I haven’t even watched this TED talk by Willie Smits yet, but I know it’s going to be exceptional. We still need to stop destroying rainforest, and I imagine the list of caveats is a mile long, but it’s good to know that these places aren’t gone forever.
All posts by Chris
don’t divorce us
The Courage Campaign gives us all a simple task: “Tell the Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8, reject Ken Starr’s case, and let loving, committed couples marry.” Then they offer a sampling of the 18,000 marriages that need defending:
The Anti-GeekDad, Circa 1914
[from my GeekDad post]
Lest we take the modern GeekDad for granted, I submit for your attention this comic strip from 95 years ago regarding the exploits of a ‘lectric-obsessed child and his less-than-supportive father. (Click through for the rest of the comic.)
This was before the first personal computer, before the Nerds took their Revenge, before Superman first flew. There was no Bill Gates to emulate, no William Yuan to envy, no Starfleet Academy to aspire to. Words like internet, blog, and cosplay had yet to be coined, and there were no words spoken in Klingon, Elvish, or Huttese at all. There was no Xbox. There was no Wii.
So in this context, perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on young Henery’s father. The white-fringed, mustachioed man doesn’t realize he’s trying to hold back the tsunami of geek inevitability with a wooden paddle. He might have lived to see his son’s “fool inventions” land ships on the Moon and recanted, apologizing for putting a pack of cigars and a good night’s before his son’s passion for creating.
Even if he didn’t, he can serve as an example to us, and we can feel good to be GeekDads.
(image from Modern Mechanix, a source of much old-timey awesomeness)
I have a dream
Just to remind you that the change between yesterday and tomorrow is enormous:
…or read the full transcript at American Rhetoric.
what catching up looks like
[Graph of my feed-reading habits over the last month, courtesy Google Reader.]
OK, maybe less “catching up” and more “declaring newsfeed bankruptcy.” I’ve been a wee bit busy for the past month or two (or three… shush!), and it’s not likely to let up for another month at least. Sorry about the relative radio silence. I still have stories to tell, just no time/energy/brain to tell them.
Why, you may ask? Well, if you don’t know already, prod me in the comments and I might post more detail about my current gut-wrenching life change, er, side project.