Recent Posts - page 88

  • A bad sign

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    I fear that 88 Wharf, which I reviewed three years ago, is going downhill. The rumor is that it’s about to go out of business. I don’t know whether that is really true, but the subject line of their recent… Read More ›

  • Soup and suans

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    Changsho may or not be the best Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, but it definitely has the best hot-and-sour soup. Mary Chung may or may not be the best Chinese restaurant in Cambridge, but it definitely has the best suan la… Read More ›

  • Camry electronics

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    After our eight-year-old Ford Taurus bit the dust, Barbara and I bought a 2012 Toyota Camry. I love the car, and I’m still learning its ins and outs. In particular, I have been pleasantly surprised by its electronic capabilities, especially in… Read More ›

  • Privilege

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    I suppose I’m biased. But bias or no, Privilege is must reading for anyone interested in the intersection of education, schools, and the American class structure. The full title of Shamus Rahman Khan’s sociological study is Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent… Read More ›

  • The Woman Who Died a Lot

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    Unless you’ve been reading this blog for at least the past six and a half years, you probably don’t realize that I’m a fan of Jasper Fforde. See my posts of 11/1/11, 11/30/06, and 8/8/06 for more information, but here… Read More ›

  • Popsicles, law, and language

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    Companies have to protect their trademarks, of course. There are even a few well-known examples where trademarks were lost because they weren’t protected — Wikipedia cites aspirin, dry ice, escalator, kerosene, laundromat, linoleum, phonograph, thermos, videotape, and zipper — so… Read More ›

  • XO

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    XO is the latest novel by Jeffery Deaver, two of whose books I previously reviewed — on August 27, 2006, and on November 23, 2009 — although I’ve read many more of his books than those two. In fact, I suspect that… Read More ›

  • Playtime

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    I’m not quite sure what I think of this 1967 Jacques Tati movie, which I just saw for the first time. It’s a bit slow, a bit French, and a lot jarring. The set is supposed to look like Paris,… Read More ›

  • Persistence

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    NPR aired a fascinating report this morning in its Your Health segment of Morning Edition: “A Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning,” reported by Alix Spiegel. Everyone knows the stereotype of the successful Asian student, and there’s… Read More ›

  • The Dead Puppy Theorem

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    (a + b)2 = a2 + b2. Right? “No, of course not,” you say. Or maybe you say “Yes, of course.” If you say yes, you’re making the same mistake that 42% of high-school students make. I just invented that statistic on the spot,… Read More ›

  • MIT does not equal Mitt

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    They don’t even sound alike. An MIT alumna was nearly prevented from voting in Florida because she was wearing an MIT shirt. A poll worker thought she was illegally campaigning for Romney inside the polling place.

  • What motivates teachers and students?

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    This is important! You’ve got to set aside ten minutes and watch this TED talk by Dan Pink. While it’s not specifically about teachers, nor specifically about students, it tells us a lot about what motivates and doesn’t motivate both groups. Presented by… Read More ›

  • Math wins!

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    This morning’s XKCD:

  • Fractal pancakes!

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    Maybe some of my precalculus students will make fractal pancakes for the Fractal Fair in March (though I’m not sure where we could serve them, as the Fair is held in the school library). Here’s what they look like:

  • An excellent way to improve a school's test scores

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    What’s the best way for a school to improve its test scores? That’s easy: you get rid of all the low-performing students, of course. Or you send truant officers to their homes on the morning of test day, and the… Read More ›

  • How many other good teachers are going to quit for similar reasons?

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    A North Carolina teacher named Kris Nielsen recently posted a letter that has been finding its way around the Internet. As a teacher in Massachusetts, I am fortunate not to have the problems that she reports, but they ring all… Read More ›

  • Emulating the TI-84

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    TI SmartView screen shot

    American schools have been using Texas Instruments calculators for more than a quarter of a century now. They have become the de facto standard. More recently, computers and projectors have become ubiquitous, so you would think that we would have a better… Read More ›

  • Boston Cream

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    I had never heard of Canadian crime fiction writer Howard Shrier before reading Boston Cream, part of Shrier’s series featuring Toronto detective Jonah Geller. In a recent interview, the author said that “some Canadian readers have said that these books are… Read More ›

  • Privacy is highly overrated.

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    Actually, privacy is a fine idea. But anyone who thinks we have it anymore is deluded. Basically, everything about you is available to anyone who looks hard enough. But that doesn’t mean that we should give it up voluntarily. The… Read More ›

  • What is school for? Eight things in education that will change.

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    Set aside 17 minutes, and go watch this video by Seth Godin. Then watch it again. It’s not that I agree with all of Godin’s eight points — in fact, there’s a lot that I disagree with. Nevertheless, the 17… Read More ›