Rewatching ST:DS9 On an assignment to write a profile on Bashir, budding writer Jake tags along to a medical conference, and nothing really surprising happens. Their casual, character-based banter is not interrupted by a distress call from a colony in desperate need of medical assistance, and no side-quest, custom-tailored to appeal to the people who…
In my lit classes, I’m definitely teaching more short stories and fewer novels that I used to. I’ve expanded the time I spend on note-taking, synthesizing quotes from different sources, and why at the college level it’s not a good paragraph if it simply introduces “One quote that supports my position,” repeats three or four…
For years I used ScreenFlow, which offers a paid upgrade every couple of years, and doesn’t update the old versions when OS upgrades break them. There was a time when I was making promotional videos almost every week for a nonprofit, and at the time I thought some of the specific features of ScrenFlow were…
Starting with the robot and basic locomotion that comes with Unity3D’s “Starter Assets.” I’ve added a system that lets you tag an object with a custom translation/rotation, and a custom help text message (such as “[E] Activate Door”). Similar:Kids Turn Bratz into Star Wars Rey DollsSometimes, I catch myself thinking there…AestheticsThe Decline of Wikipedia: Even…
Persuasion: Logos, Pathos, Ethos and Kairos Similar:Google Stops Scanning Student Gmail Accounts for Ads Google said Wednesday that it stoppe…AcademiaThe Benefits of No-Tech Note TakingI quibble with The Chronicle headline wr…AcademiaGrading the MOOC UniversityThe MOOC classrooms are growing at Big B…AcademiaPipe Trouble’s government woes highlight gaming illiteracyInteresting discussion of a political ho…CultureAs yearbooks die, colleges…
Teaching myself the #Unity3D game engine. Each step requires a lot of focused attention. I lost 2 hours today trying to decide the right typeface for text overlays for a steampunk game. Similar:Video ResumesI’m thinking of asking students in a med…BusinessMy mother has taught me so much. I'm delighted I get to sit in her…
Rewatching ST:DS9 Outside the O’Briens’ quarters, Quark catches Bashir eavesdropping on raised voices. (It’s actually Miles and Kira fighting.) Dax and Worf are happily bickering over opera when he is smitten by the sight of a “glorious” Klingon woman. “She’s okay,” says Dax. It’s Grilka, Quark’s ex-wife. Quark realizes she needs his financial advice, but…
TThe automatic doors on my fantasy steampunk cruiser do work… kinda. My PC got trapped. Similar:Another chess tournament with the boy.GamesI love my students enough to teach them the difference between passive voice and past tens…If a goggles-for-brains Lego character c…EducationThe daughter is working hard as a dancer and Flaemchen understudy. @frontporchtheatricalsCultureThe only snow alert…
Interesting. I don’t particularly care for the title of this YouTube clip, which seems very self-centered and not at all in tune with the message the speaker (Connor Neill) gives. He focuses on that moment when we realize there’s a difference between what we feel we need to say, and what we know the other…
No names in this single-source anecdote out of Hong Kong, credited to “Senior Superintendent Baron Chan Shun-ching.” The employee joined a video call with who he thought was the business’s chief financial officer. He was initially suspicious after a message from the CFO mentioned a ‘secret transaction’, suggesting it was a phishing scam…. However, after other…
The organ composition is called “As Slow As Possible.” It’s currently being performed in a church in Germany. The first chord proper whooshed through the pipes in February 2003, prompting complaints from neighbours that it was too noisy. In 2011, a way was found to reduce the air pressure. “We haven’t had any complaints since…
Ok, never mind Dusgcxms2… buddy, you can keep your first place as far as I’m concerned. Similar:Today's second 10sq cm of #steampunk control panel. Love those letter flip tiles. Maybe I'…AestheticsEverything is beautiful at the ballet.DancePreteen Acting Scene Version 2 – YouTubeI had a free evening and a copy of Blend…DramaThe Fantasticks (Oct 18-27)PersonalI never…
Researchers had programmed the various large language models (LLMs) to act in what they termed malicious ways, and the point of the study was to see if this behaviour could be removed through the safety techniques. The paper, charmingly titled Sleeper Agents: Training Deceptive LLMs that Persist Through Safety Training, suggests “adversarial training can teach models…
The amazing daughter is featured in the ads for this commercial dance event. Similar:I create five color variations of each #blender3d building I #design, and each of those ha…I create five color variations of each #…AestheticsDress rehearsal of The NutcrackerPersonalMy 1951 day DuoLingo streak was fun, but… Ever since DuoLingo announced it…BusinessNot a #carguy but…
When the kids were little, my wife and I managed their media consumption with the help of reviews from sites like Common Sense Media. (Or maybe a competitor. It was a long time ago… I emailed the webmaster to correct a detail they got wrong in a VeggieTales review.) I’m impressed by the level of…
Attending Religious Perspectives on the War in Gaza. Similar:Sam Shepard Giggles, Doesn't GoogleI wrote my undergraduate honors thesis o…CybercultureLife would be so much better if all the interfaces we encountered looked like #Steampunk c…AestheticsIn-person classes heighten age-related hearing problems (opinion)My family tells me I’m starting to speak…AcademiaIt's a lie that having zero assignments to mark…
For confessionals or tapdance routines vertical video is fine. When my students do multimedia projects I remind them that the video screen in our classroom is horizontal, so if they do use a vertical video there’s plenty of room for them to add infographics and annotations. Or they can actually edit a vertical video. If…
Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing. […] A trained and tested LLM, when presented with a new text prompt, will generate the most likely next word, append it to the prompt, generate another next word, and continue in this manner,…
Look what I found on my shelf in a closet. #history #archaeology #media Similar:#blender3d is teaching me more than I ever thought I’d need to know about roof geometry. E…#blender3d is teaching me more than I ev…PersonalCan't upload photos to Facebook from my MacBookI spent 30 minutes trying to upload abou…CybercultureAnother section of a #steampunk…
This was before the printing press, so books were copied by hand on parchment, which made them expensive and rare. Most people didn’t read much, especially for pleasure. Instead, they listened to books at group readings for entertainment. Pero López de Ayala wrote at the end of the 14th century, “It also pleased me to…