What Khan Academy’s Fun, Free Learning Empire Has to Do with Dystopian Social Control

Over the Christmas break, I’ve been churning through Khan Academy math drills, so that I can be a more effective homeschool parent. It’s actually kind of fun watching my score go up, and earning badges. In the way that birds who are trained to peck buttons for food think it’s fun to peck their little beaks bloody. As a grad student ploughing through…

A Thursday throwback to end 2015.

Similar:In November 1999, I was blogging about books, camomile tea and Skylon 4, the death of Star…In November 1999, I was blogging about …CybercultureI’m really enjoying the embossed labels. #Blender3D (Making props for my fantasy #steampun…AestheticsIn-person classes heighten age-related hearing problems (opinion)My family tells me I’m starting to speak…AcademiaIt appears there may be some audience…

Daughter made a Rainbow Loom Marty McFly. Note vest jacket and hover board.

Similar:Write instructions for busy grouches.Updating the graphic for a writing hando…AcademiaMy Polish grandmother used to bake these cookies, which my wife picked up at a Ukranian fe… My grandmother shaped …AestheticsIt’s something to do.PersonalMe, contemplating the implications of maybe doing a socialize this weekend.PersonalA pleasant Independence Day photo shoot with the daughter.AestheticsOh the Overthinks You…

And so it begins.

Similar:Kids Today: A Response to Mark Bauerlein (from "Dean Dad")Mark Bauerlein’s essay “What’s the Point…AcademiaWhy Do So Many People on YouTube Sound the Same?So it turns out the “YouTube voice” is j…CultureI'm really enjoying seeing how my students are responding to Hamlet.As part of a class assignment, one stude…AcademiaShades of Gray (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Two…

Is There a Santa Claus?

Update, Dec 2020:   We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: Dear Editor— I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If…

NASA Releases New Earthrise Image

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently captured a unique view of Earth from the spacecraft’s vantage point in orbit around the moon. “The image is simply stunning,” said Noah Petro, Deputy Project Scientist for LRO at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The image of the Earth evokes the famous ‘Blue Marble’ image taken by Astronaut Harrison Schmitt during Apollo…

Cookies. That is all.

Similar:And to think… I had just decided to retire this meme because the last time I used in cla…AcademiaPolice Department, Fire Department Tell Different Versions of Same Richmond IncidentA Richmond police official and a fire of…Current_EventsDark Page (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 7) Lwaxana suffers from a hidden trau…Rewatching ST:TNG Troi’s mother visit…AmusingTop 8…

Final week of Pict Classic Theatre’s Oliver Twist (NEXTpittsburgh)

Today is Carolyn’s day off from Oliver Twist… the show’s final week starts tomorrow, and ends with two shows on Saturday Dec 19. Now, the iconic story of Oliver Twist makes its U.S. premiere in a production with local ties and significance for one Pittsburgh-based theater company. If you have yet to catch PICT Classic Theatre‘s Oliver Twist—which opened on…

The Complete Deaths: all of the Bard’s 74 scripted deaths in one new play.

Over the past four centuries, the brutality of Shakespeare’s plays has become the subject of endless academic study, but his contemporary critics didn’t approve of the on-stage gore. Michael Dobson,  director of the Shakespeare Institute, said that Elizabethan drama was known for being gruesome: “The English drama was notorious for on-stage deaths; they were thought crass.…

A student who had often been frustrated during my class used this poem in her final reflection.

  Similar:I am happy with how this turned out. My mother told me about this story when I was little,…PersonalA pie slice from the ring surrounding the ballroom, from the #steampunk bedtime stories I …AestheticsPopulating my simulation with a crowd. Tweaking and experimenting. #unity3d #medievalyork …PersonalBiggest accomplishment of the dayThe real problem is timing –…

Recording Christmas Stories for WAOB Audio Theatre

For WAOB Audio Theater, my family spent an afternoon recording “The Little Match Girl,” “Papa Panov’s Special Day,” and a new story, “The Executioner.”  Already online — Ozma and the Little Wizard, and The Monkey’s Paw. Similar:No more braces!PersonalCelebration of Writing Fall 2019PersonalIt not only went VROOM, it carried chunky plastic letters that could *spell*…

CNN Holds Morning Meeting To Decide What Viewers Should Panic About For Rest Of Day

Kicking around ideas ranging from an uptick in child kidnappings to a new link between laptops and cancer, senior CNN staffers held their regular daily meeting this morning to decide which topic viewers should panic about for the rest of the day.  —The Onion Similar:Top Russian News Site Calls Out Putin's 'Paranoiac' War Journalists at…