Recent content in Posts on Tom Hickerson's Site
I did a few things this summer: I published an article on Medium, ArsDigita University: 25 Years Later. I did this not because I like Medium, but because I thought it was the best - ahem - medium to display that kind of content. An endless amount of thanks is due to not only the students who sent me answers to my questions, but also to Shai Simonson, who responded right away (on Linkedin!
After 51 years as Bard College’s President, Leon Botstein announced his resignation last Friday. This happened days after the release of the independent WilmerHale report on his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who Botstein had courted for donations relentlessly, even after Epstein’s conviction. My own relationship with Bard is now very distant; I attended Bard from 1989…
I woke up this morning to the news that Mr Nobody Against Putin won the Academy Award. I believe the acceptance speech included this quote: “In the name of our future, in the name of all our children, stop all of these wars now.” I have not seen the film; I have shied away from all documentaries actually, because I’m living it in eastern Ukraine. I have not seen any of the films…
I’m writing this post late, because frankly February 24th this time around was much darker than the years before. Today is actually March 16th. The weather is nicer, the electricity is (more or less) on all the time, we are beating back Russian forces in the southeast. However, it’s darker in other parts of the world still. So to lighten the mood, I am posting pics of Kharkiv from much…
Much along the same lines as last year, I’m leaving here the full list of what I watched and read in 2025. As far as entertainment went, 2025 was pretty good. I was pretty busy with work and current events, but what I did see was mostly stellar. Highlights Severance Seasons One and Two. I didn’t get the hype when the first season came out but then I caught up this year, and it was…
I woke up in the center of Kharkiv on the morning of February 24th, 2022. It was still dark, 4am, and we already heard the explosions and the fighting. We made a few quick calls, and had collected a few things before my in-laws came to collect us. We got in a car and headed out in the early dawn. People stopped us in the street and asked us if it was really happening, if the Russians were already…
I’ll start to post ‘what I watched/read’ posts for the last few years here, just to give you an idea of what kind of media I liked to watch in 2024. The TL;DR of it: lots of animation, some Terry Pratchett, a movie here and there when I had the time. I may hyperlink these in the future. Sometimes I add a review. Jan-01: “Persephone” short story by Lev Grossman
As of the writing of this post, the July 4th holidays are in the rear view mirror and we’re on our way to the 2024 US Presidential Election in a few more months. Overall, things are still the same here; we’re all still alive, some of my colleagues have moved around but I’m not allowed to say where. So, what’s been happening? What I’ve Watched I started off the year…
Since I’ve set this site up three months ago, I have worked with two other sites to get going on Github Pages and Hugo. I’ve collected some impressions here, so that others working on the same setup can learn from my mistakes. In general, I sought out Hugo as the lightweight Wordpress alternative - I would have WP on another hosting service, and all of a sudden get dinged for an extra…
Seeya 2023, wouldn’t want to be ya (again) I was going to post a longer rant about what was good and bad about this year, but honestly the bombing of the center of Kharkiv last night has made everything I write sound pathetic. So I’ll just leave you with this for now. The best thing I watched in 2023 was Poker Face with Natasha Lyonne. The thing I’m the most proud about in 2023…
I’m starting to work on this blog again to get away from the WordPress way of working with things, that is, to have someone else set up the MySQL and PHP and hope it’s all the right version, and hope that updates don’t break modules, and hope that a PHP upgrade doesn’t cost extra in hosting support fees, and hope that… well, you get the idea. I originally started…
First post, let’s see where this goes.