Toilet paper isn’t selling out because the supply chain is collapsing, or because people are hoarding.
According to an article in Medium, toilet paper isn’t selling out because the supply chain is collapsing, or because people are hoarding. We’re using more toilet paper at home. Yes, some people are hoarding, but we’re all spending a lot more time at home. All the toilet paper we would have used at work, in…
Introduction to The Cherry Orchard
xkcd: Pathogen Resistance
This is just an excerpt. Read the whole thing.
College student makes masks for the deaf & hard of hearing
Other than one trip to the grocery store, I haven’t been in public since March 13, so I haven’t noticed if people in my community have started wearing masks. But I’ve wondered how I’ll be able to respond to people’s voices when I can’t see their mouths. In the past few years, I have…
COVID-19 Cases (Useful Breakdown by Country, State, Population)
A few interesting bits I found interesting to explore: There are two different ways to view the exact same data: The logarithmic scale shows a great comparison of the magnitude of growth between countries, but less of the human impact. The linear scale shows the real human impact — a growth twice the size is twice the number of…
Disagreement Hierarchy: Arguments, ranked from name-calling to the careful refutation of an opponent’s central point
My weekend coronavirus lockdown project was writing up a new handout devoted to Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” for academic arguments. Does the word “argument” make you think of angry people yelling? This document presents Graham’s “disagreement hierarchy,” which catalogs multiple stages between juvenile name-calling and carefully refuting an error in your opponent’s central point. Siblings might…
The Bonding ( ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 5) — Character-driven analysis of grief
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. After a member of a landing party dies an accidental, senseless death, Picard must break the news to her young son. “Jeremy, on the starship Enterprise, no one is alone,” says Picard. “No one.” Numerous times on my rewatch, I’ve wished episodes would devote less time to scanning and probing…
It’s unfair to treat every gaffe as evidence of malice or incompetence. But were Trump’s demonstrably false statements gaffes?
Public officials misspeak all the time. Journalists make mistakes all the time. Ordinary citizens over-react to headlines without reading the full article all the time. We are all of us human. It’s unfair for any of us to treat every gaffe as evidence of malice or incompetence. For example, critics of President Trump are stretching…
The Shape of the World, According to Old Maps
The Shape of the World, According to Old Maps
In March 2000, I was blogging about Palm V computers for the Navy, NCAA banning online journalists, Stephen King, and diploma mills
In March 2000, I was blogging about Palm V handheld computers for Navy officers Teaching with bells and whistles Stephen King selling a short story online NCAA banning online journalists Great moments in bureaucratic history Diploma mills Maps of imaginary lands
What a stunningly responsible young man I was, to have on June 10 1998 backed up all my files on a Zip disk, which of course I now no longer have the hardware to read.
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…