Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 17

• Making math relevant?

  By ljd42 on January 17, 2023

  

  Good rhetorical question from SMBC: “Do kids ever look up from Minecraft or Pokemon cards or a Harry Potter book and say ‘This is boring because it’s not relevant to real life’?” And yet that’s exactly what too many kids… Read More ›

• Deadmistress

  By ljd42 on January 15, 2023

  

  Yes, you’re right: the title is a portmanteau. It’s not a concatenation of “dead mistress” but a portmanteau of “dead” plus “headmistress.” Get it? This 2011 mystery by Carole Shmurak wasn’t so easy to find. CommCat couldn’t locate it for… Read More ›

• Is anyone still teaching cursive? Does anyone care?

  By ljd42 on January 13, 2023

  

  “Niche scholarship and the blue-moon occasion do not justify a universal policy of childhood education,” observes John McWhorter. As you see, I’ve taken that observation out of context. Without context it’s hard to know what McWhorter means, so let’s unpack… Read More ›

• Yes, it really is by J.K. Rowling, but…

  By ljd42 on January 11, 2023

  

  It’s not part of the Harry Potter franchise. I’m talking about The Ink Black Heart, the sixth novel ostensibly written by Robert Galbraith, the well-known pseudonym that J.K. Rowling uses for her outstanding Cormoran Strike series. Unlike Harry Potter, the… Read More ›

• It Happened One Night

  By ljd42 on January 10, 2023

  

  Romcoms have never held much appeal for me, not even when they were made in 1934 and were called screwball comedies, and not even when they starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Nevertheless, I watched It Happened One Night, since… Read More ›

• Before I Go to Sleep (the book, not the movie)

  By ljd42 on January 8, 2023

  

  It’s obvious that author S.J. Watson had seen the movie Memento before writing his first novel, Before I Go to Sleep. What isn’t obvious (at least to me) was that a mediocre movie of the same title was made from… Read More ›

• William says…

  By ljd42 on January 7, 2023

  

  “Tessellations are meant for sitting on,” says William, “as long as there’s a soft rug between me and the tiles.”

• Three ways to rescue writing assignments from the curse of AI

  By ljd42 on January 5, 2023

  

  Following up on my post of December 16: the internet has been atwitter recently (no pun intended) with news about the first artificial intelligence that is likely to pass the Turing Test. (If you don’t know what that is, you… Read More ›

• That feeling when…you’re trying to enjoy Venice during a pandemic

  By ljd42 on January 3, 2023

  

  I mean Venice, Italy, of course. Not Florida or California or Las Vegas or any other inauthentic place. Not that I visited Italy during the pandemic—at least not IRL—but I did manage a virtual visit by reading Give unto Others,… Read More ›

• Returning (again!) to the Grill—this time for NYE

  By ljd42 on January 1, 2023

  

  Completing our Dining in Dorchester holiday week trifecta, Barbara and I followed up Sunday’s Christmas dinner at Chau Chow and Wednesday’s baked stuffed lobster from Adams Fish with New Year’s Eve dinner at our local favorite, the Ashmont Grill. We… Read More ›

• BSL@AFM (mmm…lobstah!)

  By ljd42 on December 29, 2022

  

  Dr. Google seems to think that BSL stands for either British Sign Language or Breed-Specific Legislation or maybe even Biosafety Level. “But what,” you ask, “do any of those have to do with lobster?” Nothing, of course. That’s because BSL… Read More ›

• A very traditional Christmas dinner

  By ljd42 on December 26, 2022

  

  In accordance with tradition, Barbara and I had our Christmas dinner yesterday at a Chinese restaurant: Chau Chow in Dorchester. It was more a feast than a dinner, leaving plenty of yummy leftovers. Unfortunately they were sold out of roast… Read More ›

• They say that Christmas is for everyone—even Jews. But is it?

  By ljd42 on December 25, 2022

  

  Julie Golick posted the following observations to Facebook in 2018. In response to several requests, she then made the post shareable by all . Every year, I run into a discussion about how Christmas isn’t REALLY religious anymore and about… Read More ›

• Fantastic ______s and Where to Find Them

  By ljd42 on December 24, 2022

  

  This book reminds me of the caller who asked the Magliozzi brothers a question about his Volkswagen Quantum: he couldn’t get it repaired because he didn’t know any Quantum mechanics. What’s the connection? Well, first you need to know what… Read More ›

• Answers for linguistics quiz

  By ljd42 on December 21, 2022

  Six days ago I gave you a linguistics quiz that Lynne Murphy designed for the holiday season. The quiz is reprinted below so you don’t have to flip back and forth. Here are the answers, with annotations in some cases:… Read More ›

• At holiday time…

  By ljd42 on December 20, 2022

  

  …we always want to return to our local favorite where everybody knows your name. In our case, that’s the Ashmont Grill, with excellent food, first-class service, and the feeling of being home. So Barbara and I had our penultimate 2022… Read More ›

• Hints for linguistics quiz

  By ljd42 on December 18, 2022

  

  Four days ago I gave you a linguistics quiz that Lynne Murphy designed for the holiday season. The quiz is reprinted below so you don’t have to flip back and forth. Full answers will be posted on Tuesday. For the… Read More ›

• ChatGPT from OpenAI

  By ljd42 on December 16, 2022

  

  Apparently I’m late jumping on the bandwagon. Everywhere I look, someone else is trying out ChatGPT and commenting on it. This app is supposed to respond like a real human being, given any particular prompt you may type. So I… Read More ›

• Flicka naps in the sun.

  By ljd42 on December 15, 2022

  

  Flicka is feeling Turkish and has found the best place to nap on a sunny day:

• Your lingquiz for the season

  By ljd42 on December 14, 2022

  

  You have been selected to take this language/linguistics quiz written by an American-British linguist. No fair asking Dr. Google or anyone else for help! Hints will be posted on Sunday, answers on Tuesday.

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