Author Archives
In 2018 I semi-retired by retiring from Weston High School after my 21st year teaching mathematics there. This was also my 44th year as a teacher altogether. In 2023 I retired fully, adding in my 18 years at Harvard’s Crimson Summer Academy each summer. For 21 years I had taught at the Saturday Course in Milton, MA, and I used to serve on the board of the Dorchester Historical Society.
I read, cook, and spend a lot of time building my model railroad. For some reason I’m left with less free time than would be ideal, considering that I’m supposed to be retired, but somehow I also manage to devote time to my wife, Barbara, and to our varying number of cats (once up to six, but now sadly down to one).
Larry Davidson
ljd@larrydavidson.com
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William is pretending he’s a hamburger…
William is pretending he’s a hamburger… but I’m not fooled.
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Fake news in Fakebook… I mean Facebook.
This ad just appeared in my Facebook feed. Clearly fake news!
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Which languages?
“This is America. Speak English, or go back to where you came from!” I hear that too often from Trumpian Americans who feel threatened by immigrants and others whom they don’t understand. The best story about that was told by… Read More ›
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Bella Luna update
I suspect that Bella Luna has been waiting with bated breath for me to review it once again. We end up going there for dinner about once a month, after all, since Barbara works upstairs in the same building. A… Read More ›
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Irregardless
Irregardless of the price, I am buying a new computer. Well, no, not really. Not any time soon, at any rate. But that’s not the topic of this post; the word “irregardless” is. “That’s not a word!” you cry. “If… Read More ›
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366 days of math
You definitely want 366 days of math. Check it out as we are about to enter a new year! The American Mathematical Society offers us a page-a-day desk calendar, in the usual form factor, with a mathematical tidbit for each day… Read More ›
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The surprising truth about Donald Trump
The shocking truth about Donald Trump! The book A Warning (by “Anonymous: a senior Trump administration official”) reveals it. Well, no, it doesn’t. I lied. But I figured that I would start with a lie, in keeping with the subject. Now for the… Read More ›
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A Latin Christmas Carol?
Verb or noun? Two options from Gretchen McCulloch: Good King Wenceslo Good King Wenceslas Good King Wenceslat Good King Wenceslamus Good King Wenceslatis Good King Wenceslant Good King Wencesla Good King Wenceslae Good King Wenceslae Good King Wenceslam Good King… Read More ›
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Gyu-Kaku for the second time
Veering slightly from the Jewish-American tradition, Barbara and I made a second visit to Gyu-Kaku (Japanese and Korean, not Chinese) for an excellent Christmas dinner. See my post of September 13 for a review of our first visit, so I’ll… Read More ›
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Carols for editors (and writers too)
Listen closely to the words (and don’t pay attention to the quality of the singing, which isn’t the point):
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Conviction
Denise Mina’s latest novel, Conviction, is about podcasts — in part. It’s also about family. And murder. And #MeToo. And mystery. And true crime. And power and wealth. And betrayal. And trauma. And Ukrainian gangsters. (How up-to-date!) And storytelling. Not to mention… Read More ›
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“Why don’t high schools teach CS?” asks Mark.
Say what? Of course high schools teach CS! Weston has done so for decades. Surely Mark Guzdial knows better, but his recent blog post asks that very question. So what’s going on? It turns out that I have MB (Massachusetts Blindness)…. Read More ›
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“Untranslatable” words (redux)
Six months ago I wrote an essay in my blog about “untranslatable” words. If you haven’t read it, you may want to do so now. The bottom line was that when someone claims that a word in some language is… Read More ›
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There’s no such thing as too many books.
More shelf space may not be an option. More shelf space requires more shelving, which in turn requires more bookcases, which in turn require more room. Sigh. I gave a few hundred away just over a year ago, but that… Read More ›
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It’s 50 years later; would I still be able to write something like my master’s thesis?
I can still teach linguistics — but could I still write a linguistics thesis? On April 10, 1969, I submitted my master’s thesis, The Development of Embeddings in the Speech of Young Children. Just now, for a somewhat complicated set of… Read More ›
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Russian Script Hacking for Beginners
Is it Korsunsky or Korsunskiy or Korsunski or perhaps even Korsunskyi? Would it help to see it written out in Cyrillic rather than in our Roman alphabet? Related question: what’s the capital of Ukraine — Kiev or Kyiv? Actually, it’s… Read More ›
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Every vote counts!
How do elections work? Does your vote really count? Could your single vote really make a difference? See below. But first… Regular readers of this blog know that I teach a course every summer to rising tenth-graders where one unit is… Read More ›
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A negative decrease?
Hmm… so I guess that means that my score increased?
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Coffee shops with books: A personal connection
As you know, many coffee shops and small restaurants want their customers to feel at home, so they have comfortable chairs and shelves with random books on them. The intent, I suppose, is to create an ambiance like a living… Read More ›
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Semicolon
“What!? An entire book about semicolons??? You’ve got to be kidding!” “And an audiobook of all things???? How can you listen to a semicolon?” Yes, I have to admit: I really did listen to an audiobook about a punctuation mark…. Read More ›
Learning Strategies 