all!

An AV control board with lots of banks of brightly colored and lit buttons, with a silver t-shaped control lever that looks suspiciously like the one used during the Death Star's firing sequence….
Unfortunately, since all of this equipment was actually in use, I couldn’t actually pretend I was firing the Death Star. (The shot of the Death Star weapon control lever being moved used a Grass Valley 1600 video switcher, specifically, one from KCET, Los Angeles’s PBS station.)

📚 Reading

Read Clarkesworld Issue 225 and the first issue of Heavy Metal magazine’s relaunch.

🔗 Linking

  • Sheena Goodyear at CBC Radio: Every year, folks travel from far and wide watch this giant pencil get sharpened: “Once a year, the massive piece of pop art becomes an interactive community art installation. Hundreds — or sometimes even thousands — of people make their way to Higgins’ house in Minneapolis to watch the giant pencil get sharpened with a giant pencil sharpener.”
  • Jack Tamisiea at Science: Cockatoos have learned to operate drinking fountains in Australia: “Every cockatoo exhibited slight variations in its plan of attack. But the general strategy was the same: Each placed one or both of its feet on the fountain’s twist handle, then lowered its weight to twist the handle clockwise and prevent it from springing back up. As the parrots slurped water from the bubbling spout, their sharp beaks often left behind chew marks on the fountain’s rubber top.”
  • RSSRSSRSSRSS: Combine multiple RSS feeds into one unified feed.
  • Nikki Mccann Ramirez, Naomi Lachance, Asawin Suebsaeng, Andrew Perez, and Stephen Rodrick at Rolling Stone: Trump’s Military Birthday Parade Was A Gross Failure: “An aerial parade of historic military aircraft flew above the National Mall, traversing a course from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial that — despite clear anticipation of crowds by event organizers — was more empty field and food truck line than crowd.”
  • Doug Landry on X (but this is a ThreadReader link): I just got back from the Trump parade and I have to say it was legitimately the worst executed mass attendance event I’ve ever seen. The full thread is worth reading for some seriously good schadenfreude.
  • Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein, Pattie Maes at Cornell University: Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task: “While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI’s role in learning.”

Heavy Metal 001

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Book 32 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

If you know much of anything about Heavy Metal, you know what to expect with this relaunch of the long-running comic anthology series. Sci-fi/fantasy/horror comics and art (often of the “muscle bound men and women wearing a whole lot of not very much no matter how impractical that might be” variety, of course). As the relaunch issue, this also has several short essays about the history of the magazine and some of the artists who have been involved, particularly Greg Hildebrandt, who died between painting the cover (of the edition I have) and when it was published. Though I was never a subscriber, I’d found the occasional issue, and certainly saw the movie (and have had it in my collection for years, even if it’s not a regular watch), and it’s good to know that the magazine is still going, and that it’s still exactly what your inner ’80s adolescent has been looking for.

Me holding Heavy Metal relaunch issue 1

Weekly Notes: June 2–8, 2025

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  • ♿️🇺🇸 Work this week was something of a study in contrasts, whipsawing between celebrating our students at end-of-the-year celebrations and preparing for commencement, and getting news of two major attacks on disability rights and accessibility:
    • The American Council on Education has sent a letter (PDF link) to the Office of Management and Budget asking that implementation of last year’s Title II updates be delayed. The reasoning is the usual “but it’s too hard/expensive” whining from people who don’t want to do even the bare minimum of work to support disabled communities; the surprise is who the letter is coming from and being signed by. This has prompted a lot of uproar in the higher education accessibility communities, and we’re just getting started.
    • The Department of Energy is trying to fast-track rolling back the regulations that require new construction to be made accessible. This would be a huge blow to accessibility, and because of how they’re doing this, comments can only be submitted until June 16 (next Monday).
  • 🤓 On Saturday, we went down to the Kent Nerd Party, something of a local mini-convention in the historic downtown area. We were only there for a little over an hour (it being the first day of a two-day spring heatwave, with temperatures in the mid- to high-80s), but it was fun to see costumes, geek-centric street booths, a small Lego museum with some really impressive creations, and a few friends that we happened to run into.

📸 Photos

24 small Lego dioramas featuring well-known artists and their work, with cards below explaining which artist each diorama represents.
Seen at the Lego display at the Kent Nerd Party. My wife and I could identify most of these little artist dioramas without needing to reference the clue cards beneath.

A large size Lego person sitting in a lawn chair next to a plant with another figure emerging from it, both next to a poster for the classic sci-fi horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I really appreciated this nod to classic sci-fi horror. Figured it out before I noticed the poster to the side!

Small inclusive, bi, and trans pride flags displayed in the grass by a paved walkway.
Nice to see Pride flags set out across campus.

A metal tray with nine snacks made up of stacked lettuce, meat patty, tomato slice, and pickle…and nothing else.
There’s an old Bloom County comic where Milo goes into a Burger King and orders a Whopper, “hold the bun”. So I was very amused to see a tray of burgers, sans bun, among the food options at a catered event on campus this week. For somewhere around four decades, I’d only ever known this as a comic strip gag, but apparently it’s a real thing?

📚 Reading

🔗 Linking

  • S. Baum at Erin in the Morning: Defying DeSantis, Florida Pride Marchers Light Up Jacksonville Bridge with Rainbow Colors. It’s good to remember that as horrible as Florida the state is being right now, there are still a lot of people there that don’t agree with what their local government is doing, and are willing to make that known.
  • John Scalzi: Well, CAN You Prove You’re a US Citizen?: “How many US citizens could, in fact, prove that they are US citizens at the drop of the hat? Leave aside for the moment the absolutely correct argument that it should not be incumbent on any of us to do so, and focus on this particular question. Can you, directly and/or indirectly, show that you have citizenship here in the US?”
  • Amanda Guinzburg: Diabolus Ex Machina: “Presented to you in the form of unedited screenshots, the following is a ‘conversation’ I had with Chat GPT upon asking whether it could help me choose several of my own essays to link in a query letter I intended to send to an agent. ¶ What ultimately transpired is the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror I hope to experience in this lifetime.”
  • Nathalie Graham at Seattle Met: A Midsummer Nightmare: “According to performers and volunteers interviewed for this story, something is rotten in the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire: Poor labor conditions, bad actors, and business-over-people decisions by the board of directors are sapping the Renaissance faire of its magic.” Content warning: Contains reports of sexual and domestic abuse. Ammie, the first person interviewed in the article, is an acquaintance/friend from the Norwescon and SeaGoth communities, so I’d heard bits and pieces of her story over time; the other stories are new to me.
  • Sen. Patty Murray in the Seattle Times: Shut up and be quiet? No thanks: “Make yourself heard however you can. Maybe that’s a social media post or maybe it’s organizing thousands of parents to speak up for funding you care about. Big or small, it all makes a difference and it all adds up.”

The Vorkosigan Saga

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And that’s it — this morning, I finished off Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga. A little under two years (non-consecutively; many other books have been read in between these) of the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan and his family, friends, and enemies.

A complete collection of Vorkosigan saga novels in mass market paperback, arranged in internal chronological order.

This was neither planned nor expected. I started because I’m reading my way through all the Hugo Best Novel winners, and several of the Vorkosigan books are on that list, I continued because even though neither romance nor military sci-fi are genres I usually go for, the books are just so good that they pulled me in. (And, well, I don’t like coming into a series midway through if I can help it, so I had to read the books that were earlier or in between the Hugo winners.)

Bujold’s characters are wonderfully realized. Not always heroes or even particularly heroic (and sometimes rather disturbing), but always very real. The books are funny — I wouldn’t really call any of them comedies, but they are frequently comedic. And the world building (over multiple worlds scattered across a wormhole-connected galaxy) is great, with cultures that are obviously related while also being very separate and distinct.

All in all, while I certainly didn’t expect this when I started, this has become a favorite series, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Bujold does in a fantasy world, as I head into her World of the Five Gods series (of which the second, Paladin of Souls, is the next Hugo Best Novel book on my list). (It’s a good sign that both the Vorkosigan Saga and the World of the Five Gods series have won Best Series Hugos….)

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold

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Book 30 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In a fitting bookend for a series that began with a sci-fi romance between a military officer and a planetary surveyor, it ends with something essentially the same, even to one of the same characters. Much less adventuresome or military than others, this is more of a pleasant, comfortable wrap up for the series, bringing it back to where it started while checking in with many of the remaining characters. While the stories certainly good go on if Bujold chose to write more, this is also a very worthy ending to the series itself.

Me holding Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

Weekly Notes: May 26–June 1, 2025

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  • ♿️ Officially launched the Accessibility Liaisons project at work on Tuesday, to help train more people and distribute the work of improving digital accessibility across the college. This was just a “soft” launch to introduce the program, with things kicking off more comprehensively in the fall, but it was good to get it started.
  • 🌏 Yesterday we went to Kent’s annual International Festival. Got some good food from food trucks, learned a little bit about some of the many cultures represented in Kent’s population, and saw some good music and dance performances. My favorites were a kids group doing traditional Sri Lankan dance, and kids from the local School of Rock.
  • 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Happy Pride Month, all. Or if not that, have a well-focused Wrath month. Stonewall was a riot of queer and trans people, after all. And my occasional reminder that I describe myself as “statistically straight“, which allows for some variations in the trend line.

📸 Photos

A rock group of seven teens and pre-teens performing on an outdoor stage as people watch.
The School of Rock kids performing; I think here they were doing Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”.

Social media post by Claire Willett saying, "for pride month this year can straight people focus less on 'love is love' and more on 'queer and trans people are in danger'".

A rainbow-colored unicorn with a skull face striding through a black and grey landsdape with flames at its hooves, trailing a banner that says, "we called off pride, now it's gay wrath month".

📚 Reading

📺 Watching

Finished Andor. That was really good. Easily among the best of the modern Star Wars shows and films (that I’ve seen, at least, not having seen them all).

🔗 Linking

  • Eric Wilkinson at King 5: AI stepping up as backup for short-staffed PenCom dispatchers (which was headlined “AI now takes some calls for help on Olympic Peninsula” when I bookmarked this): “AI listens for keywords that may indicate crime or violence. It even picks up inflections in the caller’s voice to sense trouble. If any of those criteria are met, the call goes directly to a real person.” Yeah, I can see no way in which this could go wrong…

  • Helen Smith at King 5: The Cascadia Subduction Zone looks a little different than researchers thought. Here’s what that means for ‘The Big One’ (which was headlined “New research reshapes ‘The Big One’ tsunami risk” when I bookmarked it…what’s with King 5 renaming headlines?): “New findings show that tsunami risk may be different, though not less, in places along the subduction zone. This is due to the absence of a ‘megasplay fault,’ which was previously believed to run from Vancouver Island down to the Oregon-California border.”

  • David Friedman at Ironic Sans: Proof that Patrick Stewart exists in the Star Trek universe: Fun interview with Star Trek fan and researcher Jörg Hillebrand.

  • Technology Connections on YouTube: Closed captions on DVDs are getting left behind. Half an hour, but a fascinating look at how closed captions are encoded into analog video, how it works with the digital video of DVDs, and why modern players and Blu-ray disks are falling over with their closed caption support. Some of the basics here I knew from my subtitle projects, but a lot of the technical details were new to me and neat to learn about.

  • Ben Cohen in The Wall Street Journal: They Were Every Student’s Worst Nightmare. Now Blue Books Are Back. (archive.is link): “Students outsourcing their assignments to AI and cheating their way through college has become so rampant, so quickly, that it has created a market for a product that helps professors ChatGPT-proof school. As it turns out, that product already exists. In fact, you’ve probably used it. You might even dread it. ¶ It’s called a blue book.”

  • Nadira Goffe in Slate: The Controversy Surrounding Disney’s Remake of Lilo & Stitch, Explained: I don’t have any interest in watching the remake (big fan of the original, though), but as a non-Hawaiian white guy, reading about the political undertones in the original that have been stripped out of the remake was really interesting, as it was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know.

  • Anil Dash: The Internet of Consent: “The growing frustration around “enshittification” is, in no small part, grounded in a huge frustration around having a constant feeling of being forced to use features and tools that don’t respect our choices. We’re constantly wrestling with platforms that don’t respect our boundaries. And we have an uncanny sense that the giant tech companies are going behind our backs and into our lives in ways that we don’t know about and certainly wouldn’t agree to if we did.”

  • Kelly Hayes: From Aspiration to Action: Organizing Through Exhaustion, Grief, and Uncertainty: “As an organizer, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the gulf between what many people believed they would do in moments of extremity, and what they are actually doing now, as fascism rises, the genocide in Palestine continues, and climate chaos threatens the survival of living beings around the world.”

  • Chelsey Coombs at The Intercept: “Andor” Has a Message for the Left: Act Now: “‘Andor,’ the new series set in the universe, doubles down on its anti-authoritarian roots, focusing on the creation of the revolutionary Rebel Alliance. In the process, it gives us a glimpse into the messiness and conflict that often accompanies building a movement on the left, as activists fight over which political philosophies and strategies work best.”

  • Yona T. Sperling-Milner at The Harvard Crimson: Come At Me, Bro: “I propose an alternate strategy: I shall fight Secretary of Education Linda E. McMahon in a televised cage match, the winner of which gets $2.7 billion in federal grants and the power to uphold or destroy America’s continued technological and economic success.”

  • Suyi Davies Okungbowa: I Call Bullshit: Writing lessons from my toddler in the age of generative AI: “Software is as limited as the individuals, systems and institutions that define and prompt it, and as of today, mimicry is its highest form. But as you can see above, mimicry is not a significant endeavour. A human baby can mimic. A chameleon can mimic. Mimicry is basic.”

Toward the Night by James Swallow

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Book 29 of 2025: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We haven’t gotten an Ortegas-centric episode of the show yet, so it’s fun to get a bit more of a peek into her and her background through this adventure. A mysterious alien artifact, a dangerous planet, ornery Klingons…all in all, quite the fun Trek adventure.

(Very mild spoilers: The only flaw for me wasn’t actually a flaw with the book, but a happenstance of my reading: I’d just read the TOS ebook novella Miasma, so this made for two Trek stories in a row with a landing party trapped on a rainy, muddy planet being chased by swarms of hungry giant bugs while cut off from all communication with the Enterprise. I had to keep reminding myself it wasn’t quite as derivative as it seemed.)

Me holding Toward the Night