Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 2

• The Court Jester

  By ljd42 on October 6, 2021

  Robin Hood or The Princess Bride? Which one inspired The Court Jester? Well, if you look at the image, you see that Danny Kaye (born דוד־דניאל קאַמינסקי—that’s Yiddish, even if it looks like Hebrew) starred in The Court Jester, and… Read More ›

• How do you learn a foreign language? “There are no subtitles in real life.”

  By ljd42 on October 4, 2021

  “One fine day, it’s like going from the black and white to the color part of The Wizard of Oz.” That’s John McWhorter’s striking description of one of the things that happens when you learn a new language. It’s from… Read More ›

• “Scientific discoveries are never given the names of their actual discoverers.”

  By ljd42 on October 2, 2021

  When I teach cryptography, my students learn that the Caesar Cipher wasn’t actually invented by Julius Caesar, that the Playfair Cipher wasn’t created by Lyon Playfair, that the Vigenère Cipher is wrongly attributed to Blaise de Vigenère, and so forth…. Read More ›

• They say that America’s math curriculum doesn’t add up. But is that true?

  By ljd42 on September 30, 2021

  What’s wrong with America’s math curriculum? I’ve written endlessly on this subject, but for now I want to focus on the claims of Steven Levitt and others in a new version of an earlier Freakonomics episode. Levitt et al. are… Read More ›

• She says she’s afraid of not being afraid.

  By ljd42 on September 28, 2021

  “She” is Laura Lippman, talking about her new novel, Dream Girl. I usually read every book in Lippman’s Baltimore-based crime series; I decided to read this out-of-series (non-genre) one as well, based primarily on Ed Levine’s interview with her on… Read More ›

• Oh no! The International Astronomical Union has been lying to us all these years! What is this world coming to?

  By ljd42 on September 27, 2021

  “These explanations are entirely bogus. They’re made up.” That’s what the Kiwi Hellenist, Peter Gainsford, says about the International Astronomical Union’s incorrect explanations for the names of the planets. But how could the explanations be entirely bogus? Scientists don’t just… Read More ›

• Back Bay Blues, by Peter Colt

  By ljd42 on September 23, 2021

  No, this novel is not really about the Back Bay—not the neighborhood, nor the train station, nor the erstwhile eponymous bay. And it’s not about the blues. But you probably guessed that. Mostly it’s about the aftermath of the War… Read More ›

• Too indulgent!

  By ljd42 on September 22, 2021

  At first I wasn’t going to blog about last night’s dinner, which was our third-ever visit to Brasserie: writing about two pricey restaurants in one week was just too indulgent. But then, when dessert arrived, I had to change my… Read More ›

• The Japanese Agatha Christie?

  By ljd42 on September 21, 2021

  How to begin? Maybe with an executive summary: The Decagon House Murders, a 1987 novel by Yukito Ayatsuji, is a locked-room mystery explicitly based (in two different ways) on Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel And Then There Were None. I enjoyed… Read More ›

• Outdoor dining at 224 Boston Street

  By ljd42 on September 20, 2021

  Yesterday evening Barbara and I had a delicious dinner at 224 Boston Street. They’ve set up half a dozen very sturdy wooden booths on the sidewalk, all nicely separately and totally different from the flimsy, temporary feel you get at… Read More ›

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