dennisjerz

[dennisjerz]

Touch Me Now: York Plays 2025

A cast of hundreds participated in a public medieval re-enactment dramatizing the Christian story from Creation through Final Judgement at the University of Toronto a few weeks ago.  I attended as the event videographer. I had at least three cameras running at all times — sometimes five — while a roving camera also caught the action from the street level.  Because the event lasted from 6am until…

[dennisjerz]

I MacGyvered myself a heat sink

I’m getting ready to record about 18hrs footage from four different cameras, and I noticed my new 4K webcam was heating up pretty fast. I’m settled in a dorm room at the University of Toronto, far from the junk drawers and tool boxes that would have aluminum foil and copper wire. I suppose I could go wandering through downtown Toronto looking for an electronics store where I could buy a little…

[dennisjerz]

Cockatoos start sipping from Sydney’s drinking fountains after mastering series of complex moves

Nature is amazing. Dr John Martin, a senior ecologist at Ecosure and co-author of the study, said they stumbled on the complex behaviour at a twist-handle-operated bubbler located in a western Sydney sports field while surveying cockatoo foraging habits…. Presumably the birds first learned what to do by watching people, Martin said. “Eventually one of them got it, and then the others were like,…

[dennisjerz]

Unemployment rates for recent college grads: Overall, 5.8%; Computer science, 6.1%; Computer engineering, 7.5%; Journalism, 4.4%

The market is rough for college grads, but according to a new report, employment for journalism majors is better than average. As Newsweek reports, recent college graduates who majored in computer science are facing high unemployment rates alongside the increasing probability of being laid off or replaced by artificial intelligence if and when they do get hired. In its latest labor market report,…

[dennisjerz]

Waiting for a talk on preserving artifacts from NASA’s Apollo program

So much to see at the Heinz History Center but I absolutely had to check in with Nellie Bly. As a child I was fascinated by a drawing of a firefighter’s pole ladder in a book by Richard Scary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real one before but I instantly recognized it.

[dennisjerz]

Spring 2025 Final Grades Submitted!

[dennisjerz]

'Most Transparent’ White House In History Keeps Majority Of Trump’s Remarks Secret

On the White House website, there is no official record of about 80% of President Trump’s public statements.  The self-proclaimed “most transparent” White House in history, as it turns out, has little interest in making the vast majority of Trump’s speeches and interactions with journalists readily accessible to the public whose taxes pay for their transcription, publishing just 29 transcripts…

[dennisjerz]

Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless"

This is what we have to look forward to, as a torrent of AI-generated slop that’s good enough for the CEOs to monetize squeezes out the human-generated content that actually matters. Former NBA player Brandon Hunter passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 42 this week, a tragedy that rattled fans of his 2000s career with the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic. But in an unhinged twist on what…

[dennisjerz]

The Big Boy Graveyard

On road trips in my youth, watching the Bob’s Big Boy signs transition to Shoney’s Big Boy was often part of the adventure. As the franchises close, the cheerful burger-wielding statues have been rounded up and corralled, presumably for their own safety. Source: The Big Boy Graveyard

[dennisjerz]

A Simple Investigation #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 17) Odo falls for a femme fatale

Rewatching ST:DS9 A duo of knobby-faced macguffin-hunters, bantering like the crooks from Home Alone, rough up a bumpy-foreheaded alien, then vaporize him. In Quark’s, Bashir is happily casting his friends Dax and O’Brien in his next unnamed-for-copyright-reasons British superspy holodeck adventure, Operation Nudge-Wink. Odo declines, looking uncomfortable. I had never seen this episode before.…

[dennisjerz]

Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram designer exposes a Bashir family secret, romances Leeta

Rewatching ST:DS9 Quark watches with detached bemusement as Rom backs out of declaring his interest in Leeta. As O’Brien celebrates a win over Bashir at darts, Dr. Zimmerman, a hologram researcher (whose face Star Trek fans will instantly know from the then-contemporary Trek series Voyager) says he’s here to make Bashir “immortal.” Starfleet has chosen Bashir as the model for a “Long-term Medical…

[dennisjerz]

Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block party

[dennisjerz]

Pater Noster Pedestrian Elevators

Some 50 years ago, my father took me to his office in Washington, DC. I believe he was working for the Social Security Administration as a technical writer. I remember he held tightly onto my hand as we used a moving lift like this.  The event was notable to young me for two reasons. One, when I was little my father was not much of a hugger. He would make funny voices or play sports with me, but…

[dennisjerz]

Notes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle

I first taught Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle during an intensive 3-week online course during the 2020-21 winter break, during the Time of Covid. The nature of that course was such that I could only reasonably require students to read 6 of Wilson’s 10 plays; I think I required everyone to read 4, and then split the class up into 3 groups and randomly assigned them to read 2 of the remaining 6.   Now…

[dennisjerz]

By Inferno's Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edgeplay and prison camp stratagems

Rewatching ST:DS9 After the recap of last week’s “In Purgatory’s Shadow,” we see the Defiant, a couple of runabouts, and Dukat’s Bird of Prey lining up against the huge Dominion fleet. But instead of attacking, the invaders head for Cardassia which (we learn from an even smugger than usual Dukat) has joined the Dominion. In the prison camp, Bashir shows Garak the tunnel where Tain had macgyvered…

[dennisjerz]

In Purgatory's Shadow #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 14)

Rewatching ST:DS9 Kira helps Odo re-adjust to life as a shape-shifter, obliviously but brutally friendzoning him in the process. Upon learning that someone on the other side of the wormhole is sending encrypted Cardassian military signals, Sisko calls up on Garak. The enigmatic tailor downplays the event, telling his found family (Dr. Bashir and Ziyal) the communication was nothing special, and…

[dennisjerz]

My crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing my coding skills.