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:HTML5 Boilerplate: The web’s most popular front-end template HTML5 Boilerplate helps you build fast…CybercultureProto iPads and Paper Coexist in Classic Star TrekRewatching the classic Trek episode “The…CybercultureInternet Explorer cheated its way to the top, and I won't miss itI started teaching myself HTML in earnes…AcademiaFormer student:…
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:The intelligence coup of the century: For decades, the CIA read the encrypted…
Similar:Font vs Typeface: bold and italics are fonts, but Arial and Times New Roman are typefacesAestheticsAdded a pilot and cockpit details to my flyby of a #steampunk scout ship. Costume is a pr…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyvR90jm…AestheticsGenZ prefers searching with TikTok, Instagram over GoogleEducating myself about how today’s colle…CybercultureA Grave Tale (a short story I narrated for WAOB Audio…
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:What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About LivingThis is not only powerful material for t…AwesomeI have for some reason reached another #duolingo milestone.CultureTexas lawyer trapped by cat filter on Zoom call, informs judge he is not a catA Texas lawyer accidentally left a kitte…AmusingOnce again, The Onion gets it right: Clinton Not Expecting To Collect White…
Similar:National Science Foundation announces plan for comprehensive public access to research res…This is good news. It’s unfair that gove…AcademiaCinderella Deadlines: Reconsidering Timelines for Student WorkI have been experimenting with midnight …AcademiaWhat a fluke (great headline; great story)AmusingPost-Pandemic News: 7 Lessons We Can’t Afford to ForgetJournalists are often criticized for emp…CultureHow newsroom managers can invest more…
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:Pinkalicious — "Buzz Off"My daughter plays the Bumblebee in “Buzz…AestheticsAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #design #aestheti…AestheticsMe as a highshool photo-bomber, I presume at the cast party for The Music Man.DramaSweet Lenten RegretsThis Lenten evening / Your orphaned feas…AestheticsPart of my daily routine is practicing German for about 15m per day.…
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:Little Women (the daughter plays Amy, the youngest sister)PersonalAn afternoon with Ben Franklin. CultureSomewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original ''Adventure'' in Cod…Because so little primary historical wor…AcademiaThe Outrageous Okona (TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 4)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…PersonalThe "Monsters, Inc" company play helped me teach ShakespeareToday the awkward but delightful…
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:Thoughtful PopCult Analysis of 'Peanuts' Deserves Better than a Clickbaity Headline Hating…On a shelf in the slanty room under the …Culture20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't GetI expect my English majors not to balk w…AcademiaStar Wars: The MusicalThe Walls are Closing In It’s all …DramaMake America Meme Again! Create your own Trump executive order.Now all the…
Similar:The Journey That Changed Geoffrey Chaucer’s LifeHis status as a deputy on a mission from…BooksFirst steps towards reconstructing a 30-year-old simulation. Marking the locations of the …First steps towards reconstructing a 30-…AestheticsHuge Collection of Free CC-Licensed Textbooks (2012)2012 Book Archive. Business, humaniti…AcademiaTwo Trains Running ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle, 7 of 10)August Wilson’s Century Cycle > Spoi…BooksAnother…
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…