Monthly Archives: August 2008

Yesterday we received a letter from the boy’s elementary school. (Dated 8/18, but received 8/30.) The school is supposed to be a good one, but the letter’s still got gaffes a-plenty. We’ll pass over the fact that they misspell the … Continue reading →

Wired calls Leland Chee “the Star Wars continuity cop,”  the man responsible for  “keep[ing] meticulous track of not just the six live-action movies but also cartoons, TV specials, scores of videogames and reference books, and hundreds of novels and comics.” … Continue reading →

Now that various technical problems have been resolved, I’m slowly loading my fall 2008 material into my wiki and getting the various syllabuses (6! different! ones!) ready to go. This semester, I’m teaching for the first time our intro-to-the-major course, … Continue reading →

This dialogue between Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg about how to notice has gotten a lot of links since Jason Kottke linked to it(I also ran across it at Austin Kleon’s tumblelog). It’s good stuff: Someone showed me a great … Continue reading →

Remember back in January when I was so excited about reading Simon Armitage’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with our kid?  Well, right now, we’re reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and it is slow going. On the one … Continue reading →

(image by flickr user nicobilou; some rights reserved) While reading up on things to do in Porto for my trip in 2 weeks*, I discovered that it’s a popular tourist destination for Brits on holiday. Awesome: They are the ones, … Continue reading →

So, the 5-yr-old starts kindergarten in about ten days, which means we’re officially on the New Britain school district‘s mailing list. Today’s mail brought a calendar for the year, plus a letter from the superintendent. I learned many things from … Continue reading →

A couple of years ago, I taught in a learning community with a colleague in psychology. Although neither of us has been moved to repeat the experience soon, that wasn’t because it wasn’t fun or interesting–it was just intense. (Partly … Continue reading →

There’s a new report out from Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research documenting the change in hiring practices at research universities with respect to dual-career couples. In their study, “academic couples comprise 36% of the American professoriate,” and the rate … Continue reading →

I have the above t-shirt (from BustedTees), and have worn it a few times this summer on campus.  The reaction has been pretty interesting–apparently there’s still a fairly large contingent of faculty who scorn Wikipedia *more* than comparable resources (such … Continue reading →