Recent Posts - page 108

  • Wellness Day

    By on

    Today was Wellness Day at Weston High School — a day off for the students, and a day of professional development workshops for the teachers. “Professional development”: what thoughts does that phrase conjure up? FWIW, let’s see what Wikipedia has… Read More ›

  • Which comes first, the movie or the book?

    By on

    In yesterday’s post, I recommended watching the movie of Mozart and the Whale before reading the book. And then I got to thinking about whether this was the natural order: after all, in most cases a movie is written after… Read More ›

  • Mozart and the Whale: The book

    By on

    On February 20 I reviewed Mozart and the Whale: An Asperger’s Love Story. After seeing and enjoying this fascinating movie, I decided to read the autobiography on which it was based. (Can I still call it an autobiography when it… Read More ›

  • Goodbye, Arthur C. Clarke.

    By on

    Another of the great ones is gone. Scientist, science fiction writer, and visionary Arthur C. Clarke died the day before yesterday at age 90. He is best known for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, on which the eternally rewatchable… Read More ›

  • Eye of the Beholder

    By on

    I recently listened to the audiobook of Eye of the Beholder, by David Ellis. This work is a hybrid of two genres: the thriller and the police procedural. It’s definitely a page-turner — well, I can’t use that metaphor for… Read More ›

  • Countless

    By on

    I guess Kalmbach didn’t have 100 fingers:

  • Don’t procrastinate! Goodbye, George, I hardly knew you.

    By on

    Actually, I never knew you, sad to say. For 15 years now I have been intending to meet George Sanborn and talk with him about the MBTA (since my model railroad layout is based loosely on the MBTA of 1969)…. Read More ›

  • South Shore Model Railway Club

    By on

    This morning I went to the Spring Open House of the South Shore Model Railroad Club in Hingham, MA. Despite the excessive number of young children present, it was an excellent layout, with a reasonable but small quantity of vendors… Read More ›

  • Fractions

    By on

    That’s fractions, not fractals. (There is, actually, a significant and non-coincidental connection between the words, but that would be something of a digression.) I’m noticing two recent and diametrically opposed views on fractions — views that I want to discuss… Read More ›

  • Happy Pi Day!

    By on

    Pi Day at Weston was uneventful, except that one of my students brought in a virtual pie. Actually it was a chocolate cake, but at least it was round. And she had intended to write some of the digits of… Read More ›

  • JP Seafood

    By on

    Last night Barbara and I ate at JP Seafood, one of our favorite restaurants for times when she works late in Jamaica Plain. (You’ll note that I’ve included the Dorchester label for this post, even though Jamaica Plain is not… Read More ›

  • Preparing for Pi Day

    By on

    To get ready for Pi Day, which of course comes the day after tomorrow, you should get yourself a Pi Plate, watch the music video of the first half of Mathematical Pi, and listen to the audio version of the… Read More ›

  • As Dog is My Witness

    By on

    I seem to be inadvertently continuing my Asperger’s theme here. As Dog is My Witness, by Jeffrey Cohen, is a mystery that features a couple of boys with Asperger’s; one is the innocent suspect, the other the informal detective. You… Read More ›

  • The Second Mouse

    By on

    The Second Mouse is a wonderful addition to Archer Mayor’s series of Vermont mysteries, which are always a pleasure to read because Mayor is so skilled at drawing verbal pictures of both the characters and the locales. As a reader,… Read More ›

  • Maple

    By on

    Yesterday afternoon we had a half-day workshop on Maple, a computer algebra system. At least that’s how we think of it, but here’s the description on their website: Maple is the leading all purpose mathematics software tool. Maple provides an… Read More ›

  • Teaching boys and girls separately — and differently?

    By on

    There’s a fascinating pair of intertwined articles this week, one in the New York Times Magazine and one in Language Log. The Times article is the cover piece for the issue: “Teaching Boys and Girls Separately,” by Elizabeth Weil; the… Read More ›

  • An Obama/Seeger serendipity

    By on

    Wow! I don’t often call a PBS show inspiring, but last night I watched the truly inspiring American Masters episode, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, which had aired on my birthday and TiVo had kindly saved for me. I… Read More ›

  • Fractals are fractious

    By on

    (Thanks to Barbara for the title of this post.) Let me begin by setting the stage. On Friday I wrote about this year’s Fractal Fair. Groups of students (generally three in each group, occasionally two; generally juniors, but there were… Read More ›

  • Listen to the kids? Or listen to the adults?

    By on

    In Universal Hub this morning, Adam Gaffin quotes Cara Lisa Powers on the subject of the Boston Globe’s coverage of a protest at the John D. O’Bryant High School of Mathematics and Science. The Globe ignored the kids. In this… Read More ›

  • "Boys and girls,…" What's wrong with that?

    By on

    One of my colleagues objects when a teacher addresses a group of students as “Boys and girls,…” No, it’s not that she would prefer it if we said “Girls and boys,…”; that’s not the issue, though of course one should… Read More ›