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…
Similar:Why Were Old Video Games So Pixelated?I get all my news online now, but I grew…AestheticsA stranger approached me today.A stranger approached me today. I was a…CultureDelightful #steampunk #neovictorian control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #design #aesth…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsThat's what's been bothering me since yesterday's #AirPod reveal. #manamanaNumber of times one of my…
Similar:Eye of Sauron, Hobbit Door, Palantir and One Ring Easter Eggs.AestheticsI'm down to a king and two pawns but my son likes playing until he crushes me.PersonalGreensburg Holiday ParadePersonalAnime Treatment of Star WarsI am not particularly into anime, though…AestheticsMe, contemplating the implications of maybe doing a socialize this weekend.PersonalI baked about 12 million vertices of…
I haven’t read Pride and Prejudice in about 25 years. I always liked Mr. Bennett, though now that I have been married for more than 20 years, I can more fully appreciate his line from Chapter 1: “You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I…
The headline is silly clickbait — of course Rey is a role model, but not *just* for little girls. Aside from that, Mike Adamick writes lucidly and passionately about a key scene in The Force Awakens. Very important if there are young girls in your life, or if you are interested in the relationship between…
Similar:Full Bloom opens tonight.PersonalToday's annoying adventures of adulting: fixing the bathroom ceiling fan.Not fun, but done. ModdingFlorida Woman Bites CamelIdentifying her as a “Florida woman,” as…AestheticsWe were a Neilsen ratings family during the pandemicIn March 2020, just as the lockdown clos…BusinessOnly a Dad (Edgar Guest poem, read by Carolyn and Peter Jerz for WAOB Audio…
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…
These are not the rhetorical choices I would make in order to convey this message to my own students, but I can certainly identify with the author’s evident frustration. My own syllabus has a FAQ section, and in the first week or so of classes I usually assign an open-notes “Syllabus Quiz” so that students…
The consequences weren’t as serious as the infamous Palm Beach County Butterfly Ballot; however, Eric Thomas has taken it upon himself to redesign the illogical “Miss Universe” results card. First, I’ve updated the brand to match. Just because this is simple and utilitarian doesn’t mean it can’t match the rest of the show. After that, I…
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…
How did Reuters happen to get a picture of the arrest of Martin Shkreli (the pharmacy bro who bought the rights to a drug and raised the cost an obscene percentage)? Why is that question at least as important as what Martin Shkreli looks like while being arrested? There are two subjects on which Reuters…
At a glance of the edited footage, it’s tempting to think that Gertie was brought down by resonance, given the vivid visual evidence of a bridge that undulates before it collapses, not unlike the wine glass that shatters under the vibrations of a singer’s voice…. How did the incorrect explanation persist for so long? In their…
Similar:Many things in the world are awful. But creating this #steampunk #blender3d control panel …AestheticsTwitterverse, are we grieving over coder droves now leaving? AmusingPlaying a well-dressed bad guy. PersonalI MacGyvered myself a heat sinkI’m getting ready to record about 18hrs …DesignLegos and M&M’s Bulge IllusionThese are straight vertical and horizont…Aesthetics7 web design trends you’ll actually see…
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…
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.…
Similar:The boy is visiting the Prohibition exhibit @HistoryCenter while I continue at NeMLA.PersonalWhat blogging wasI’ve maintained this blog since the spri…CybercultureCarolyn as Dolly Levi (Arts4Homeschoolers / Stage Right)I loved listening to her practice the “M…AestheticsAll the Classroom’s a StageSome good observations in this essay. As…AcademiaMisleading to suggest that because I have nothing left to…
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:Backstage with the White Swan and her prince.PersonalThey still need work but we have 2 weeks before classes start,…
Post-Gazette.com – Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes – whatever their genres, the great authors were always great storytellers. Victorian novelist Charles Dickens (1812-70) belongs in that elite company, and although he wrote little for theater, he had a very high dramatic sense and there have always been those to adapt his wonderful stories for the stage. ‘Oliver…
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:High Schooler's Fake Story of Stock Riches Fools New York Editors”If…
So it turns out the “YouTube voice” is just a variety of ways of emphasizing words, none of which are actually exclusive to YouTube—people employ these devices in speech all the time. But they generally do it to grab the listener’s attention, and when you’re just talking to a camera without much action, it takes…