It’s now past 6:00 in my particular time zone, so, to everyone on the Internet: please stop talking about the Rapture.

What little mocking humor remained in the subject had been sucked dry days ago by the Internet’s collective “cleverness,” and at this point it’s just become tired and recycled. So let’s let this particularly silly meme die the quick death it deserves now, shall we?

But if anyone is legitimately upset that the Rapture didn’t actually happen and take them away . . . well, cheer up — it’s not like it’s the end of the world.

Oh, Geordi. Poor bastard just can’t catch a break.

(via Wil)

A couple times in the past several weeks I found myself in situations where it would have been damned useful for me to know how to tie a proper knot — like when I helped Nate put a tarp on top of his shed to cover a hole, and we ended up tying it down using a variation of the “loop it around itself twenty times and hope to god you never have to untie it” knot.

Peter Hudson’s iwillknot.com would have been useful to know about then.

This is a site about knots: how to tie them, how to appreciate their beauty. Even the seriously knot-challenged among us can learn to tie many useful and popular knots by following along with the short, step-by-step instructional video clips on this site.

The interface is simple and minimal, and Hudson demonstrates very clearly how to make twelve different knots.

I’m saying something about this here in case anyone else finds themselves suddenly needing to tie something — or someone — down and would like to do so using secure knot that will be easy to untie.

I don’t drink PBR. Can’t stand the stuff, honestly. But a lot of my friends drink it.

And this is the road that I think a lot of them are heading down.

A pseudo alt history comic by Emmy Cicierega, answering the question, “What if Severus Snape had been a cool teacher?”

Over at her blog, Ms. Cicierega has a few more Snape-themed comics that are greatly amusing. Check ‘em out.

This made me verily lolz:

I logged onto OkCupid earlier to disable some email notifications, since I don’t really need ‘em anymore, and I clicked on the profile of someone who’d messaged me.

Her profile was pretty good and well-written for the most part, which is something I always appreciate and look for, even if she wouldn’t normally be my type. One bit in particular, however, struck me as intriguing.

Do you see which part I’m talking about?

This girl, who according to her profile is 20 and a journalism student, would like to one day be a “journalist for a magazine or popular blog.”

I’m not knocking her aspirations or mocking her, not even in the slightest; that’s not what this is about. It’s just that when I was her age and attending college, which was eight (nearly nine) years ago, most people barely even knew what the word “blog” meant. And now today, at least one journalism student would like to one day work for a blog.

It makes me wonder though if universities and journalism classes in high schools are actively encouraging their students to aspire to write for blogs in addition to the more traditional media outlets like newspapers and magazines. I suppose I could message the girl whose profile I cribbed from above, but that would probably be a slightly awkward conversation. Though I’d be very interested to talk to a journalism professor or instructor about the matter.

Let me be clear about one point: I don’t consider this to be a bad turn of events at all. It just strikes me as such a major paradigm shift for the whole profession, an profession which I readily profess to having no firsthand knowledge of — and in only eight(ish) years, too.

But any change or evolution in the industry that creates more opportunities for journalists, especially considering the general malaise that’s been gripping the newspaper industry for years, is a good thing in my mind. If anything, I think it’s rather exciting. One more reason why I love living in the future.

Just sort of blows my mind a bit, that’s all.

Heh. I’m predisposed to being entertained by a music video such as this, mostly because:

1) It’s a catchy dancepop song about Star Trek;

2) It’s sung by a cute girl, who, from the number of pips on her collar, is a captain in Starfleet; and

3) It’s about Star Trek. What more do you need?

But the fact that it features Ray William Johnson at around 2:45 just sweetens the already geeky pot.

“They show extraordinary intelligence, even problem-solving. Especially the big one. We bred eight originally, but when she came in, she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. That one…when she looks at you, you can tell she’s working things out.”

[via Reddit]

This makes me want to watch some TNG right now. And it reinforces my feeling that Riker looked much better with a beard.

That beard’s name? Deanna Troi.

[thefrogman]