A few weeks ago, an article in Science on how search engines are changing the nature of memory became very popular in the news. Specifically, if people know that they can easily look answers up instead of remembering them by rote, their recall of the answers themselves declines while their memory of where to find … Continue reading
Author Archives: Caitlin McDonald
The Calm After the Storm
Riots raged around London the past few days, and while things seem to have calmed for this city, violence and disorder appears to be escalating in other English cities. I hope that today will be the tipping point around the country and that things will begin to return to normal. No rioting affected my part … Continue reading
My New Hat
I have triumphantly returned from Exeter with my most excellent trophy of a genuine PhD hat. It is a very charming hat modeled on a sort of Henry VIII style, with a squashy velvet top and a round brim with a piece of wide ribbon tied around it. Topping it all off is a bit … Continue reading
Much Ado
It’ll be a week or so before I blog again. My PhD graduation is coming up next week, family and friends are flying in, and there is a lot of celebrating to do! So I will leave you (for a time) with these reflections on my very favorite play. The first time I saw the … Continue reading
Computing Anthropology
Lately I’ve been spending a LOT of time at the computer. The vast majority of my life, in work and entertainment, has revolved around this screen recently, in exactly those kinds of scenarios that writers like Faranheit 451 and Brave New World and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? got all worked up about. This … Continue reading
A Return to Wodehousian Sensibilities
I entered a writing contest, but alas didn’t win this time. Here’s what I said: In my travels about London I’ve noticed a return to Wodehousian sensibilities in gentlemen’s attire of which I am very much in favour. Do we not pine for that imagined past when all that stood between us and happiness was … Continue reading
Independence Day in London
I don’t know how many of you have ever celebrated your nation’s independence day in the capital city of the nation from which your own nation emancipated itself (stick with it, it makes sense!) but it definitely feels a bit funny. This isn’t the first 4th of July I’ve spent in England, but for some … Continue reading
Entmoot
Okay, it wasn’t really Entmoot. But that’s what I kept thinking in my head every time I heard the term Ward Mote, which is what I actually went to on Monday afternoon. Entmoot, as I am sure you know, is the fictional meeting of tree-like creatures called Ents in Tolkein’s famous fantasy series Lord of … Continue reading
I Carried a Watermelon. (How Often Have You Wanted to Say That?)
It’s been unseasonably hot in London the past couple of days. The kind of hot where you stick to things. The kind of hot where the sun looks like a burning laser Sauron eye that you just can’t escape no matter where you hide. The kind of hot that I usually only feel in Florida, … Continue reading
Spinning their wheels or driving change?
This is an excerpt from a blog I wrote for the Independent. Click the link to read the rest: o The women of Saudi Arabia are again challenging the ban that prevents them from obtaining driver’s license. Over the weekend approximately 50 women around the Gulf nation took to the wheel, some making videos of … Continue reading
Caitiewrites 