My toddler received a STEM “certificate” from the LEGO education booth at the White House Easter Egg Roll with the slogan “rebuild our world” (it was a hashtag actually). My mind went to a dark place … he might just have to.

We’ve got the kiddo sleeping in his own bed again, mostly. He still needs some company (or, we offer it because it gets short term results) before he really falls asleep. As I was laying in the dark next to him, thinking he was almost out, I popped-in an earbud. I re-started a podcast. Something made me snicker to myself.

He angled his head over near mine and put his lips to my ear. “What’s so silly, Daddy?” he whispered.

I told him he was. True enough.

From the The Talk Show: a nostalgia session for Internet Olds/educational folklore session for you kiddos, by a couple of preeminent Internet Olds, talking about some other preeminent Internet Olds.

I remember picking apart 0sil8 as I taught myself HTML, later read Kottke.org forever, discovered Daring Fireball I think nearly as soon as it hit the scene, read Suck.com, subscribed to the email “re-issue” that went out a couple-few years ago, and my linkblog was linked from the top nav of Robot Wisdom myself, and used Dean’s web-based Textile processor before Markdown came to be, and consumed Dean’s photoblog of his weimaraner pups.

Dug up wee bits of correspondence… I once asked Jason Kottke how he did the link log interludes against his regular posts and I’ve got some scant back and forth with Aaron Swartz (a notable contributor to RSS and Markdown, among so many other things, RIP) later, in the mid-aughts.

A prelude to the real substance of this episode is Gruber’s and Kottke’s own instantiation of our collective semi-annual bitchin' about the time change. I do differ with @gruber’s advocacy for sticking with DST. I prefer we stick with standard time and not for any of the straw man reasons he rightfully takes down.

I do wish Markdown had some more semantic options for cite and emphasis rather than just italics and bold.

Connection.

I’ve been writing code again. Essentially tutoring a friend who has to wield some Python as he learns some natural language data analysis techniques. I’ve been remembering I actually know Python (I mostly applied in the context of Jython … long story … it even has a Peter Thiel digression) and learning little bits of NLTK, which once in a recent past life, I had a direct report trying to educate me as he applied it. Anyway, said friend got a 9/9 on his first assignment. He really leaned into it after initial despair and reticence, but I feel a little proud for myself too.

For all the warranted critiques of the New York Times, and laments about the arc of newspapers, I am grateful for the Metro Diaries feature of that paper. I have been reading it, on and off, for 25 years.

I think I have to give my Dad credit, to whom I don’t give a lot of credit, for pointing it out to me in a print edition of the Sunday New York Times about that long ago. Back when the Sunday Times was a big thick paper, and the Metro section (if you bought it within range of the city, at least) seemed bigger than my local city paper (with the ads removed, anyway).

I write a lot in my head, so little of which actually comes out.

My kid is in the bath, cracking himself up with repeat declarations (but with varied timing and emphasis) of “I like poop!"

Normal toddler stuff or stand-up in the making? Can’t be far from a rendition of The Aristocrats joke….

Listening to self-aware comedians discuss their personal pasts (a la Maron’s WTF, and also Conan’s podcast) is almost as good as a therapy session.