Yesterday, my eight-year-old said, “I don’t like math, but I’m good at it.” This is a huge improvement from the math-related tug-of-wars we’ve encountered almost daily for the past year and a half. Yesterday, she also finished a “Star Wars Math” game, where the idea is to play a Trivial Pursuits style game, spaced-out versions…
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child…
How did it go? Similar:Sights, Sounds, and Smells of Elizabethan TheaterSomewhere during my education I picked u…Academia"We Need to Be More Vigilant With What We Trust From the Internet." –Fake PresidentFrom Buzzfeed: Sitting before the Sta…CybercultureIOC spokesman: Journalists free to Instagram at Sochi Olympics Journalists will be allowed to u…BusinessStudy confirms that ending your texts…
I first watched it on an iPod, so I didn’t see the translations, but I actually kind of liked it better when I couldn’t understand what the kids were saying in French. That left me feeling as isolated from them as they feel from the gadgets they are investigating, which in turn made the uncanny…
I recently updated a handout I first created in 1998. A phrase like “a good policeman knows his duty” unnecessarily excludes women. While it would be excessive to read history as if every general use of “man” is sexist, today’s culture calls for alternatives. Using “police officer” instead of “policeman” is easy, but replacing every…
Similar:Two classes will turn in final revisions at midnight Sunday, and final multimedia project…Still plenty of work to do before I fini…AcademiaSome new locations for my #neovictorian #steampunk personal project. Created in #blender3d…AestheticsIdlewild's Story Book Forest Improves Its SignageIn the past, I have pointed out copy-edi…AestheticsChess tournament final pairing. (He’s currently tied for 2nd.)PersonalImpact of…
Filing this for the next time a student proposes a paper that uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to “prove” something about postpartum depression. Here’s Google’s Ngram for “postpartum depression, “rest cure” and “Yellow Wallpaper” from 1870-2000. Similar:I had a grand time recording this little story about a misunderstood genius who just wants… The Cask of Amotillado…
In 2003, when I chose MovableType for a institutional weblog, WordPress was a plucky but under-powered alternative. Until very recently, WordPress was only able to manage a single blog per installation, which meant that each blog user would also be a blog administrator. Since I was trying to form a blogging community, not training blog…
The grammar/punctuation flames from not-all-that-well-informed posters at the end of this article are quite interesting for he or she who likes such things. Four years ago, I wrote an essay for The Chronicle Review cataloging “The Seven Deadly Sins of Student Writers“–the errors and infelicities that cropped up most frequently in my students’ work. Since…
Great little story from robohara.com. This morning for Christmas, I got a box from Dad. Inside the box was a treasure chest. The treasure chest was wrapped twice with a chain, and the chain was fastened with a combination lock that uses letters instead of numbers. Also inside the box was this: A map. Similar:Things…
I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning today, teaching myself something called “normal baking” in the computer modeling program Blender. I did it because I had nothing else pressing to do, I was too wound up to sleep, and too tired to do anything really productive. I wouldn’t say it was boring,…
Restricting access to content doesn’t work. Someone else’s content will get filtered and curated instead of yours. Scarcity is not a viable business model on the Internet. —Fred Wilson, AVC Similar:Opt Out of Pre-approved Credit Mailings Requires SSN and DoB? Not So Fast!I was horrified to see that, in order to…BusinessIn June, 2000 I was…
The very last roll of Kodachrome film will be delivered today in Parsons, Kansas. Kodak has slowly phased out the materials needed to make and develop the film. Only a single operation in the world — Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons — had continued to develop Kodachrome. First introduced in 1935, the death of the film…
“We love to hear what kids think of our books, and this is a great way to see what they’re reacting to,” said Suzanne Murphy, vice president and publisher at Disney Book Group, one of two dozen publishing houses that send advance copies to the young Bethesda readers. The Bethesda group is one of 16…
For more than a century, writers have made the fabled pilgrimage to New York, offering their stories to publishing houses and dreaming of bound editions on bookstore shelves. Publishers had the power of the purse and the press. They doled out advances to writers they deemed worthy and paid the cost of printing, binding and…
0 Similar:Thinking about physical therapy and cheerful, chatty older gents…I feel like I’m living in a sitcom. A…CultureWe Are Hopelessly Hooked [on our Gadgets]We check our phones 221 times a day—an a…CultureThe Impact of Google on Our MemorySo what is it that makes us memorize les…CultureWell-chosen wordsWhy is English spelling such a tangle? I…BooksLoud as…
Similar:The daughter is in “Very Berry Dead,” a new play which opens this Friday and runs for two …The daughter is in “Very Berry Dead,” a …AmusingCaptain Gearheart inspects progress on his #neovictorian #steampunk æther cruiser. Now fea…https://youtu.be/VXz7kspFimM AestheticsCivil Defense (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 7) O’Brien accidentally triggers …Rewatching ST:DS9 Although some time…
As my 12-year-old son gets ready to surpass my six-foot height any day (his lip needs a third shave, but he’s apparently in no rush to graduate away from calling me “Daddy”) and as my 8-year-old navigates a peer community that includes mean girls and true friends, gallant young gentlemen (thank you, little boy who…
Hidden? Sure, but certainly not accidental. I didn’t notice it when I was a kid, but it sure jumped out at me when I watched the Schoolhouse Rock videos with my kids. And even small details are pro-girl. The nameless character who shows up in a mini-skirt and platforms in “Interjections!” is unbelievably excited not…
What’s a well-written, gripping, yet breezy novel (something that will engage students who would otherwise be distracted by late April weather)? A colleague has chosen The Virgin Suicides. What about The Secret Life of Bees? The Hunger Games? Little Brother? (Yes, I know Cory Doctorow is Canadian) I’ll likely need to trim some of these…