Recent Posts - page 103

  • Special K, a.k.a. sugar

    By on

    While I suppose this probably isn’t news to anyone else, it was to me. Yesterday Barbara picked up a granola bar labeled Kellogg’s® Special K Bliss™. Note that Special K comes with “a variety of delicious options to kick-start a… Read More ›

  • Cries and Whiskers

    By on

    Generally I stay away from mysteries that feature cats. They tend to be too cute, with anthropomorphized felines that solve crimes or even talk. But Clea Simon’s Cries and Whiskers avoids those pitfalls. Aside from featuring cats, this novel also… Read More ›

  • Everything is Miscellaneous

    By on

    For years now I’ve been fascinated and bothered by hierarchical systems of organization, starting with the Dewey Decimal System and progressing to typical org charts in businesses and hierarchical file systems on computers. On the one hand, the systematic structure… Read More ›

  • Playing suburban patty cake

    By on

    Catching up on a blog written by fellow Dorchester resident Candelaria Silva, I came across a post from a year and a half ago, “All White People, All the Time,” which caught my eye for several reasons: first of all,… Read More ›

  • Dollhouse

    By on

    Thanks to the wonders of Tivo, Barbara and I were able to watch the opening episode of Dollhouse, “Ghost”, a few days late. It turned out to be part fun and part obligation — fun because it’s Joss Whedon, and… Read More ›

  • The Numbers Behind Numb3rs

    By on

    My students sometimes ask me whether the mathematics in the television show Numb3rs is real. This question, among others, is explored in a fascinating book, The Numbers behind Numb3rs: Solving Crime with Mathematics, by mathematicians Keith Devlin and Gary Lorden…. Read More ›

  • Computational intractability

    By on

    It’s been a stressful week here in Lake Wobegon, but February break is finally almost upon us; now I have a chance to catch up on things from the past few days. Of course it’s always nice to see the… Read More ›

  • The two Chows

    By on

    No, not two dogs. No, not two students whose last name is Chow. I’m referring to two Chinese restaurants: Chau Chow in Dorchester (discussed previously in this blog on 7/23/2008, 9/1/2006, and 5/9/2006) and Great Chow in the Wollaston section… Read More ›

  • Dump “No Child Left Behind” Completely?

    By on

    Yes, dump NCLB completely. But first read Brian Harvey’s brief article in the Blue Sky: New Ideas for the Obama Administration publication out of the UC Berkeley Law School. He’s right, of course.

  • People of the Book

    By on

    Like some of the other novels I tend to read, People of the Book appeals to a particular type of audience rather than the general public. Australian author Geraldine Brooks’s fascinating historical novel spans many centuries while remaining firmly anchored… Read More ›

  • This isn't school!

    By on

    The time is 8:30 this morning. The scene is the front of Greenleaf Hall at Milton Academy, as the day begins at The Saturday Course. A mom drops off her fourth-grader. We listen in on their remarks: Mom: Have a… Read More ›

  • Cellphones: A cautionary tale

    By on

    During yesterday’s Massachusetts Math League meet in Westford, a cell phone belonging to a student from a nearby high school (neither Weston nor Westford) emitted a tone during the first round. She pulled the phone out of her pocket, looked… Read More ›

  • Interactive whiteboards

    By on

    Yesterday was an “abbreviated Wednesday” at Weston High School, since the afternoon was devoted to a Professional Development Day for teachers. We focused on the subject of interactive whiteboards (IWBs); many of our classrooms have recently been equipped with either… Read More ›

  • The Stranger House

    By on

    Here is yet another genre-transcending novel that’s something of a gothic mystery but really is neither gothic nor mystery: The Stranger House, by Reginald Hill. It helps, of course, that the protagonist this time is a mathematician — even better… Read More ›

  • The Lake of Dead Languages

    By on

    I recently listened to the audiobook version of The Lake of Dead Languages, a fascinating novel by Carol Goodman. Well, actually, I don’t know how fascinating it would be to the general reader, but it resonated for me in so… Read More ›

  • The Strontium-90 Scenario

    By on

    In all six sections of college-prep Algebra II (taught by three teachers, with two sections apiece), we have just completed a project in which each student has to understand a scenario (written by one of my colleagues), complete some mathematics… Read More ›

  • I haven't seen any of these movies.

    By on

    One of my sophomores is appalled at the list of movies that I haven’t seen. Whenever she mentions one or another of her favorite movies, it almost always happens that I haven’t seen it. So she gave me an assignment… Read More ›

  • Not thinking of YouTube

    By on

    We’re studying some 20th-Century mathematics in Precalculus class these days. This situation is unusual in high-school math, where most of what we study goes back at least 300 years, not to mention 2300 in the case of most of our… Read More ›

  • What's wrong with a 92?

    By on

    This story is completely true; only the names have been changed to…, etc., etc. So I’m handing back a test this morning, using my new system where the grade is written on the bottom of the last page rather than… Read More ›

  • National Heritage Museum

    By on

    Barbara and I, along with my sister Ellen, spent the afternoon today at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington. There are two exhibits there that I can enthusiastically recommend, so go see them while you can! The first is entitled… Read More ›