How Jazz Works – Jazz is widely regarded as the only truly original American art form. It emerged from a mashup of musical genres like blues, ragtime, and spirituals in African American cultures of the early 20th century, and it has evolved into a broad variety of styles that permeates every type of music today. The defining aspect of jazz is improvisation, which requires musicians to listen and respond to each other spontaneously as they create unique performances in real time. However, most jazz styles place improvisation in a framework that brings order to the potential chaos. This lecture will explore where jazz came from and how jazz musicians hear the world.
Click Here for resources I posted for a series I did in 2022, included recommended books and 20 desert island recordings.

AI Update – Generative Artificial Intelligence continues to progress, amaze, confuse, and terrify as society tries to cope with a technology that is changing everything. As is still the case with AI, throughout its 70-year history, unfounded hype dominates much of the discussion but truly profound successes have been realized. This session will try to separate hype from reality and explain at a general level what’s currently going on in the rapidly changing AI arena, both from a technical and a societal perspective. To do so, we’ll sample Jon Stewart’s excellent interview of Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” from an episode of his podcast. Click here to view the entire 98-minute interview.

Critical Thinking – Critical thinking is the rigorous process of actively and skillfully evaluating and applying information gathered from observation, experience, or reasoning, as a guide to belief and action. It is based on universal intellectual values: clarity, accuracy, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, and fairness. It is also in very short supply these days. This course will explore perspectives and skills intended to help you become a more critical thinker. We’ll start with Daniel Kahneman’s Nobel-winning work on the two systems our brain provides, and then progress to discussions of evidence, logic, and reasoning.

Tanzanian Adventure Travelogue – In the summer of 2016 Al and his wife, Susan Herzberg, travelled to Tanzania to visit their daughter, Christine Biles, who was in the second year of her Peace Corps service in Isitu, a village at the end of a non-road in the southern highlands. After spending a couple of days in the village, they made their way to Ngorongoro Crater, Oldupai Gorge, Serengeti National Park, and Zanzibar before returning to Dar Es Salam to begin their flight home. Needless to say, they took some pictures, which they’ll share as they narrate their adventures.

Day of Ancient Games – DEAR FUNdraiser and infomercial talk on 6 ancient games that we played on this auspicious day!

Making Decisions the Bayes Way – The Reverend Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century English non-conformist, invented a simple statistical theorem that handles conditional probabilities in the context of new evidence. Since that time, Bayes’ Theorem has always been controversial, but it has stubbornly survived numerous attempts from the statistical establishment to kill it off. It is currently alive and well and has become the go-to technique for modern decision sciences when a decision must be made with less evidence than one would desire. This talk will work through some examples of Bayesian inference, including the Monty Hall problem, in order to provide some insights into statistical thinking, which is a key component of critical thinking. No math required, just a little arithmetic.

• Scene from 21 (2008) – Scene shown in the lecture that explains the Monty Hall problem.
• Monty Hall Speaks – Interview segment where he describes what he actually did on the show, along with the trolling of Marilyn vos Savant when she published the correct analysis.
• Marilyn vos Savant – In-depth coverage of the belligerent mansplaining from a huge number of math phd’s who, despite their credentials, placed themselves at the peak of Dunning-Kruger’s Mt. Stupid.

How to View and Appreciate Great Movies – You may sometimes wonder why a single scene from a movie stays with you long after the credits roll, yet in other cases, you can’t recall if you’ve even seen an entire film. Thinking about that memorable moment, what made that impression? Was it a particularly well-acted scene? The dramatic lighting? The emotion of the music? The tension that has built up? The ability to relate to the situation? A powerful choice of words? The answer is, simply, yes. Understanding the intent of every aspect of a movie—from lighting to language, color to characters, stars to scores—can help you not only appreciate the movies you’re watching at a much more profound level but also open your eyes to the multitude of ways you’re being manipulated from the moment you sit down in the theater. A great filmmaker controls every sensation the movie evokes— tremors or tears, goosebumps or giggles. And while this may feel orchestrated when you begin to pull back the curtain and discover the secrets behind making great movies, you’ll also learn why we invite and welcome that manipulation. Gain a new set of creative and analytical tools to bring with you to the movies, enhancing your enjoyment and viewing experience for any film.

The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. The great theories of physics are like great works of art. And much like the greatest works of art, you don’t need to completely understand them in order to appreciate them. The unifying theories of physics are among the greatest and most complex in all of science; they stand as incomparable masterpieces in the gallery of modern thought. As you experience them, you will witness their progression toward ever-grander insights, pointing towards an as-yet-unfinished ultimate synthesis that will transform our understanding of the universe. Anyone, no matter what their training in science and mathematics, can appreciate this quest, which is nothing less than a search for the theory of everything.

Sound: How It Works and How We Work with It – Sound is maybe the most ephemeral medium. We can’t see it directly, and once it happens in real time, it’s gone, unless we somehow capture an approximation of it. This class is all about sound: in nature, on computers, from synthesizers, as music, and in movies and games. We’ll look at the physics and technology of sound, and we’ll listen to a lot of sounds you likely haven’t experienced before. The 5 sessions are:
The Science of Sound
Digital Audio Production
Synthesis
Computer Music
Sound in Movies and Games

Computing and AI: How to get Spock-like machines to behave like Kirk – Digital computers are built on a foundation of formal logic, which boils down to true or false with nothing in between. Most people struggle with formal logic, which is one reason computers are hard to use. Artificial Intelligence seeks to make computers behave like people, which, let’s face it, often precludes logic. This class will describe how digital computers work under the hood, how they are programmed to do stuff, and how their brittle logic can be softened to enable human-like behavior, which we call artificial intelligence. I’ll also update the startling capabilities and profound implications of generative AI systems that I presented in last spring’s Artificial Intelligence class (see below)

Jazzed about Jazz: Great Combos – The “combo” is the quintessential jazz performing group. Nominally it consists of a rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums) and one or more front-line instruments (often horns). This series will examine 4 essential jazz combos that were true collectives not dominated by one star player: Jazz Messengers, Modern Jazz Quartet, Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, and Weather Report.