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:Carolyn and Nick in Beauty and the BeastAestheticsSherlock Holmes and The Woman (daughter and I rehearsing for a live recording Friday after…CultureMore #steampunk control panels. Recessed workstations with fold-down keyboards. #blender3d…PersonalNational Dance DayIn the restaurant parking lot after dinn…CultureMe (glares in iambic pentameter)Me: I need to post the opening lecture f…AcademiaArsenal of Freedom (TNG Rewatch,…
Similar:Using a Typewriter Simulator to Teach Media HistoryWorking on the syllabus for my “Media an…CultureOver the years I have leveled up my Blender3D skills.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNLArSlF…AestheticsWeird History offers a good debunking of this persistent myth.PersonalSettling in for a half day updating my knowledge of the job market my students will face.Settling in for a half day updating…
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:100 Word ChallengeIt is a weekly creative writing challeng…CultureRUN. HIDE. FIGHT. Surviving an Active Shooter Event – English – YouTubeDepartment of Homeland Security-funded v…CultureShall I Encode Thee In DNA? Sonnets Stored On Double HelixIf you took everything human beings have…Culture"I'm a geek. Deal with it." –my 11yo daughter. #geekgirlproblemsAmusingScrooge Is My BrotherMy daughter delivered the…
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:Facebook touts fight on fake news, but struggles to explain why InfoWars isn't banned10 points to CNN’s Oliver Darcy for work…BusinessAnother 10 sq cm of details for a #steampunk control panel. Just background eye candy, not…AestheticsMy Kids Loved Narnia but Were Unimpressed by Turkish DelightAmerican kids today would have little id…AmusingAnother 10 sq cm of…
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 Cosmic Brownie fairy has visited my office. Is “brownie fairy” redundant? Thank you an…PersonalFrog and Toad at the Mountain Playhouse with the daughter.Frog and Toad at the Mountain Playhouse …PersonalThoroughly enjoying Collaborators at Quantum Theatre.PersonalEnjoying some sibling nerdtime with Lego The Hobbit.GamesNipper Hears "His Master's Voice"As a kid growing up in Fairfax County,…
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:The other day I did a socialize with some of my Humanities colleagues. (I am proud of myse…PersonalDeus Ex…
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:The Problem with Quotes on the InternetAmusingCan you tell the difference…
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…