Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Kevin putting it out there

  • Pragmatics. And Jokes.

    The Reverse is a masterful manipulation of expectations that defies normal Pragmatics. This type of joke, more than most, defies built expectations.

    The best at this is Anthony Jeselnick. Profiled.

  • Eraserhead

    I remember the velvet, slick with age, and the ashtrays at the end of the arms on the creaky seats in an also run theater in the barrio Chino of Barcelona. I remember being high as hell on a new batch of hashish from the kid brother of a friend. I remember being both scared and fascinated at the same time. We decided not to stick around for the second feature, we wanted to go out to a bar to talk about Eraserhead. That was my introduction to David Lynch.

  • Good Question

    How can we harness AI for learning without it being a crutch, when kicked out, doesn’t leave us flat on the ground? I kept thinking about Khanmigo and how it never just gives the answer and makes the students go through the steps. Can we do that with language learning? The Unresolved Tension Between AI and Learning.

  • New TTS Tool. Open Source

    This TTS (Text to Speech) tool from Kokoro (early development) is an early look at what I will probably use to create short listening passages from content my students create, or that I create. It works really fast (60x live speed, this clip took less than 5 seconds).

    Here is the Text:

    It was late autumn in Cedarville, the kind of day where the air smelled like wood smoke and the leaves were all shades of orange and gold. I had just run into Nakayama at the old diner by the train tracks—the one we used to hang out at after football games in high school. Nakayama was still the same as ever, wearing that beat-up denim jacket and grinning like life was one big inside joke.

    “Didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, sliding into the booth across from him. He had a cup of coffee in front of him and one of those little plates with a half-eaten slice of pie.

    “Yeah, well, life’s funny like that,” Nakayama said. “I was just passing through, thought I’d stop in for old times’ sake. You still living here?”

    I nodded. “Yeah. Figured someone should stick around and keep an eye on the place. How about you? Still playing music?”

    Nakayama shrugged, looking out the window at the empty street. “Not really. You know how it goes. Things don’t always pan out the way you think.”

    And here is the Speech:

  • Globalization

    Is still on the march. Only the US is falling behind. Kevin Drum, previously of Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, has taken to data analysis and reporting after his retirement while he battles cancer. His blog is a treasure trove of data showing how little things are changing, even as the rhetoric around change is going haywire. In any case, those afraid of a decline in globalization should not be worried, unless you are in the US.