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…
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…
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…
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…
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 Similar:If I don’t hang my own artwork on the walls of my #steampunk fantasy ship-of-the-line, who…AestheticsPast Tense, Part 2 (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 12) Sisko must channel socia…Rewatching ST:DS9 After the recap of …CultureFact check: Biden ad misleadingly suggests Trump called Covid-19 a 'hoax'…
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 Similar:Confessions of a Former Bastard CopMedium is not a peer-reviewed source, an…CultureOpinion |…
Similar:Why typewriters beat computersThe BBC offers a pleasant bit of retroph…AestheticsAI is better at writing poems than you’d expect. But that’s fine. Even the most rebellious poets follow …CultureGoogle Pledges $300 Million to Clean Up False NewsThis is a welcome step, but we cannot tr…CultureNarnia board game — enjoyable family activity (but it's weird that…
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…
Similar:The Visitor #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 3) Old Jake Reflects on the life-cha…Rewatching ST:DS9 On a dark and storm…BooksThe posthuman liberal artsAs those familiar with the liberal arts …AcademiaFun with Kirk and SpockSee the Enterprise. See the Enterprise g…AmusingApology of Socrates, By PlatoAristotle classified Plato’s work, repre…AestheticsStage Right Water SpriteLast week my daughter…
Similar:Hello, Dolly! (Apr 27, 28 & 29, Palace Theater, Greensburg)”65 kids from 15 different schools- comi…CultureMaking a case for a singular ‘they’ I am definitely on team revise…Current_EventsPanic, confusion aboard sinking cruise chip – CNN.com Nobody’s perfect, but this proofread…Current_EventsThe Psychology of Getting More Done In Less TimeSummary of not-so-new scholarship, but p…CultureMaking a journalism…
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…
Similar:After a productive run-through of West Side Story, the girl decided to slide out from unde…AmusingSomeone seems to have slipped this over my transom. Thank you, #foodsubstitutefairy whoeve…PersonalRehearsing 'Fiddler on the Roof' is like trying to herd cats onto a grid and make them wal…I’m really enjoying the experience. I’ve…CultureSlicing up a massively detailed trimsheet…
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…
Similar:My wife reports: “There was one smart aleck walking along the street who exclaimed: “Look,…PersonalA shooting, the president snatched away – this episode of 'The Trump Show' was surreal eve…Good news writing, and praise for Trump’…Current_EventsPioneering Harvard Blog Site Wrapping It UpI still use blogs.setonhill.edu, which I…AcademiaI'd like to speak to the manager. Yes, I'll…
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…
Similar:Affect (v. "to change") vs. Effect (n. "the result")I ran into this problem several times in…AcademiaAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #relaxing #aestheti…AestheticsBeard Typeface GuideChristian Goldeman felt compelled to mat…AestheticsOrson Scott Card Builds an EmpireVideo games are a viable storytelling me…CybercultureLimit child TV viewing to an hour each day, study urgesThe…
Similar:Happy Easter 2022PersonalThe First Duty (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 19) Cadet Wesley's Academy Crisi…Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise is…EmpathyFamily outing to the Pittsburgh National AviaryPersonalThe daughter is in "Very Berry Dead," a new play which opens this Friday and runs for two …The writer, director, and one of the cas…ArtThe geekling is 14 today.PersonalArmageddon…
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…
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…