Daughter doing a thing. Interviewing the Pittsburgh Dance Council’s Randall Miller for Burgh to Burg.

How to fix the internet: If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms.

A teenager in Indonesia may not see the same images on Instagram that I do, but the experience is roughly the same: we scroll through some photos from friends or family, maybe see some memes or celebrity posts; the feed turns into Reels; we watch a few videos, maybe reply to a friend’s Story or…

ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web

Think of ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of all the text on the Web. It retains much of the information on the Web, in the same way that a jpeg retains much of the information of a higher-resolution image, but, if you’re looking for an exact sequence of bits, you won’t find it; all you will ever get is…

Which State Offers The Best Online Casino With No Deposit Bonus?

An in-person casino opened up a few years ago in the shopping mall near my house. I haven’t been inside, but I hope the rent helps the rest of the mall stay open. Just as the in-person shopping has to compete with online retailers, the in-person casino offers a restaurant and entertainment, to establish it…

I’m really enjoying seeing how my students are responding to Hamlet.

As part of a class assignment, one student took some friends to see the Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Park all-female production of Hamlet. One of her friends is from Vietnam, and my student was very proud that she could answer his questions about what was going on. Many students, even the English majors, confess that…

Blinking Tube Sci-Fi Prop Compilation

This compilation is a work of beauty. I’ve been aware of this prop since the early 80s, but I didn’t realize it was in the Incredible Hulk and Buck Roger TV shows from the late 70s.

My new inspiration as I work on my syllabuses

I applaud you, person who, halfway through the job, asked, “Why am I drilling these handrails directly into the sidewalk when I can just stick them into the ground?”

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and Museum

Another visit to Pittsburgh with my history-loving son.

The Metamorphosis of Space: 1999

A delightful little mini-documentary covering the changes between the first and second seasons of this creatively designed, visually striking, but very flawed British TV series. Features clips of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain promoting the second season (while casually chain-smoking) back in the 1970s.

Seton Hill Hogwarts Dinner

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reducing print edition to 2 days a week; cites plan to go all digital

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is scaling back its print edition to two days a week as part of the 235-year-old newspaper’s transition to an all-digital news operation, documents show. The plan is to eliminate its Friday print edition beginning Feb. 27, according to a letter from Post-Gazette’s human resources manager provided by the newsroom’s employee union.…

The disinformation system that Trump unleashed will outlast him. Here’s what reality-based journalists must do about it.

Highlights from a column by Margaret Sullivan (The Washington Post): President Trump didn’t create the media cesspool that he’ll bequeath to a troubled nation. He just made it exponentially worse — not only with his own constant lies but with his ability to spread the ugliness. Just days ago, he tweeted out a debunked conspiracy theory that…

My mentor interrupted me. “Ignore your students from the neck down,” she said.

Early in my teaching career, I noticed some students silently body-shaming another. I’m sure the target, who had a minor wardrobe malfunction, didn’t even notice. Later that day I asked a more experienced mentor for advice, awkwardly mentioning that the target of the body-shaming was not slim. My mentor interrupted me. “Ignore your students from…

Online dating is a method of virus control

I first met my wife in person, but we were in a long-distance online relationship for a year, and some weeks are so busy we text each other more than we speak in person. Starting a relationship during a pandemic would be tricky.

Sample for Aish

This is a sample link.

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…

Shen Yun Chinese dance troupe

One of seven touring groups devoted to sharing China’s traditional culture. The name means “beauty of divine dance.” Much emphasis on acrobatics and fluid motions. A recurring theme was interaction with the divine, and one number set in the present day focused on two brothers, one a police officer and one who falls in love…

Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class

My math education predated the widespread use of graphing calculators. I remember writing my own BASIC programs to graph simple functions, but that was in a summer school programming class during middle school, not part of my high school curriculum. I’m amazed these old calculators cost this much. Bulky and black, with large, colorful push…

Arsenal of Freedom (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 21)

With an A-plot that comments on the Cold War arms race, a B-plot that tests LaForge’s command skills, and a C-plot that explores the Picard/Crusher dynamic, I wanted to like this episode more than I did. Yar wisely observes that it’s kind of pointless for the landing party to strategize against a system that has already wiped out all the intelligent life on a planet, yet the characters still peek through the bushes at the wobbly floating plastic menace, and leap out of the way of its space-zapper ray gun blasts, because TV.