IT Insights Blog

One of our favorite movies of 2018 is the Alex Honnold rock climbing documentary Free Solo. It's one of five films presently in contention for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, and a must-see for anyone who's the least bit intrigued by big wall climbing. If you haven't seen it yet, then check your local theater listings quick! There's a special one-week IMAX release that begins Friday, and this is definitely a film that would be more enjoyable on a massive IMAX screen.

Here we are in the last few days of January and winter, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, is about as cold as it's going to get. Although according to the people in charge of forecasting the weather, that could be about to change — and not for the better. (Topic: Would you enjoy working as a weather forecaster? You'd get a lot of ridicule for all those time when projections don't pan out. On the other hand, algorithms and databases would do most of your job for you.)

It seems like there are comic book movies and comic book superheroes everywhere you turn these days. Five of the six highest-grossing movies to play in theaters in 2018 were superhero movies. (Incredibles 2, technically speaking, has no antecedent in comic books, but is 100 percent in the spirit of its archetypally ink-spawned fellow feature films.) There's a Best Picture Oscar-nominated comic book superhero movie. There are two such films in the running for Best Animated Feature.

Fairly often in life, most people end up in this or that situation where they feel at least a little bit overwhelmed and usually a lot underqualified. As the philosopher David Byrne described it, "You may find yourself in a beautiful house / With a beautiful wife / And you may ask yourself, 'Well / How did I get here?" Oh, yeah. It can be a little freaky. As Byrne suggests, "You may tell yourself / 'This is not my beautiful house!' / And you may tell yourself / 'This is not my beautiful wife!' "

The IT Insights blog is taking the day off, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will be back on Wednesday, Jan. 23. Here at TestOut Continuing Education, we often encourage IT professionals and other learners to do something for themselves ...