Recent Posts - page 70

  • Morning glories

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    I do love our purple morning glories!

  • Ben X (a film about Asperger’s)

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    Grim. Much too grim. I’m talking about Ben X, a subtitled 2007 Dutch-language movie from Belgium — a work of fiction, based on a real story. I don’t have any problem with serious films, but I just had to stop watching Ben X half-way through…. Read More ›

  • Hillbilly Elegy

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    What an irritating book! Even if you haven’t read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, you’ve probably at least heard of it, as it made quite a splash when it came out last year and stayed on the best-seller list for weeks… Read More ›

  • Unseen World

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    Unseen World, a fascinating and complicated novel, will capture and maintain your attention — if you’re the right sort of reader. Right for this book, I mean of course. You probably are if you’re interested in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, online virtual worlds (as… Read More ›

  • Todd Graff’s Camp

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    “A flawed movie about flawed characters,” as one reviewer put it. But that’s OK; even flawed movies can be worth watching, if you’re willing to focus on the positives rather than the negatives. This film from 2003 is definitely one… Read More ›

  • Curiosity and conformity

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    Continuing some of the themes that have been lurking just below the surface of my past three posts, I turn to an essay by Joel Wagner. Most of his essay actually springs from a blog post by a different author,… Read More ›

  • Turning problems into solutions

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    Constraints are good. Sometimes. They certainly made Houdini more creative. Actually, we impose constraints on ourselves and our students all the time, paradoxically increasing creativity by doing so. Often, for instance, we give a two-part test, one part of which… Read More ›

  • The power of the feedback loop?

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    Take a look at the estimable Sam Shah’s post about his colleague’s method of grading classwork. The colleague, a French teacher, has some admirable objectives: When I adopted a no-homework model for my classes several years ago, my role as… Read More ›

  • What about those cell phones?

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    A recent question on Quora: If you are a teacher, is there a way to tell students to put away their cell phones that creates willingness in them rather than just annoyance? This is an interesting twist on an all-too-common… Read More ›

  • Yes, the Mission Hill presentation was successful.

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    Yes, the Mission Hill trip was successful. Two weeks ago, I promised to tell you the results of our decision to replace Chinatown with Mission Hill as one of the eight Boston neighborhoods we visit each summer as part of… Read More ›

  • The Fall

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    John Lescroart has long been one of my favorite genre authors. This blog has included reviews of two of his large number of San Francisco-based mysteries/legal thrillers — The Ophelia Cut and The Oath — the former in 2015 and the latter way… Read More ›

  • Five ways to engage reluctant learners

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    One of my favorite bloggers, John Spencer, wrote a post a year ago on how to engage reluctant learners. But let me first quote the hook, his opening paragraphs: I am currently on my fifth solid day of doing things that… Read More ›

  • Snow Crash

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    The time came to re-read Snow Crash. I had first read Neal Stephenson’s seminal science fiction novel when it came out in 1992, and then again at the end of the millennium, which seemed appropriate. Now, to celebrate its 25th… Read More ›

  • Restaurants in the southern part of Dorchester

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    In the last year or two the southern part of Dorchester has been blessed with a large influx of new restaurants. Here are some capsule comments on ten of them (yes, ten! — and there are more) in alphabetical order:… Read More ›

  • The Industry

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    “The Industry”? Is that a restaurant? Yes, indeed; it’s Dorchester’s newest restaurant. Barbara and I decided to try it out last night. All in all — two thumbs up. Fortunately they have valet parking (in the gas station across the… Read More ›

  • PhDeath: The Puzzler Murders

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    How could I resist? Word puzzles, a murder at NYU, some math, a dash of ancient Greek, political intrigue, faculty politics, philosophy, social commentary, and even Will Shortz… obviously irresistible. So I didn’t resist it. The result of all these… Read More ›

  • Peer tutoring

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    Who likes peer tutoring? Google “peer tutoring” and you’ll see dozens of upbeat images like this one. The Math Curmudgeon, who usually hits the nail on the head, certainly hits the nail on the head in the opening to his… Read More ›

  • Mansplaining

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    I have to share this cartoon (by Arnold Zwicky), but I’m not going to explain it:

  • 3D pens?

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    Who’d a thunk it? Is there really such a thing as a 3D pen? Can you really write in the air? It all sounds very science-fictional. But 40 years ago 3D printers seemed science-fictional, and yet they were invented soon… Read More ›

  • Whence significant figures?

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    Significant digits can arise out of less significant data, right? For instance, you probably learned in ninth-grade science that a number rounded to one significant figure can be magically turned into one with three significant figures simply by changing measurement… Read More ›