My post ranking every episode of the original Star Trek series remains one of the most popular on the site which means we’re well overdue to have a viewing guide. This year will mark the 60th anniversary of adventures of the starship Enterprise first appearing on television sets. There’s aspects of the show, like any show, that are of its time, but it also sets the tone echoed by future Trek series where the exploration…
Reviewing works about motivation and fulfillment around the new year and it was easy to come across videos featuring Robert Waldinger, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has been going on for 87 years now. As you might imagine, just like with studies that aren’t conducted over multiple generations, this study does have some insights to share. You may recall some of them yourself if you saw his TED Talk from…
It’s the new year and if you haven’t already locked in your resolutions and resolution-related plans, have I got a post for you: a 26-minute breakdown of 20 tactics to make for a better 2026 from Daniel Pink. I first read Pink’s work with Free Agent Nation and then later Drive, which sent me down the scientifically-structured rabbit hole of “flow” back in the day. So when the almighty YouTube algorithm served up Pink’s videos…
Since the return of thousands of works entering the public domain again in 2019, I’ve been posting about it — and given site traffic and feedback, y’all want me to, so here goes this year’s edition (previous entries should all be tagged). Note that I’m specifically talking about the United States, where, as of today, creative works published in 1930 and sound recordings from 1925 are free to use without licenses or fees. If you’re…
It’s the end of the year, so it’s a good time to be contemplative. And you know those novels or TV shows, usually fantasy, where some character opines that they have “fewer winters ahead than behind?” It’s in that contemplative mood that I looked through my stack o’ possible blog posts and found an article called “The Tail End” by Tim Urban. You probably know Tim Urban from his gloriously funny and insightful piece on…
It’s definitely time people start thinking about making New Year’s resolutions or otherwise mapping out things they want to get done for the year ahead. And I’m suggesting that, whatever those plans are, it should include some art. This should not come as a surprise. I have advocated this whole wacky “making art thing” on this blog multiple times as my seven or nine regular readers may remember. Whether it’s a post I did about…
Look, apparently the theme for this week is dealing with online crap (well, that and working through cinematic loss by adding to our “films to watch/rewatch” list). However, if you want to help figuring out things, you could do worse than physicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson has long been an advocate for critical thinking (the image above was one of many I found when searching), but this 15-minute guide for how to…
This is not the first time I’ve posted about enshittification, that occurence when an online platform ceases to provide value, first to its regular users, then to its business customers. In fact, I posted about it in 2023, the same year it became word of the year (according to some). So, you’ve probably experienced this online yourself on one or more platforms. It’s ridiculous, dispiriting, and infuriating in waves, isn’t it? Well, not content to…
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) continues its tradition of an elegant montage of the film industry folks we lost this year, both in front of and behind the camera. It’s a good reminder to check out a film or six… and don’t be surprised if you don’t get wistful with many movie memories. As I’ve done since ’23, below is a list of all the folks who are listed, in order, with links to their IMDb…
I did a post the other day about Girl Scout cookies because the holidays count as overall cookie season and perhaps some people might cry foul. True, those people might not be much fun at holiday parties, but they have a point. Stuffed animals, however, deserve some consideration during holiday season because if you’ve never given the gift of a stuffed animal to a kid or been a kid receiving “the best stuffie ever,” well……