[caption id=“attachment_6598” align=“aligncenter” width=“443”] Rock the Universe (1999)[/caption]

The last time I went to Universal Studios Orlando was nearly 20 years ago for Rock the Universe 1999. It was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done - enjoying the park by day with all my close friends and then a series of concerts at night. Despite getting soaked by the night-time storms we had a blast.

I first blogged about Wordpress 3.6 in April. I was extremely excited about the new Post Formats UI and the new theme Twenty Thirteen. At the time there was a month left before the release. Then, things got pushed back a bit which messed with my image formatting. Then, at some point, they decided they would have to remove the Post Formats UI for this release. And then they went silent. Weeks passed; a month passed. When they mentioned Post Formats and the new Multimedia features - embedded video and audio - it sparked a creativity in my brain - a way to use the site that would make use of what was unique about the web rather than just being a public journal. And I haven’t known when I could schedule these posts or even write them because after the Post Formats UI decision, they stopped updating the releases section of the website. Look, I’ve been involved with FLOSS software for about a decade now. I know all about the Release when It’s Done method, aka The Debian Way. It tends to lead to better quality releases (keyword: tends). But it also causes a lot of frustration - hence the reason for the Ubuntu fork. Really, all I wanted (and based on a few comments I’ve seen on the web from people who use WP to make a living - designing or writing training materials) was some communication. I understand that you might not know exactly how long it would take to untangle the Post Formats UI from the code. But an estimate would have been better than nothing.At least we’d know you cared what we think. And that’s just human psychology. It’s the reason why all the theme parks have signs telling you how long the wait is going to be for any particular ride. If you know it’s going to be an hour you aren’t as pissed as if it takes an hour and you had no idea. So next time, keep us in the look, Wordpress.

On 8 July I wrote a blog post asking Why is Pop Culture so Anti-Women? Danielle usually comments on my blog posts, but she also doesn’t always have time for that because of Scarlett. So we discussed it at the dinner table. What she told me was that “you get used to it. You just figure -that’s the way the world is.” Hearing that response was one of those times where I felt two opposing feelings. I felt sad that the response is getting used to it. Although, given the power of the media in our youth and its continued (yet hopefully diminishing) power today - I could see that feeling angry and hoping for change would be a lost cause. At the same time, I felt hopeful for Scarlett and for the ~150 million women and girls in America because Danielle transcended those images, tropes, and stereotypes. She does not feel the need to dress or act how society supposes she should. She does as she wishes and is a successful woman. She was an extremely successful worker in the workplace - always getting the highest accolades. She is completely interdependent with me rather than dependent on me. That’s what I need to impart onto Scarlett and she’ll be fine. Pop culture will still suck, but she’ll be fine.

Singapore has attempted to bring websites under the same decency standards are other media.

The Singapore government just announced an intention to begin regulating websites that report on the country, requiring a S$50,000 ‘performance bond’ and compliance with any takedown notices from the government within 24 hours. The reason for this is apparently to regulate content which solicits for prostitution, undermines racial and religious harmony, or ‘goes against good taste’"

It’s once again time for my biweekly Photojojo post.  For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for a long time, Photojojo is a digital time capsule service.  Every two weeks they send me an email that has my most interesting photos posted to flickr from one year ago.

Again mostly Scarlett, but also a scan from a photo I took when I was in High School. Dan’s all the way on the left, in the water.

[caption id=“attachment_6568” align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Costume Quest - DLC[/caption]

Costume Quest (7 hours) - I completed the main Costume Quest and then continued on to the DLC. The game continued to be charming and I enjoyed playing it as well as the simple story arc of the brother and sister realizing they didn’t hate each other that much. Gameplay-wise the game is not too forgiving when you make a mistake. There aren’t any items to use for healing so any mistakes in the Mario RPG-like mechanics (hitting a button on a certain timing to empower your attack or reduce an attack against you) could lead to losing an encounter quite quickly. I think it took me about 5-8 tries on the final boss of the main game to get just the right combination of add-ons (which increase HP or allow you to retaliate when hit) and costumes to make it through to the end. It also doesn’t help that the enemies appear to level up with you. That is to say, if there’s enemy X at the beginning of the game and you come up against him later, he has more HP and hits harder. That’s a bit different than the mechanic used in most of the Squaresoft RPG games I played in my youth. That said, there aren’t really any consequences to losing a fight. As far as I can tell, you don’t even lose candy when you lose a fight. You just end up right where you were before and you have another chance to start the encounter again or move away to change the costume equipped.

[caption id=“attachment_6659” align=“aligncenter” width=“231”] MLK in a Hoodie (you can buy prints here)[/caption]

I’m breaking my usual schedule because of the Trayvon Martin case. This story over at Gawker has an important point to make about how race played a part. Personally, I think that, like OJ, Zimmerman is free of jail, but may still end up guilty in a wrongful death lawsuit. After all, he did admit to killing Trayvon and he was told by the 911 operator to leave Trayvon alone. He might have not had enough of a burden of proof to go to jail, but he IS guilty of killing a kid. I am against the Nancy Grace crowd and the way she treats cases like this one of Casey Anthony. Look, we have a court system and we have to abide by its rules or we have chaos. Ken White of the law blog Popehat makes a VERY salient point about this that everyone who’s pissed about the Trayvon case needs to read. This case angers me personally because I have been the target of racism. It was only once, but it stung. I have a younger, adopted brother who is half black and lives in Florida. My parents are well off and my brother could definitely find himself in a neighborhood where people don’t think he belongs. I think I would only act more irrationally towards someone killing my wife or daughter than I would for someone killing my brother. It sucks that so many decades after the 60s we still have stuff like this going on. What bugs me more than anything each time I hear about this case is that Trayvon didn’t do anything to instigate violence - he was just walking through a neighborhood. Whatever he may or may not have done once Zimmerman followed him, he didn’t start anything and he still died. Again, we have a system and the system has chosen not to find him guilty in a criminal sense. Hopefully the system can find him guilty in a civil sense.

When I decided I was going to blog 5 days a week, I picked five categories I wanted to blog about: Fatherhood/Family, Technology, Culture, Photography, and Politics. And because I only have a certain amount of time to write throughout my day - usually during my lunch break at work with a little bit at home - I started keeping a list of topics I wanted to talk about. The list has grown unwieldly and it’s getting to where I can’t remember the point I wanted to make on some of those posts. Sure, some of that is fixed by better note-taking, but a lot of it is that the way I like to write involves being in the moment. When it’s a month (or more) later, I might not really be in the same headspace to talk about that topic. So I’m going to work on paring back the list. I’m going to keep the same days for each topic so that there might start to be a few gaps in the schedule, but it should roughly even out.

Do I even need to repeat it here? Eh, why not: “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics”. Between the way the mind works and the way we’ve been socialized, statistics carry more weight than the same information without statistics. However, there are many ways to take the same data and bend the results to draw out your conclusion. In the case of a story I came across at the end of May, it was through omission. The story mentioned a study by the Drug Czar’s office that revealed

It’s once again time for my biweekly Photojojo post.  For those of you who haven’t been following my blog for a long time, Photojojo is a digital time capsule service.  Every two weeks they send me an email that has my most interesting photos posted to flickr from one year ago.

The video called Keyboard Scarlett comes from the fact that I found out I was able to make her laugh hysterically if I moved her hands back and forth on the table like Keyboard Cat. Interestingly, now that she has full agency over her limbs, she hates when I do anything like this.