Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 53

• Wedding follow-up: Why is this ratio so strange?

  By ljd42 on November 6, 2019

  

  A couple of mathematical follow-ups to my recent post about my niece’s wedding: Wedding favors are a standard perk; in this case we received tote bags hand-made by the bride. But there was a mathematical twist to the posted sign:… Read More ›

• High School

  By ljd42 on November 5, 2019

  

  “High school is the best time of your life.” That‘s what they say. Whoever they might be. Actually, some people do say that and even mean it. Then there’s the rest of us, those whose lives were much better after high school…. Read More ›

• Jed Sutter

  By ljd42 on November 3, 2019

  

  I recently attended a small but wonderful exhibit of the paintings of the distinguished local artist Jed Sutter. Reflections is probably my favorite. I love the representation of the reflection, of course (and not just because it’s a geometric concept), but… Read More ›

• Fox & Hound

  By ljd42 on November 1, 2019

  

  Lacking Halloween spirit, Barbara and I escaped by taking her sister Brenda to the Fox and Hound for a long, leisurely dinner — not only long and leisurely but also a truly excellent feast, as it turned out! Wedge salad,… Read More ›

• Seattle 4: The Food

  By ljd42 on October 30, 2019

  

  Seafood and Asian food — that’s what you would expect in Seattle, amirite? Well, one of two ain’t bad: we did have lots of good seafood. The first night we  went to RockCreek Seafood, which was spectacularly good. It turned… Read More ›

• Seattle 3: The City (with insufficient rain)

  By ljd42 on October 29, 2019

  

  This was supposed to be a mini-vacation along with Hannah and Ben’s wedding, but was it? Yes, it counted as one in my book, even though there wasn’t a whole lot of down time. Here are a few of the… Read More ›

• Seattle 2: The Wedding

  By ljd42 on October 27, 2019

  

  As I indicated yesterday, our principal reason for this long weekend in Seattle was to attend the wedding of our niece, Hannah. Although I had worried that I would be overwhelmed by the large number of guests (over a hundred),… Read More ›

• Seattle 1: Chihuly

  By ljd42 on October 26, 2019

  

  Barbara and I are here in Seattle for our niece’s wedding and a mini-vacation, while Barbara’s sister Brenda house-sits and cat-sits. William appreciates her long fingernails, which are designed for scritching. Anyway, all the details about Seattle will come in… Read More ›

• Rendezvous with Rama

  By ljd42 on October 24, 2019

  

  The late Arthur C. Clarke and the late Isaac Asimov used to have a running dispute, which they resolved by agreeing that Clarke would always say that Asimov was the second best science fiction writer in the world, and Asimov would… Read More ›

• Is that even a word? Is it in the dictionary?

  By ljd42 on October 22, 2019

  

  “That isn’t a word: it isn’t in the dictionary!” is heard all too frequently. There are two problems with statements like this: There is no such thing as THE dictionary; there are many different dictionaries, and no two lists of… Read More ›

• Translation and culture

  By ljd42 on October 21, 2019

  

  Translation is impossible. Traduttore, traditore. That’s the lovely word pairing in Italian — roughly “a translator is a traitor”, where there’s only a small vowel change and a doubled consonant distinguishing the two words. A recent article by Matthew Reynolds explored… Read More ›

• The bathroom is finally finished!

  By ljd42 on October 19, 2019

  

  It took nine weeks. First the workmen demolished everything, down to the studs. Then they built a complete new bathroom in the same space. Some fixtures from Kohler and Home Despot, but primarily from our local Norfolk Hardware and Home Center. (Shout-out… Read More ›

• Intertwingled/“Hypertext in the Age of Trump”

  By ljd42 on October 18, 2019

  

  Hypertext pioneer Mark Bernstein has just published Intertwingled, a collection of nine essays and one short story. No one could ever say that Bernstein is shy about expressing his opinions, so don’t expect some dry attempt at scientific “neutrality.” If you… Read More ›

• Graphing calculator prices: how TI cornered the market

  By ljd42 on October 16, 2019

  

  You’re a student. Why are you required to buy a Texas Instruments calculator? Why not something cheaper and better? Usually what you’re buying is a TI-84, a 15-year-old piece of expensive technology. Zachary Crockett explains how we got into this… Read More ›

• 224 Boston Street

  By ljd42 on October 15, 2019

  

  As I wrote on 12/12/2015 and 10/31/2010, Dorchester used to have a scarcity of good restaurants, but now there are a lot: Twenty-five years ago you could count the number of good restaurants in Dorchester  on the fingers of one… Read More ›

• Blue, green, and grue

  By ljd42 on October 14, 2019

  

  Color names are a mystery. At least to me. Take a look at the color chips in the image. If we limit ourselves to common English color names (excluding, that is, the myriad of names used by both types of… Read More ›

• Mollie and Vincent

  By ljd42 on October 12, 2019

  

  Mollie likes to sleep with one eye open, just in case. But she curls up with her brother Vincent, who will always  protect her.

• Trump’s language — and Obama’s

  By ljd42 on October 11, 2019

  

  What do you think about Donald Trump’s use of language? A lot of people criticize it. On the other side there were even people who criticized Obama’s language, so where does the truth lie? Frances Brown, who worked for the… Read More ›

• Comic Sans is back in the news.

  By ljd42 on October 10, 2019

  Oh nos, Comic Sans is back in the news! Three times in the past 20 years I’ve felt compelled to write about the Comic Sans font: in 2005, 2009, and 2016. And here we go again: Of all the things… Read More ›

• Linguistics in MetroWest

  By ljd42 on October 8, 2019

  

  For many years I inserted linguistic lagniappes into my honors geometry classes at Weston — typically for 15–20 minutes, twice a month. You may wonder what the connection between linguistics and geometry might be — but if you view honors geometry as… Read More ›

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