Various and Sundry

Nutrition and Your Online Media Diet

So I was actually going to post this before posting last Wednesday’s post, but I had enough thoughts in my head that I wanted to watch it again and perhaps comment. You see, I can make the entirely unremarkable observation that various forces are making the Internet less usable in a process of crapification (also known by other terms), but at the same time I’m at a loss for how to tackle it or frame…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

The Hildebrandt Viewing Guide for Babylon 5

For those who don’t know, Babylon 5 is a science fiction series from the 1990s that managed to put an epic amount of space opera into TV sets quite smaller than what many of us have today. I posted my own viewing guide on this site back in 2023, but seeing how current events make Babylon 5 uncomfortably prescient in several ways, it’s worth a re-watch or a new watch on today’s TV sets. The…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

The Cult of Overproductivity

This isn’t the first time I’ve posted about work-life balance, but it does feel that, in 2025, more people have the assumption that WORK has won and the imbalance is fine. We know it. We’ve felt it. I’m sure some researchers have excellent terms for it, but I’m thinking of it these days as overproductivity. And it succeeds because we have zealots, who probably get up at 4am, who push for overproductivity. And when they,…

Continue reading

Reviews Various and Sundry

Yeah, yeah, civil war. But is it accurate?

I know it’s hard to imagine in this peaceful time of extraordinary bipartisanship and respectful political discourse, but this country hasn’t always been so easygoing and [checks notes]. Whoops! Wrong timeline. Eesh. Okay, so you’re not in the mood for 1776, Hamilton, or even Stan Freberg presenting the United States of America. Well, maybe you will want to try one of these films out. Having worked for a company that published multiple civil war magazines…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Hey Kids! Let’s Fix the Federal Budget!

The federal budget has been very much in the news for the past few weeks with a mammoth piece of legislation being talked about in Congress (in fact, it might be passed by the time this posts). So what would you do if you could craft something similarly monumental? As it turns out, several different groups have created online simulators for you to try your hand at adjusting the budget. You’ll see several are coming…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

The Science of Storytelling

I’ve delivered a couple presentations over the past few weeks that in work terms were “big” — not in terms of the number of slides of course, but in telling the story clearly. In preparation, I rewatched a couple videos by David JP Phillips, a speaker… and speaker about speaking. Here he is from 8 years ago about the science of storytelling” And if that’s released the “angel’s cocktail” of chemicals into your brain, you…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

That Line from That Film

It’s been a packed week, so I’m looking forward to relaxing with some filmwatching this weekend. But which film? An old one? A new one? That one where they say…? To give you, and perhaps me, some ideas about which films to wile away the hours, the folks at Cine Fix helpfully compiled a list of the top 100 movie quotes of all time: Not content with that (and perhaps because of the comments, they…

Continue reading

Various and Sundry

Costco’s Gamble with Kirkland, its Store Brand

With over 135 million members as of last year, if you don’t have a Costco card, you probably know someone who does. So I was interested in this 10-minute piece that explains something of Costco’s business model and, importantly, the bold decision on what to do with its store brand (aka “private label”) products. And now I’m thinking of the Safeway’s “Cragmont” store brand for sodas, especially their Dr. Pepper clone, “The Skipper.”

Continue reading