Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Author: tokyokevin

  • The Dao De Jing

    by Laozi, about 2,500 years ago. New translation by Ken Liu.

    Do by not doing, and there is nothing that cannot be done.

    The text is short, and contains enigmatic phrases that have been interpreted over the millennia. Ken Liu writes mostly science fiction, and very well at that. Over the pandemic he found himself unable to write and looked back. His will to write returned but he held off to finish a new translation with notes, along with stories from contemporaries to fill out the understanding.

    It’s helping me too. Thanks to Kottke for the recommendation.

  • Calque. This I did not know

    Calque vs loanword. Cool blog. These two are very similar but subtly different. Flea Market and Skyscraper are examples.

  • Attention is Everything All At Once

    I’ve been basing grades in my classes on what I call Attention Units (AU=gold, get it?). Since studying 37.5 hours over a semester (15 weeks, 90 min class and 45 homework) is not measurable for proficiency, and because I run a class with a lot of individualization (personalized, differentiated), I can’t measure them on a specific set of language points or skills. I also find I can’t accurately measure how hard they work, which is a common fallback for language teaching. That leaves me with Attention, a more specific aspect of the “working hard” school of grading. I believe, especially these days with mobile and online learning, that this has become a viable option, both for measurement and curriculum. Let me explain.

    Some research about attention and it’s sibling, ignoring.

    Via Kottke and How to weather the storm.

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  • Remember Enron? Corruption and oil spills? It’s gone nuclear

    You can now buy a nuclear reactor for your home. From America’s favorite company. What could go wrong? From Slashdot.

    Spoiler, this is a SATIRE. It’s a fun fake. Had you going, though, right?

  • Attention Grabbing by Mr. Beast

    Mr. Beast of YouTube fame is expanding his empire with a new game show. This is a review of the show, complete with a short history of how Mr. Beast got there. A good lesson for where are attention is being guided. Take back control, folks.