"Record" from Unsplash, released under a CC0 dedication
I’ve been listening to albums that I had on very heavy rotation about 20 years ago, this week. I’m not sure what this rock nostalgia indicates for me, although I still like many of these albums.
The first band I revisited was Pearl Jam. I was really into them during my university years, and went back to two albums in particular, Ten and Vitalogy.
Then, this morning, I went back to Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion II that I first listened to because one of the tracks was used in Terminator 2.
I haven’t listened to this music in decades (literally). I’m a little surprised that I still enjoy most of it, especially after my 80s Pop revival.
Our daughter has been asking to watch The Greatest Showman for a few weeks. We watched the movie over the weekend, and it was wonderful.
I don’t know where she encountered the movie, but she’s been listening to various Spotify playlists featuring music from the movie that’s based on part of P T Barnum‘s life.
We watched the movie over the weekend, and it’s a spectacular movie. It reminds me of Moulin Rouge, in a way (another movie to introduce our daughter).
The music is terrific, and this is one of the few movies our daughter actually watched without distracting herself with her phone (mostly).
If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s well worth watching. You can also find the soundtrack on Spotify. Here’s the opening song:
Here’s another reminder by Chris Maiorana why blogs remain relevant despite social media that arguably makes it easier to share with each other:
Those of us who take the idea of democratic publishing seriously rejoice at how the field has opened to include anyone who has something to say and is willing to write it down. That’s why we should be more alarmed when we see social media companies crowd the spaces once occupied by blogs and do-it-yourself content creators. We see a decline in diverse opinions as the web quickly becomes less free and more autocratic.
These calls to blog more aren’t new, just as assertions that blogs are irrelevant in a time when we can share anything with millions (hypothetically) on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and <insert name of hot new social service here> aren’t new either.
Yes, I’m biased given who I work for, and the fact that I still blog (somewhat irregularly). At the same time, does that detract the assertion that blogs remain relevant despite social media? I think you’d be hard-pressed to say that they aren’t.
In many respects, you just can’t beat blogs’ combination of having your own space to publish to, open platforms to power that publishing (such as WordPress), and the flexibility to communicate your ideas in a way that does justice to what you have to say.
On a related note, I also recommend reading Chris Hardie’s post titled “Multimedia journalism and the WordPress block editor“. The more time I spend with the block editor, the more I believe that it’s truly transformational, even at this early stage of its evolution, and despite the initial learning curve.
Photograph of a chip constructed by D-Wave Systems Inc. Mounted and wire-bonded in a sample holder. The D-Wave processor is designed to use 128 superconducting logic elements that exhibit controllable and tunable coupling to perform operations.
Licensed CC BY 3.0 DWave
I read a fascinating story in Wired about Marcus Hutchins, a hacker who used lessons from years of writing malware to save the Internet from WannaCry, only to come to terms with his past misdeeds at the height of his success. This is how the story begins –
At around 7 am on a quiet Wednesday in August 2017, Marcus Hutchins walked out the front door of the Airbnb mansion in Las Vegas where he had been partying for the past week and a half. A gangly, 6’4″, 23-year-old hacker with an explosion of blond-brown curls, Hutchins had emerged to retrieve his order of a Big Mac and fries from an Uber Eats deliveryman. But as he stood barefoot on the mansion’s driveway wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, Hutchins noticed a black SUV parked on the street—one that looked very much like an FBI stakeout.
Back when we were in a “normal” routine, our kids’ screen time was pretty limited during the week. We only permitted them to use their phones and computers for school-related tasks during the week.
On weekends, they could play (there’s a limit on the Nintendo Switch, mostly as an experiment) for as long as their phone batteries lasted (well, that was the idea, it becomes meaningless when their phones last all day 😜).
Our kids would go out to meet their friends at parks, or at their friends’ homes.
Since our kids were basically confined to our home, and couldn’t see their friends in person, we basically lifted the screen time limits. The way I think about it is that they tend to play games with their friends, so this is the new “go out and play with your friends” time.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier about online gaming, something only a pandemic could make me say. My son’s pretty social, and being away from his friends has been really hard on him. I usually hate gaming and we normally have serious restrictions on screen time. But right now it is keeping him inside and giving him a social outlet, and that’s made this whole ordeal easier on everyone.
The challenge, now, is that I still want our kids to focus on what passes for their distance classes in the mornings. We expect them to stick to “normal” school days, finishing around the time they’d finish if they were at school.
I work from my usual space at our dining room, and they work in their bedrooms, so it’s difficult to keep a close eye on whether they’re actually focused on their studies.
Still, as Clint points out, a little extra screen time creeping in at the edges isn’t a calamity –
Listen y’all, we are going to get through this. I know it. But the last thing I think we should all be worried about is limiting screen time right now.
They’re basically just connecting, and chatting about the pandemic, the importance of being connected to each other, and more.
I’m sitting on one of our couches, blogging random stuff, and enjoying the conversation. I really enjoy these two people (and their friends) in Critical Role (we’re on Campaign One, episode 33, and going strong).
This is a very different, more personal context, and I like them even more as people dealing with this situation. Like the rest of us.
I play DnD with my wife and daughter at home, so I don’t have an immediate need for this. At the same time, there are loads of people who find themselves playing remotely, so this is a compelling option.
Other tools
Even though we play in person, I’ve been using a number of digital tools to help manage our games.
DnD Beyond
I’ve been using DnD Beyond quite a bit lately. I’m trying out the paid, Master Tier subscription to manage our campaign. The subscription enables me to create encounters based on the characters’ levels (that translates into somewhat more accurate difficulty estimates).
I also like that I can share the digital books that I’ve purchased.
The Combat Tracker is terrific, and helps managing initiative, and monster damage a lot easier. This works hand-in-hand with the Encounter Builder. I’ve realised that creating encounters from within the campaign manager/page allows me to create campaign-specific encounters.
The DnD Beyond character sheets are also terrific. I only use the online version for my character, and my wife has switched over to that version for the most part, too.
The new digital dice are really nice too. I’m looking forward to trying those out too (although I think I prefer physical dice on the whole).
Notion
Notion has been really useful for my campaign notes, and tracking the party’s progress through a campaign. I add maps, tables to track overall encounters, XP awards, and even individual encounters (there’s some overlap here with the DnD Beyond Combat Tracker).
Options like inline tables, internal links, and other Notion blocks are proving to be really helpful, although I’d like to build page templates that I can start a new adventure with.
There are a number of terrific digital tools available to us. They add to in-person games too, and can really enhance online game play if you can’t meet up to play your games.
