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…
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…