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:Citations: Efficient In-text QuotationsWhen writing a paper in MLA style, prefe…AcademiaEffects of Internet use on the adolescent brain: despite popular claims, experimental evid…Big difference between the clickbaity ve…CybercultureSocial Distancing: Because the Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the FewEmpathyA Matter of Perspective (ST:TNG Rewatch,…
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:Spent a half hour taming this tangle of cables (left) with a little…
Similar:You didn’t make the Harlem Shake go viral—corporations didI never found “Harlem Shake” videos to b…BusinessThe lesson of Rolling Stone and UVA: protecting victims means checking their stories It is a depressing certainty that th…Current_EventsLearn to code? No: Learn a real languageI don’t see learning to code as a substi…CulturePrivacy and reporting on personal livesInteresting…
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:Warning: Don’t Download Software From SourceForge If You Can Help ItLooks like SourceForge has backtracked o…Business"This Is Probably Going to Kill Us:" How First 'Star Trek' Movie Avoided DisasterThis article left out someone important!…HistoryYou Can Smell Trump's FearLike all successful demagogues, Trump ha…CultureDon't Like Hamlet? Now's Your Chance To Rewrite It”It’s not really fair to…
Similar:Students say they prefer lectures, but "active learning" is more effectiveA recent study measured differences in s…AcademiaHow Television Covered the Kennedy Assassination – a 1964 TV Guide ArticleIt was a new, shocking, traumatic thing …CultureBig Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math ClassMy math education predated the widesprea…BusinessPlaying video games linked to breast-feeding, not crimeGreat piece…
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:Stage Right offers four versions of its musical 'Annie' | TribLIVELeapin‘ Lizards! There are four versions…CultureMoonBot is back. This time he fights a new adversary. #Blender3D physics practice.I submitted midterm grades at about 11 l…AestheticsMy English major skills crushed the girl in Bananagrams.Wildcard? You mean quitter tile! GamesIn November 2001 I was blogging aboutIn November…
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:Enjoy the showmanship as a 94yo woman performs in a dance competition.https://youtu.be/8LOdmka4_90AestheticsSAT essay section: Problems with grading, instruction, and prompts.In my freshman writing courses I work ha…AcademiaRossum's Universal Robots (Act 2)https://youtu.be/XfOONrGsf2I For my b…CultureSeeing Lyle Kessler's "Orphans" with the girl.PersonalAmanda Knox responds to high-profile movie profiting off of her nameAmerican student Amanda Knox was wrongfu…CultureFormer…
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:Chillax, Wikipedia, and bridezilla are not puns: Against adjoinagesSo if recessionista and fembot are not r…AmusingFor the Cause #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 22) Eddington and Odo suspect Sisk…Rewatching ST:DS9 Sisko and Kassidy pla…EmpathyViral App FaceApp Now Owns Access To More Than 150 Million People's Faces And NamesViral app FaceApp has been giving people…BusinessOffice…
Similar:"Khan!!! the Musical!!!" (Star Trek Parody) 6-Minute Highlight Reel 2022https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrfLWDbJ…AmusingSignage failure at Seton Hill, c. 2008.PersonalOn Office Hours and Student Contact at the Small Liberal Arts College I don’t expect students to be constantl…AcademiaBattle of Agincourt — 600 Year Anniversary of Henry V's "St. Crispin's Day Speech"Sure, Marty McFly Day is interesting and…CultureJeff Bezos Plan for…
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…