My big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based production of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Similar:Death Comes for the Microbot — Flash Fiction by Aimee PicchiBee walked on six spindly legs to the sp…CultureThe chief engineer has a forward-facing station, on a platform above the technical staff c…PersonalHow the Midwest went from the idealized to the…
Rewatching ST:TNG. The plot, such as it is, quickly gets Picard and Wesley separated from the Enterprise and in the company of a mining shuttle pilot who challenges Picard’s authority. After a few on-location scenes in a bleak desert, the story shifts to the standard generic cave set, where some falling chunks of foam and…
I wish I had the time or energy to get out the telescope and camera, but I did go out for a walk in the neighborhood and got an eyeful of this in the sky. Similar:Google 1407Philipp Lenssen and I had a bit of fun i…AestheticsBoy, this sort of thing sure makes some racist people…
In October 2000, I was blogging about The F. Scott Fitzgerald Short story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (background; full text) A biography of Virginia Woolf The precarious status of English as a global language A call for papers for a special issue of Text Technology devoted to interactive fiction (I have a copy on my shelf…
There are some sound pedagogical reasons for turning cameras on. Thus, I suggest sharing those reasons with the students before giving them the choice of what to do about their cameras. Explain why you are making your request. For example, being able to see students’ faces gives instructors a quick and easy way to discern whether students are finding the material engaging, at least in smaller classes. One instructor told me that “I asked students to turn their cameras on to say hi to their classmates at the beginning and end of class, and those were the best moments of the class.”
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Obviously I would have preferred to see it live, but the pandemic-era video presentation — with clever graphics that indicate stage actions and pop-up text that augment the recorded performances — was subtle and touching. Similar:Thoroughly enjoying Collaborators at Quantum Theatre.PersonalBooks Come Alive! Catalina Magdalena Cast (Stage Right Greensburg) The cast for “Catalina Mag…BooksTwo classes…
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The daughter plays Laertes in Seton Hill’s free, live Zoom production of Hamlet (with a film noir theme) which opens tonight at 8. (The first half will be performed tonight and next Friday; the next half will be performed Saturday and next Saturday.) Free tickets to Seton Hill’s livestreaming video production of Hamlet Through the…
From The Brookings Institution (non-profit, deeply sourced factual writing; has been accused of both conservative and liberal bias; is cited in Congress about equally by conservative and liberal politicians; leans a bit left in terms of loaded language): American institutions are not perfect, of course. We all should want to improve scientific practices, remove bias…
Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 anti-fascist novel adapted for radio by Berkeley Rep. Similar:The Alot is Better Than You at EverythingThere is no Englilsh word “alot.” That i…AmusingNo, the Fed Did Not Just Give Stock Traders $1.5 TrillionI don’t know that much about the world o…BusinessHow to DisagreeIf we’re all going to be disagreeing mor…EssaysBye Facebook, hello…
It was a reporter’s bodyguard, not an anti-fascist activist, who shot and killed a right-wing demonstrator who had assaulted him. The viral spread of those false claims apparently alarmed the Denver Police Department, which had taken Dolloff into custody along with the journalist he was guarding and quickly determined that they were not left-wing…
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For my birthday I treated myself to Episode 2 of RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots) — the play that introduced the word “Robot” to the world 100 years ago. Similar:Astaire Unwound (Ceiling Dance from "Royal Wedding")My high school physics teacher, Admiral …AestheticsFor God's sake John, sit down!CultureElevator shaft on a #steampunk #blender3d cruiser, just because. #design…
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Rewatching ST:TNG after 30 years. After playing the trombone at his birthday party and passing out on a gassy planet, a gray-flecked Riker awakens in sickbay, where he learns 16 years have passed and he is now the captain of the Enterprise. After the requisite medical technobabble (virus, amnesia, blah blah), Dr. Crusher tries to…
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Deadline seems to have briefly published, then taken down, a breaking news story including the sentence “Pence announced late Wednesday that he is among those who have tested positive in the ongoing White House coronavirus outbreak.” 1. Google search for “tom tapp coronavirus pence” shows a hit for a Deadline story with a headline prefaced…
I recall just sort of telling the editors that I would be taking this story, thank you very much. I started looking for this clipping when I reviewed The Measure of a Man for my ST:TNG Rewatch. Sadly The University Journal is no more. When I was at U.Va. it was one of two competing…