Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 18

• More Bones

  By ljd42 on March 12, 2023

  

  Why do I continue reading Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan novels? Because I enjoy them, of course! They hold my attention; I like the geeky details of the forensics; and I’m always interested in the character development through the series. Cold… Read More ›

• Do we still think it can’t happen here?

  By ljd42 on March 10, 2023

  

  Ron DeSantis wants to tell me what to teach. And what not to teach. Even though he has broken with Donald Trump, he is following in the Trumpian footsteps. Maybe it’s only half of current Republicans who have authoritarian impulses,… Read More ›

• Ginnels, jitties, snickets, and twitchels

  By ljd42 on March 8, 2023

  

  We’ve all had this experience. You hear or read an unusual word that’s completely new to you—and then, a day or so later, you hear or read it again! Is it a coincidence? It just happened to me with the… Read More ›

• Keep your language!

  By ljd42 on March 6, 2023

  

  Over 97% of Americans are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants—even if some so-called conservatives don’t want to admit it. But many of us who grew up with immigrant parents or grandparents are unable to speak or read the language(s)… Read More ›

• Happy ἐξελαύνω Day!

  By ljd42 on March 4, 2023

  

  This is my not-quite-annual “march forth” post wishing everyone a happy Exelauno Day. In case you’ve forgotten, here is my post from a year ago, which happens to be mostly about learning Ukrainian (!) but opens with remarks about Exelauno… Read More ›

• Can you own a plot?

  By ljd42 on March 3, 2023

  

  “Not another story-within-a-story!” said I to myself, said I. Why am I suddenly reading so many novels with that particular structure? Must be something in the water: a plot by some nefarious organization. By this point you’ve realized that it’s… Read More ›

• Popular culture, math, and computer science

  By ljd42 on March 1, 2023

  

  This puzzle comes from mathematical physicist John Baez. That’s John, not Joan (she is not a mathematical physicist, as far as I know), though they are in fact first cousins. You don’t normally expect that a physicist with a Ph.D…. Read More ›

• S&W

  By ljd42 on February 27, 2023

  

  That stands for Smith and W… …Relax: the W doesn’t stand for Wesson! It stands for Wollensky, of course. Normally Barbara and I would never go to such a high-end restaurant, but this was a special occasion. We had dinner… Read More ›

• What’s so beautiful about algebra?

  By ljd42 on February 26, 2023

  

  “Nothing,” say some of my students. “You can always find the value of x,” say some others. “It’s useful in real life,” says one. “No it isn’t!” says another. By this point we’ve moved far afield from the original question…. Read More ›

• William wins Cutest Cat of the Day award!

  By ljd42 on February 24, 2023

  

• It can’t happen here. (Or can it?)

  By ljd42 on February 23, 2023

  What took me so long? I have finally finished reading Jo Walton’s 2006 alternative history novel, Farthing, subtitled A Story of a World that Could Have Been, Volume I of the Small Change trilogy. Walton has written two of my… Read More ›

• No, APL doesn’t stand for “Alison, Phil, and Larry.”

  By ljd42 on February 21, 2023

  Let’s suppose your unimaginative instructor gave you this task: add up all the whole numbers from 1 through 42. You have, of course, several options: Or, if your language of choice is APL, you could simply write a one-line program… Read More ›

• Ὁ Ἡρóδοτος: A beautiful new edition (in English, not Greek)

  By ljd42 on February 19, 2023

  

  Can you name three or four ancient world historians? I don’t mean modern writers who study the history of the ancient world; I mean writers who lived in the ancient world and wrote about the history of their time and… Read More ›

• What grade should these get?

  By ljd42 on February 17, 2023

  We continue to hear concerns about Artificial Intelligence, especially ChatGPT, nearly every day. As the link in the previous paragraph will take you to my second post about ChatGPT, this must be the third, and I really don’t want to… Read More ›

• Globle

  By ljd42 on February 15, 2023

  

  Following in the recent tradition of Wordle and its many spinoffs, Globle is an online game that will let you test your knowledge of geography in an unconventional format. The instructions are simple. First your opponent (the computer) picks a… Read More ›

• The Next Generation

  By ljd42 on February 13, 2023

  

  The Next Generation. No, not Star Trek—we’re talking America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation on Amazon FreeVee. Normally I don’t like cooking competitions. But I continued to watch all ten episodes of this competition because of my love for the… Read More ›

• Ça va bien aller.

  By ljd42 on February 11, 2023

  

  It’s going to be all right, as they say (in Quebecois French) in this novel. After a long wait caused by so many other library patrons, I finally had a chance to read A World of Curiosities, the latest Three… Read More ›

• A known unknown? Or maybe it’s an unknown known? Or what?

  By ljd42 on February 9, 2023

  

  You do remember Donald Rumsfeld, don’t you? Famous (or infamous) for many things, including the distinction between known unknowns and unknown unknowns, not to mention known knowns and unknown knowns. Confused yet? James Harbeck—whom I’ve cited a dozen times in… Read More ›

• You are what you wear.

  By ljd42 on February 7, 2023

  

  “Wait a minute!” you say. “Shouldn’t that be you are what you eat?” Well, yes, the familiar quotation is indeed “You are what you eat”—or “Der Mensch ist was er ißt” in the original German—but the two claims are closely… Read More ›

• William stays warm.

  By ljd42 on February 4, 2023

  

  Outside it’s –6° F, but William is keeping warm on his kitty couch, right next to the heat.

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