Who Watches the Watchers (ST:TNG Season Three Episode 4) Rationalist, talky mythbusting
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. After a primitive, rationalist society mistakes Federation technology for supernatural power, Picard must do whatever it takes to undo the resulting cultural contamination. Fortunately for Picard, that involves lots of talking. A grim scene in sickbay memorably demonstrates that humans in the 24th century can sometimes delay but cannot…
Loved part 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest (live videoconference play from @ThePublicPGH )
Stunning, bleak unemployment chart from the front page of the New York Times
Fact check: Trump utters series of false and misleading claims at coronavirus briefing
Not fake news. Not the enemy of the American people. “Nobody ever thought a thing like this could have happened,” said the the president at Thursday’s press event. Feb 27: “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” [Narrator: “Cases were not going down.”] Feb 26: “The 15 [documented cases of COVID-19 in the USA] within…
Updating a villain’s lair in #Blender3D. Still a work in progress.
The Nightingale (WAOB Audio Theatre)
I haven’t done any audio theatre recordings in a while (thanks, coronavirus) and I miss it. Here’s my interpretation (recorded some time ago) of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Nightingale.” The nightingale is considered the most beautiful thing in the kingdom… until a mechanical nightingale wins over the citizens, and the true nightingale is banished. But…
Introduction to The Skin of Our Teeth (optimistic, absurdist metatheater; Thornton Wilder, 1942)
When People Only Read the Headline — Misuse of Journalism
The Society of Professional Journalists links to an interview with an MIT professor who’s studying misinformation on social media (which is not the same thing as bad journalism — some bad actors take journalism out of context in order to deceive). Responsible journalists are aware that sensational headlines can harm the public. The truth is…
Which of my colleagues wants attention?
The girl asked me to read R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) to her. #quarantine #partylikeaprofessor
In “World Drama” I’m adding the absurd, optimistic “The Skin of Our Teeth” (dropping bleak “Waiting for Godot”)
In light of current events, I’m dropping the bleak Waiting for Godot from my World Drama class (actually I’m making it optional; students could drop a different play) and adding Thornton Wilder’s absurdist but optimistic The Skin of Our Teeth. Writing while World War II was still raging, Wilder depicts a representative American family…
Rhinoceros in Love (World Drama — China, 1999)
The blurb for a 2011 English version of the 1999 Chinese play I’m teaching this week: China’s most popular and provocative drama. A modern story of love and obsession, Rhinoceros in Love tells the story of a rhinoceros-keeper who develops a dangerous romantic fascination with the woman of his dreams: the uncompromising, unobtainable Mingming. Hear…
The Survivors (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 3) Charming geriatric love and a pacifist morality play
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. After the Federation colony on Raina IV is obliterated, the Enterprise discovers a perfectly preserved house with two elderly survivors. The standoffish Uxbridge impresses Worf by confronting strangers with a non-functional hand phaser, and the hospitable Rishon tells a charming story of how the two fell in love on Earth.…
What gives you comfort? I collect lights. Some of these have magnets!!
MoonBot is back. This time he fights a new adversary. #Blender3D physics practice.
I submitted midterm grades at about 11 last night, quickly modeled a new object, and let the animation render overnight.
How are you holding up? What difficult choices have you made? How can we all help each other get through COVID-19??
Carolyn and were recently cast in a historical film. I recorded my video audition last week, feverish with an upper respiratory tract infection, coughing and gulping from a mug of tea between lines. Our characters are in different time periods, but we each get to fight someone in a duel. Filming for our scenes was…
Confessions of a Nerdy Homeschooling Dad
Confessions of a Nerdy Homeschooling Dad
Are you unexpectedly home-schooling your kids? Every family is different, and every kid is different. But I think anxious parents who are in unexplored territory probably need to hear this: you won’t hurt your children if you don’t keep them academically occupied for a block of 7 hours. On a typical brick-and-mortar school day, kids…
Copper Destroys Viruses and Bacteria. Why Isn’t It Everywhere?
Copper is antimicrobial. It kills bacteria and viruses, sometimes within minutes. In the 19th century, exposure to copper would have been an early version of constantly sanitizing one’s hands. Since then, studies have shown that copper is able to destroy the microbes that most threaten our lives. It has been shown to kill a long list…