Just spending an August evening with the boy. Similar:Do you get your news mostly from social media? I check NPR, Drudge, and news.google.com.Do you have a regular news-consumption r…CultureBad Doggy — practicing "Tomorrow" with a human Sandyhttp://www.youtube.com/v/718e4XsNvGY …AmusingAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dartAestheticsWhy I Rarely Blog about My Home Building ProjectsWe’re…
It’s a logical fallacy to suggest that where two sides disagree, the truth must lie in the center. It doesn’t matter how many people believe in Bigfoot or essential oils or the city of Boston — popular opinion won’t make something factually true. (Though of course, well-meaning people can disagree over values, such as whether…
Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans. “Saltpeter, John!!!” Similar:The Ship #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 2) Sisko defends his claim to salvage a…Rewatching ST:DS9 The Ship On a mine…DramaStar Wars' Original, Scum-Caked BrillianceThe B-movie shoddiness of actors and aes…AestheticsSportsWorks Adventure at the Carnegie Science CenterI confess that I have never been all tha…CultureStunning picture of…
I rather enjoyed recording this oral interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for WAOB Audio Theatre. Similar:Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers: Four MovesThe confirmation bias describes the very…AcademiaLatest on Napster(See also: Digital Hollywood- No Resolut…Current_EventsKorean News Station Pokes Fun at KTVU with Fake American Pilot Names After Southwest Airli…This is certainly a joke, but it’s…
The president of the US bonds with Vladimir Putin over journalists: “Get rid of them.” This is not normal. This is not right. Donald Trump joked with Vladimir Putin about getting rid of journalists and Russian meddling in US elections when the two leaders met at the G20 summit in Japan. As they sat for…
Spent a relaxing evening in playing solitaire chess puzzles with the boy. Similar:National Headline Contest 2011Great headlines from winner David Bowman…AestheticsEducated, uplifted, boosted, and fed. Block party celebrating August Wilson continues thro…CultureMixed ReceptionThis activity is set in a research group…AcademiaTips to Improve HappinessKing says many simple and effective tech…CultureWhat happened when I showed vintage Mister…
The girl (blue skirt and pigtails), who just finished her junior year of homeschooling last week, is in the dance ensemble for this professional production of “Beauty and the Beast,” which opens tonight (in a sold-out show) at the St. Vincent Summer Theatre. I spent a few summers doing PR for the Heritage Repertory Theater…
Workspace for an in-progress Unity3D tutorial. Installing the Unity Hub. (Unity.com documentation) Tutorial Assets <- Download, unzip Place in [YourUnityProject]/Assets Video Tutorials: Unity3D Game Spaces for Beginners (#CWCON 2019 #e11) Similar:My View: What will you do with an English degree? PlentyI just found my first reading assignment…AcademiaQ Who? (ST: TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode…
I’m brushing up on my Unity3D skills, and created this simple hedge maze game. When I decided to let the player shoot books instead of bullets, I turned on the physics (so the books bounce and roll), but I forgot to tick the “use gravity” checkbox, so they float. (Music: “Dreaming of Flying” by Celestial…
As the humanities decline in the United States, the country is losing the craft of understanding, losing its capacity for citizenship. Even educated people are increasingly unable and unwilling to distinguish between fake and real information, becoming a community that cannot understand itself as anything more than a circulation of figures. Self-righteousness takes the place…
I just finished “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion,” a very accessible mainstream (non-academic) book by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Takeaways: Our rational minds are to our emotional/instinctual selves like riders on an elephant. When the elephant leans even slightly to one side, the riders look in that direction…
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation after a 20-year break. Another episode that I had never seen before (so this is technically not a “rewatch”). The Enterprise traces time blips to the laboratory of a brilliant scientist on a remote research station, where a woman Picard stood up in Paris 22 years ago re-enters his…
I first heard the formalized theories about “learning styles” as a junior faculty member, at a faculty workshop. I didn’t build my whole pedagogy around it, but it was one of the things I thought about, especially in the context of encouraging students to take intellectual risks with multimodal student projects (rather than just fun…
The girl and I were thrilled to catch Quantum Theatre’s outdoor production of King Lear. The smell of a storm in the air, gusting wind, piped-in industrial sounds (metallic groans and rumbles) and the knowledge that the only reason we were able to get tickets was this was a special add-on performance to make up…
My rewatch reflection on the Star Trek:TNG episode “Skin of Evil,” in which the crew encounters a malignant oil slick. Some good character moments with Worf and Yar, and some good solo acting from Marina Sirtis as Troi psychoanalyzes a disembodied voice. While I appreciate the Roddenberrian argument against playing along with a power-mad enemy’s sick games, dramatizing a that philosophical concept is not enough to carry a full episode. If you’re a fan the final holodeck send-off scene is worth watching but overall it’s a weak episode.
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation after a 20-year break. Picard mediates a dispute over a shipment of medicine. This disjointed episode has an actiony/sciencey opening, a worthwhile medical/cultural mystery in the middle, and a morality play with a moderately Trekworthy finale. I have no memory of seeing any part of this episode. While I…
My wife is directing Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Opening night is tonight. Geyer Performing Arts Center. Similar:Educators approve national campaign to halt high stakes, “toxic tests”Not a news item, but an announcement fro…CultureWhen Perception Trumps Reality: Republicans aren't nearly as rich as Democrats estimate. D…Democrats wildly over-estimate the perce…AcademiaMoving from Debate to EmpathyIn my…
The show runs tonight at 8 and Sunday at 2:30. One could argue that this production’s perpetually upbeat, fast-paced tone robs the play of its melancholic undertones; many of the more contemplative moments are brushed past or played for comedy, and Feste’s sorrowful songs, set by Monica Stephenson and Gil Teixeira to music for solo…
In his review, Greg Kerestan, who must have have gotten a pretty good education somewhere, manages to work in references to the Wind in the Willows, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Caddyshack. The cast is uniformly excellent, but the greatest burdens fall upon the leading players of the two sections of the show. Bouncing back and…
Kudos to Prime Stage for a Twelfth Night that truly sings. Stage director Andy Kirtland has created a lovely adaptation of Shakespeare’s 1601 comedy. A vibrant intimacy connects the players and audience, supporting a wonderful production that’s superbly enjoyable for both those who know this play and for anyone experiencing Shakespeare for the first time. Kirtland transports an ensemble…