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:Carolyn as Hodel and Peter as Lazar in the Stage Right homeschool Fiddler on the Roof.PersonalAnnie — Cabinet TomorrowMy 10yo daughter Carolyn played Annie in…AmusingBiggest accomplishment of the dayThe real problem is timing — they had c…GovernmentThe girl's entrance as Marley's Ghost.PersonalThis class has been everything that I expect it would be and I cannot…

And so it begins.

Similar:Epilogue to Rossum's Universal RobotsMy big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based…DramaI just bought Diamond City.GamesIn July, 2000, I was creating handouts on the sounds of poetry, prototypes, and writing fo…It seems that an unusually high percenta…AcademiaClosing the Door on the Video Store Era (with tweets) · chutry · StorifyNow that Blockbuster Video has officiall…BusinessHow…

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:Starship Mine (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 18) Picard out-thinks thieves rai…Rewatching ST:TNG Picard plays cat-an…CybercultureThe Man Who Photographed GhostsThis review of a book about early photog…AestheticsThe film Carolyn was in is a finalist. The screening will start soon. #48hrfilmproject Sup…Personal"Chores" — Clip from Snow White: The Musical (Stage Right Greensburg, Sept 2012)Here’s what…

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.…

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:#Blender3D practice: #Steampunk control panel #trimsheethttps://youtu.be/4j7qAzaDg3w   …Aesthetics“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Very glad I…

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:Here’s How the Pandemic Finally EndsThis is the end of the…