Kimberly Hirsh

Quick note on Jurassic Park and university research

Mon, 11 May 2026 09:44:43 -0400

📚 Trying out a re-read of Jurassic Park since we’ve been enjoying the movies and I haven’t read it since at in when the movie was first released.

Crichton’s introduction laments the infiltration of commercial interests into university scientific research, focused on individual greed and failing ethics. It doesn’t mention the interplay of university research funding and patent law that led to a push for commercialization of research and tech transference in the 1980s, the era Crichton is talking about here.

Reading Jurassic Park is difficult as a lapsed academic than it is as a middle schooler.

Mon, 11 May 2026 08:35:07 -0400

Finished reading: The Long Game by Rachel Reid 📚

Like literally everyone, I adore Ilya Rozanov. Depression rep here really resonated with me.

Sat, 09 May 2026 18:36:55 -0400

Finished reading: Role Model by Rachel Reid 📚

Fri, 08 May 2026 08:23:28 -0400

When the siren song of goblin mode calls, I aspire to run the opposite direction and end up in goblin king mode: wearing tight pants, covered in glitter, walking around inside MC Escher’s art.

Thu, 07 May 2026 09:07:56 -0400

I have aspirations of being a person whose morning routine consists of more than just wake up, take meds, stare into space. That’s definitely all I can manage right now, but maybe one day.

Wed, 06 May 2026 23:30:54 -0400

Finished reading: Common Goal by Rachel Reid 📚

Tue, 05 May 2026 09:53:23 -0400

Guy dancing to music in the driver’s seat of your car, I like your vibe. 🎶

Tue, 05 May 2026 08:01:51 -0400

Want to read: Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better by David Epstein 📚

Long ago, Kim Werker and Kate Bingaman-Burt convinced me of the value of creative constraints. I love that there’s now a book all about it.

Tue, 05 May 2026 03:19:20 -0400

Finished reading: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book Four: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan 📚

Tue, 05 May 2026 03:18:32 -0400

Finished reading: Sundust by Zeke Peña 📚

Mon, 04 May 2026 16:37:55 -0400

Finished reading: Tough Guy by Rachel Reid 📚

I am a time traveler from the 1990s.

Mon, 04 May 2026 15:58:14 -0400

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” L. P. Hartley’s quote has a life completely beyond its origin in the book The Go-Between. I think a lot of people come to viscerally understand it as they age.

I’ll be 45 in July and I am beginning to understand myself as a time traveler from the 1990s.

My husband sent me this Midnight Murmurations piece on The X-Files. I was bopping along reading about the experience of this person who is younger than me experiencing the show and then got to this part, which discusses 1993 technology like I might talk about the technology of a 1950s sci-fi movie:

A bygone era is put to screen, with big mobile phones that you need to pull an antenna out of in order to use, chunky keyboards wired into bulbous PCs, giant spinning tape recorders, and rectangular cars.

And this was when I realized I’m a time traveler from the 1990s, because I immediately thought, “Well yeah, that’s what technology looks like.” My brain exists in a perpetual 1993-1999, and when it encounters things that don’t belong in that milieu, it’s not because that milieu is old, it’s because I have somehow been transported into this dystopian future.

Watching Jurassic Park with my kid has only reinforced this sense. Of course computers have huge CRT monitors. You can tell it’s the 90s because they’re not monochrome. Of course a twelve-year-old girl is a hacker. (I was 12 in 1993 and while I wasn’t a hacker, I was definitely more computer-oriented than most of the other kids I knew.) This is the world as it should be, except for all the genetically-engineered dinosaurs running around.

Derek Sivers wrote about being a netizen in 1993. This was me, too. This is how I want the Internet to be still, non-commercial, generous. You can still find it some places but it’s definitely not the norm. But I, a woman out of time, still expect it to be.

Sun, 03 May 2026 23:45:49 -0400

Finished reading: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 📚

🎧 Read by Stephen Fry as part of Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection. Doyle is phoning it in here. We get a softer Holmes, who will let people get away with crime if he decides that’s what’s just.

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 07:41:31 -0400

Found my summer aesthetic: beach goth. 💀🌊

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:29:32 -0400

🍿 Reflections on Jurassic Park:

Ian Malcolm is gross and he has all the best lines.
That shot of the T-rex with the banner falling is so iconic. (Forgive me the spoiler.)
If you’ve been to Universal’s Jurassic Park area, this whole thing feels much more real because they did such a great job.

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:05:30 -0400

Finished reading: Sweet Starfire by Jayne Ann Krentz 📚

Sci-fi romance. 😍

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 06:30:32 -0400

📝 Tiny Week(s)notes (idea by @brie@social.lol):
📖 Sweet Starfire by Jayne Ann Krentz, The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan. Went to indie bookstore book club for Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian and had a blast.
🎧 Fated Mates always.
📺 Hacks 😍.
🎮 The Room series.
🌱 Picked out plants for the deck that spouse planted.
🍿 The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Jurassic Park (still iconic).

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:06:28 -0400

🍿Just watched Jurassic Park with my kid. He enjoyed it. It holds up, just as it did the last time I watched it about 10 years ago. The animatronics are still impressive, the CGI less so.

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:08:50 -0400

Finished reading: Fireworks by Matthew Burgess 📚

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 21:40:40 -0400

Finished reading: Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian 📚

This book is about the queer subtext and text in every Star Trek, the found family in Farscape and Firefly, the excruciating emotional pain of anxiety and physical pain of migraines, and the joy of finding a couple people you can let your guard down around. I loved it. Bless Cat Sebastian.

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:54:19 -0400

💬📚 “It’s one of those rare moments when everything in his life fits where it belongs, when his skin is the right size and his brain isn’t a total liability.” Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:20:19 -0400

💬📚 “… he’d prefer to pretend everyone in the world thinks he’s fine, but that ship has sailed. That ship is at the bottom of the sea.” Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 08:55:08 -0400

💬📚 “Simon stays perfectly still, like he’s hiding from a Tyrannosaurus rex and not the existence of social norms.” Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 20:41:17 -0400

Finished reading: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley 📚

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:35:04 -0400

Finished reading: Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas 📚