PicoBlog

Dear Molly, I feel like a female Benjamin Button and it’s giving me anxiety. If you asked me 2 years ago if I wanted a family and a house in the suburbs I’d have said “YES.” I was much more mature then. Fast forward two years I make a lot more money at my job which affords me to look better, live in a fun city, pursue all the hobbies I’ve always wanted, go out partying and date more men!

A recent tweet contained the phrase “dead languages such as Fortran”, which (although perhaps intended in jest) seemed worth debunking, since it is important that people making funding decisions about investments in compilers do not ignore Fortran as “a legacy language”, or even, as above, a “dead language”, since in its home domain Fortran remains critically important. There are a few reasons for this misconception:- Most programmers are never taught Fortran, and it is not a computer science or web language.

The Christian internet went TOTES CRAY CRAY with reports that the Church of England was going to consider the use of gender-neutral terms for God. Of course, this isn’t all that new. The use of gender-inclusive language in Bible translations and liturgy has been around since the 1970s. In fact, NPR reported from England, "This is nothing new," a spokesperson for the Church of England said. "Christians have recognized since ancient times that God is neither male nor female.

As you know if you’re a regular reader of my newsletter or have read my book, I often refer to what’s called a “growth mindset” — an educational approach that involves praising kids for effort rather than ability. If you’re not familiar with why a growth mindset is thought to be helpful or how to foster it, check out this newsletter I wrote a while back. But essentially, the idea is this: When kids are praised for effort rather than ability, and they connect their effort to their positive outcomes, they come to see ability and intelligence as malleable.

When I started this piece, I figured all the threads would lead back to a specific moment in April 2018: when Harry Kane claimed a somewhat dubious-looking goal by saying, “I sweat on my daughter’s life that I touched that ball”. He was given the goal — but at what cost? This, to me, seemed to be the moment that Kane doomed himself to a trophy-less life. But as I dug into the mystery for my column today, I realized it goes back way further than that:

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s most popular comedy, Lysander calls Hermia dark or black, and most critics take him at his word. But he only calls her this during the night of enchantment, after his sight is charmed by a derangement-inducing narcotic—the same that compels Titania to mistake an ass for an angel. According to five other characters, she’s “fair,” a term that indicates she has light hair and skin.

You are reveling in CultureWag, the best newsletter in the universe, edited by JD Heyman and created by The Avengers of Talent. We lead the conversation about culture—high, medium and deliciously low. Drop us a line about any old thing (but especially about what you want more of) at jdheyman@culturewag.com. Collapse, as a historical phenomenon, is generally more gradual than spectacular. Whatever we’ve learned from old blockbusters, great empires do not implode so much as erode—one borderland province after another falls away, just as faith in core institutions rots from within.

I wrote this blog about hydrogen fuel cell cars 5 years ago. As some readers will know, I’ve been immersed in the worlds of electric ground transport, clean tech, renewables etc for the past 15 plus years.  One recurring thing I’ve noticed over that period is how interest in, and claims about hydrogen cars being ‘the future’ appear in waves, maybe 4 or 5 years apart. I swear to you, 1 year ago I did not see one comment or claim about hydrogen cars, nothing.

“Known throughout the state as the culinary capitol, just about every street in Downtown is home to extraordinary dining and drink options.” — DowntownIowaCity.com Could this sentence be any more wrong? Grammatically, at least. It’s“capital” in this case, not “capitol.” Not to mention the dangling modifier. But the statement itself—that Iowa City is the c… ncG1vNJzZmivmaO2rrvRmqWvoZyhsm%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2iho2K2sMPAZpqirKliwamxjJyspaGelr%2B6ecKap6KskaE%3D