Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 37

• The First King: Birth of an Empire

  By ljd42 on April 23, 2021

  The spoken dialog is entirely in Old Latin! Well, yes; it’s a movie, after all, so what do you expect? There surely are many movies in Old Latin, a.k.a. Archaic Latin, right? Well, maybe not. At least this one has… Read More ›

• Isaac Asimov’s “Black Widowers” stories

  By ljd42 on April 22, 2021

  Isaac Asimov was best known as a science fiction writer, though many readers justly prize him for his ultra-clear writing of science fact. Not so many readers realize that Asimov was also a prolific—stop there! “prolific” anything is redundant when… Read More ›

• Following directions, a.k.a. lather-rinse-repeat

  By ljd42 on April 21, 2021

  If you’ve ever built a model railroad structure (or a model airplane or whatever), you either build it from scratch, build it from a kit, or do some combination of the two. I am definitely not a scratch builder, so… Read More ›

• Calendrical linguistics: What a wonderfully nerdy combination!

  By ljd42 on April 20, 2021

  You’ve wondered, I’m sure, about some of our names for the months. Perhaps you are puzzled about why October is the tenth month when the name clearly suggests that it should be the eighth. Similarly for September, November, and December…. Read More ›

• A welcome respite from takeout

  By ljd42 on April 19, 2021

  Now that Barbara and I are both fully vaccinated (two jabs + two weeks), we ventured out to the Ashmont Grill at 6:30 last night for the first time in six months—dining on their beautiful patio of course: Note the… Read More ›

• Seven Types of Atheism

  By ljd42 on April 18, 2021

  What a misleading book title! What I had expected was a book about… well… seven different types of atheism. A reasonable assumption, isn’t it? But no. It’s not about seven types of atheism. It’s a very interesting book nonetheless—but it’s… Read More ›

• The Mattapan-Ashmont “High Speed” Line in 360°

  By ljd42 on April 17, 2021

  When I first moved to Boston, the Red Line went from Harvard to Ashmont (red because it’s close to crimson). Then the northern portion was extended from Harvard to Alewife. It was supposed to go to Arlington and Lexington, but… Read More ›

• What? A model railroad can be a computational device and a musical instrument?!

  By ljd42 on April 15, 2021

  Surely you’re joking, Mr. Aaronson. I can (just barely) believe the musical instrument claim, but a computational device??? Actually, both claims are true, hard as it is to believe. For the musical instrument, watch this short video and you’ll see… Read More ›

• A Murder of Magpies

  By ljd42 on April 14, 2021

  

  An outstanding first novel from Judith Flanders, published seven years ago, A Murder of Magpies is a mystery that will hold your attention and keep you entertained. In a recent post I wrote about another Judith Flanders book, but in… Read More ›

• A new unit of distance?

  By ljd42 on April 12, 2021

  No, this sign isn’t at a Starbucks:

• They both have samples of my DNA. Why do they disagree about my ancestry?

  By ljd42 on April 11, 2021

  My ancestry, says ancestry.com, is 100% Ashkenazy Jewish! No, says CRI Genetics, it’s 66.1% Ashkenazy Jewish! So who’s right? It’s always a good idea to ask for a second opinion. I trusted ancestry.com, which is respected and has a well-known… Read More ›

• A supposedly “new” way to solve quadratics

  By ljd42 on April 9, 2021

  What’s wrong with the Quadratic Formula? Let me count the ways: It’s pure magic to 99% of high-school students, who have no idea why it works. It lends itself to sign errors because of the subtraction under the square root… Read More ›

• An outstanding dinner from Tavolo

  By ljd42 on April 7, 2021

  Barbara and I had an outstanding dinner tonight from Tavolo, with lots of leftovers: chef’s burrata with basil pesto, prosciutto, grape tomatoes, parmesan & parsley crumb, and vincotto; seafood fregola with shrimp, mussels, tomato broth, and garlic butter; confit duck… Read More ›

• What’s in a (color) name?

  By ljd42 on April 6, 2021

  

  Who cares what names Crayola chooses to use for the colors of its crayons? Do you? Do I? There was only one color name that used to bother me when I was a kid: “flesh.” Even then, I guess, I… Read More ›

• Adequate Yearly Progress

  By ljd42 on April 4, 2021

  

  If you write a novel about teaching, how realistic should it be? If, in particular, it’s supposed to be a satire, then how realistic should it be? Can you distinguish a satire from reality? Sometimes it’s hard to do that…. Read More ›

• That Day the Rabbi Left Town

  By ljd42 on April 2, 2021

  

  Way back in the Before Times—in 1964, when I was still in high school—local author Harry Kemelman wrote Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, thus inaugurating a series of a dozen cozy-style mysteries featuring Rabbi David Small of a Conservative synagogue in Barnard’s… Read More ›

• Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life 

  By ljd42 on April 1, 2021

  

  Quick: What is the meaning of life? You said 42, right? No, wait a minute—that’s a different book. In Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life, philosopher John Gray explores what cats think about the meaning of life, what… Read More ›

• Have you read Robert Heinlein’s Coventry?

  By ljd42 on March 31, 2021

  

  Are you old enough to know the English phrase “sent to Coventry”? According to Merriam-Webster, if you were “sent to Coventry,” you have been ostracized. Although the cover story of the July 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction featured a… Read More ›

• Boston in Transit

  By ljd42 on March 30, 2021

  

  Boston’s rich history of public transit deserves your attention if you live in, work in, or have visited The Hub. That’s short for “Hub of the Universe,” in case you missed the memo. Boston is nothing if not proud of… Read More ›

• William’s 17th

  By ljd42 on March 27, 2021

  

  William is preparing for his upcoming 17th birthday by taking a power nap on his kitty couch to make sure that he remains cute enough.  

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