IPSEDay2025

Weekly Notes: May 5–11, 2025

by

Really, this is one of those weeks that just boils down to being another week, without any noteworthy points.

  • ♿️ As we’re approaching the end of spring quarter and commencement gets closer, I’m pretty constantly feeling like I’m just slightly behind where I should be with everything, Not enough to be in panic mode, just enough to never feel quite satisfied with the situation. Definitely looking forward to the summer quarter and hoping things slow down a touch.

  • 🚀 Norwescon has just about wound down, with just this coming weekend’s post-con meeting to wrap things up until we spin up in the fall for next year. Of course, that means a little less for me, as the website needs to be archived and reworked; hopefully I’ll be able to arrange time with my team to start that work soon. The Worldcon situation has dropped down to a light simmer rather than a full boil, which is progress. Mostly, I keep watching what people write and constantly have to fight the temptation to jump in and correct mistaken assumptions or assertions. As satisfying as it might be in the moment, it wouldn’t actually help. Sometimes knowing that I’m better off keeping my mouth shut really sucks, though.

  • 🏡 We spent part of the weekend cleaning up our little back yard for the summer and refreshing the herb and flower planters. (By which I mean, my wife did the planting, and I did the manual labor of moving planters around and hauling the old stuff out to the trash.) Hoping we have more chances to relax back there than we have for the past couple summers.

📸 Photos

Rows of purple and white, yellow, and orange pansies.
Pansies at the garden center.

My knees visible in the foreground as I sit in a small, gravel-surfaced pocket back yard, with tall trees visible behind the fence, and my wife's hand just visible to one side as she plants flowers.
Sitting for a moment between moving things around.

Potted herbs in front of a decorative glass ball, a metal peacock sculpure, and a small ornament of a fanged frog wearing a spiked collar sitting under a sign that says 'Beware of Frog'.
One corner of our yard.

Planters with herbs and flowers, several with small decorative gnomes sitting in them, next to a metal birdbath.
Another corner of the yard.

📚 Reading

📺 Watching

Lately it’s been a fair amount of old Hell’s Kitchen, because it can be entertaining to watch Gordon Ramsey yell at people.

🎧 Listening

VNV Nation’s “Construct” came out this week, and new VNV Nation is always good. I did see one friend describe it as “the new VNV Music Factory”, which is funny, but also not wrong, but y’know, I’m good with that. It’s like a review I once saw comparing KMFDM to a Big Mac: You always know that what you get is going to be maybe not not great, but big, cheezy, and acceptably satisfying when that’s what you’re in the mood for. VNV Nation isn’t the same sound, of course, but it’s kind of the same idea: You know what you’re getting, and it’s good comfort food (and occasionally really, really good, though I haven’t identified any tracks off this album that are particular standouts yet).

🔗 Linking

  • Joe Kissell at Take Control Books: Introducing MailMaven, a Better Mac Email App: “MailMaven is an email client for people who love email but want total control over every aspect of it. If there’s something you always wished your email app could do, Maven probably does it (or will before long). But it also does lots of things you never realized you absolutely need in an email app, and soon won’t be able to live without.” Mostly I’m fine with Apple Mail, but sometimes I wonder if something else might work better for me, and this one looks promising.
  • Niléane at MacStories: Are Pride Wallpapers and a Watch Band Enough in 2025?: “At a time when some trans people are actively seeking to flee the U.S. to preserve their fundamental right to a healthy, safe, and decent life free from the threat of President Trump’s actions, Apple doesn’t seem to be stepping up to its professed values to the extent that the situation requires.”
  • Erin Underwood at File 770: Op-Ed: About Choosing Convention Program Participants: “I understand the frustration and anger toward LLMs, but I think that we need to grant a little grace and understanding … and even kindness … to the people who are donating their time and putting their hearts, blood, sweat, and tears into trying to create these events that bring our community together.” Whatever your stance on generative AI and the Seattle Worldcon, this is well worth reading.
  • Eli Wizevich at Smithsonian Magazine: Who Created This Peculiar Painting of a Drooling Dragon? Nobody Knows—but a Museum Just Bought It for $20 Million: “The Virgin and Child With Saints Louis and Margaret is truly one-of-a-kind. Emma Capron, a curator at the museum who was responsible for the acquisition, describes the altarpiece as ‘wildly inventive’ and ‘full of iconographical oddities,’ per the Art Newspaper.”
  • Adrian Roselli: Do Not Publish Your Designs on the Web with Figma Sites…: “…Unless you want to fail all the WCAGs, create litigation risk, close off opportunities in Europe, engage in reputational harm, and oh yeah, throw up barriers to your customers and users.”
  • Liv Lyons in The Thunderword, Highline’s student paper: Student panel leads from the front on IPSE Day: “Building 7 was the beating heart of campus one week ago, as the students and faculty who make up Highline’s Achieve Program embodied the tenets of accessibility, diversity, and self-acceptance, further highlighting the importance of Inclusive Post-Secondary Education (IPSE) Day at collegiate institutions nationwide.” Our students put on a great panel for IPSE Day!
  • Mac Themes Garden: “Mac Themes Garden is dedicated to showcasing schemes made for Kaleidoscope and celebrating the customization and expressiveness it enabled on Classic Mac OS.” I miss Kaleidoscope, and really wish there was this sort of customization available for the modern macOS.
  • I Don’t Have Spotify: Paste in a link to a music track on one service, get links to it on other services. Handy for those of us who refuse to give Spotify money.

Weekly Notes: April 28–May 4, 2025

by
  • ♿️ Another busy week at work, including a trip out to Emerald Downs planning for graduation, hosting an IPSE Day event supporting our students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and ending with a full-day all-employee training focusing on equity. This year included a session on disability justice, which was led by a colleague from another school who I know through my work with WAPED, DSSC, and through watching the AHEAD listserv. Happily, this session was quite well attended by people across the college, and not just by people who are part of our Access Services department!
  • 🚀 Unfortunately, Seattle Worldcon is in the midst of our first (and hopefully only) big controversy. While it’s not my area, I’m close enough to have some of the not-yet-public information, and it’s been quite the experience watching the wider commentary based on incomplete information while not saying anything. Hopefully as more information comes out, this will calm down and fade into just being an unfortunate bump on the road.
  • 🥳 And, of course, yesterday was my 52nd birthday. We kept it a fairly low-key day, wrapping up with dinner out and seeing the play version of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” at the Renton Civic Theater. It was a fun show, and we do enjoy supporting local theater.

📸 Photos

One end of a dirt racetrack circle, with green grass and a pond in the center, with the snow-covered peak of Mt. Rainier rising in the distance in a clear blue sky on a sunny spring day.
Mt. Rainier in the distance over the Emerald Downs racetrack.

Four students sit at a table at the front of a lecture hall with a presentation screen behind them, in front of an audience of staff, faculty, and fellow students.
Four of our students were part of a panel discussion for IPSE Day, talking about their experiences at Highline College.

Me, a white man with a short trimmed greying red beard, wearing a black cap, black half-rim glasses, and black shirt and hoodie, standing outside in front of green trees, with a slight smile.
Me at 52. Feeling pretty good about aging well.

📚 Reading

Finished Lois McMaster Bujold’s Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.

🔗 Linking