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:Added an overhead minimap to my #medievalyork #unity3d simulation. #mysteryplayAdded an overhead minimap to my #medieva…DesignMy crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing my coding skil…AestheticsWhat is a CRT and Why Don't We Use Them Anymore?I remember when I started seeing politic…AestheticsEverybody…
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:Imaginary vs Real Office SpaceHere’s a fantasy workspace, that I built…AcademiaBehind the art:…
Similar:Picking a rubric in Canvas should not be so frustrating that it makes me want to blog abou…In general, I find Canvas a fairly decen…AcademiaStar Wars: The Last Jedi abuse blamed on Russian trolls and 'political agendas'More than half of the hostile responses …CultureTurnitin's slick new iPad app almost erases years of web-based GradeMark traumaI…
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:Thoughtful PopCult Analysis of 'Peanuts' Deserves Better than a Clickbaity Headline Hating…On a shelf in the slanty room under the …CultureThis history of video game graphics is a walk down memory laneBlogging this so I can assign it to my “…AcademiaPop Culture Showdown with My Retro DaughterThe girl tried to weird me out with a…
Similar:Lego-Building Tween Refers to "The Hobbit" TextMy daughter, having just received a hand…AestheticsThe Problems of Real-Time Feedback in Teaching WritingSometimes my students get nervous becaus…AcademiaData-Related Deaths, 1960-2019 (Excluding Fatalities Caused by Misreadings, Typographical … DesignCNN Profiles Former White House "Chief Calligrapher"Today was the last day of the manuscript…AestheticsHow hate and misinformation go viral: A case…
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:RIP Metaverse, we hardly knew yeI am curious enough about cockatoos that…AcademiaAnother 10 sq cm of details for a #steampunk control panel. Just background eye candy, not…AestheticsHi, I’m the St Joe’s basement doorstop. Let me start your three-day weekend by wrapping my…PersonalThe Myth of the MegalithI have found that archaeologists are sel…CultureBoy that feels good.…
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:In one small prairie town, two warring visions of AmericaGreat writing and great photography in t…CultureAuthor of 80s classic The Hobbit didn't know game was a hit The Hobbit stood out from the advent…CybercultureCOVID denial: ‘You are welcome to leave, but you will be dead before you get to your car’“If you’ve got a gunshot wound…
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:For News Outlets Squeezed From the Middle, It’s Bend or BustHundreds of thousands of people on Faceb…BusinessChoose Your Own Buzz LightyearI was on the road (and away from a compu…Aesthetics'Our worst nightmare': New legal filings detail reporting of Rolling Stone's U-Va. gang ra…The court documents, submitted as eviden…AcademiaSo glad to be attending another live theatrical…
Similar:Jerry Lewis’s Costars Speak Out: “He Grabbed Me. He Began to Fondle Me. I Was Dumbstruck”As a kid I watched Jerry Lewis movies wh…CultureOpening night! So great to see live local theatre.PersonalMechanical innards for a Steampunk set piece. #Blender3D #greebleshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oChXOu8C…Aesthetics"I'm a geek. Deal with it." –my 11yo daughter. #geekgirlproblemsAmusingAfter decades lost, Star Trek’s original Enterprise…
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…