Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans. “Saltpeter, John!!!” Similar:You didn’t make the Harlem Shake go viral—corporations didI never found “Harlem Shake” videos to b…BusinessInside the utopian, brick-loving world of LEGO's adult fandomI used to enjoy buying my kids a $4 set …AestheticsWe Need to Talk about the Burgeoning Robot Middle ClassMaybe it’s not the super-robots we…
I rather enjoyed recording this oral interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for WAOB Audio Theatre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzVQeAUIdHM&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR22qfKVNroqFkRrs3fgvWwpHMpEFZvdaNB_-tskGCm-IltxB3ByKKnpu8s Similar:The Struggle to Save Ballet From ItselfA former dancer reckons with the rigors …AestheticsYour first test layout of medieval city streets will be your worst. #blender3d #medievalyo…Your first test layout of medieval city …DesignLiaisons (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season…
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:Ray Harryhousen, visual effects pioneer, dies The Harryhausen family regret to…AestheticsMisSpelled: Premiering Oct 1In this podcast series, I voice a mage w…Amusing1 small shirt for a man, 1 giant leap backward for women: ColumnIdea for a scientist pull-cord doll: “Fa…AestheticsCoding Bootcamps and the…
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:Yes, it's happening here at Seton Hill. Quidditch. AcademiaIs College Worth It? Clearly, New Data SayAmericans with four-year college degrees…AcademiaAuthor of 80s classic The Hobbit…
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:The daughter is working hard as a dancer and Flaemchen understudy. @frontporchtheatricalsCultureThe Naked Now (Season 1, Episode 2: ST:TNG Rewatch) When a script that blows chunks makes …With a large ensemble, we saw many scene…CulturePittsburgh in the Round…
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…
My daughter can hardly stop talking about how much she loves this show and the people who are putting it on. Only four more chances to see Twelfth Night this weekend! Similar:And so it begins: the unmarked assignments counterThis little icon will control my life fo…AcademiaAn important day to remember.Never again.PersonalJourney's End (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch,…
His status as a deputy on a mission from the king of England would make it easy for him to gain favor and gifts from the Visconti. When they sent messengers to Richard II at the end of the year, Richard presented the envoys with the generous gift of 200 marks in gold and two…