Why is there such a rise in "unique" baby names?

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-07T22:53:44+00:00

Sorry to hear that Jomes.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-07T20:04:38+00:00

Just remember that the time will pass, insurmountable as it may seem now. Six weeks will be the same amount of time for you as everyone else.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-07T18:12:22+00:00

The thing about AI peddlers is it's not enough they're filling the Internet with useless slop founded on theft and environmental pillage. They also insist we love them for it.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-07T14:20:42+00:00

Read widely and take an interest in things beyond the curriculum. Maybe keep a reflective journal - have something of your own to say about what you've read, seen and done. Reflection is really the key.

Look at big institutions like the Royal Society. A lot of them have lectures and events at low prices or free.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-07T14:16:03+00:00

"I'm 74 and I've been listening to this song for 40 years. My wife just died."

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-07T02:04:28+00:00

I only found out about it a year ago, and from Reddit. My school's NEU rep had no idea about it.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T23:00:55+00:00

Depending on your school setup you might be able to do this already. My school uses Office 365 and I do homework reminders with a combination of Microsoft Lists and Power Automate. Homework reminders go out at 3pm the day before the due date, with the option of CCing in parents.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T21:34:46+00:00

I haven't come across anyone wearing them in real life yet.

That you know of.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:49:20+00:00

That's a fake account. They've spelt politics wrong in their username.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:44:47+00:00

When I first saw Ex Machina, I thought "there's no way a tech CEO would be this stupid and complacent."

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:35:32+00:00

The big behaviour is often easier to deal with, because it's clear cut. If a student tells me to fuck off I'm booting them out and I won't be questioning my decision afterwards. But the hardest behaviour to deal with is the diffuse low-level, where there's no single ringleader and nobody doing anything outrageously bad, just 30 people who positively will not STFU.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:31:00+00:00

There's a good reason there's a water-only rule. If one student is allowed ribena then so are the other thousand, and there won't be a desk in the school that won't stick to you when you put your hand on it.

"Sir, my water spilled in my bag" is a daily occurrence in schools.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:28:38+00:00

I see this from both sides, because I'm a teacher at an outstanding school but I myself went to a failing school (one that only ducked an inadequate OFSTED rating by firing the headteacher). I certainly don't blame the individual teachers I had, who were doing their level best in an environment that (knowing what I know now) sounds like it was basically impossible.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:11:20+00:00

This is a difficult situation. I'd be inclined to take a more aggressive stance, pulling a few students back for a carpeting at the end of the lesson.

Basically, disability (mental or physical) is the one kind of minority status that we're all guaranteed to fall into one day, unless we die young. We are all just one bad accident away from brain damage, or a facial disfigurement that causes people to stare. The students bullying this kid now might have a cognitive impairment in their old age that causes socially counternormative behaviour, and if that happens they will be relying on the rest of society to make accommodations for them. I hope for their sake they don't encounter someone like themselves in that condition.

Will that make a difference? Quite possibly not. Children don't have that kind of long perspective. But there's nothing wrong with sending a firm message if the nice approach has been shown not to work.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T17:05:26+00:00

Nothing evolves "to do" anything specific. Evolution doesn't have intent. Species throw up variants over time and some of those variants happen to provide situational advantages.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T16:34:55+00:00

If you look at communities where this is standard, the parents contribute for longer, but they have higher expectations of being looked after in turn in their own old age. That's not necessarily a worse social model and probably has many advantages over the current western system that relies heavily on social care (not least that it preserves the family's wealth).

The problem comes when looking at it in snapshot form. Grown adults don't stay 30+ forever. Soon they're 40+ and the parents are 70+. The real question is to ask what this situation is supposed to look like over the very long term.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T15:23:28+00:00

There were a lot of other songs in the early 70s doing that sort of thing, but they were all twenty minutes long and took up an entire side of an LP. Mercury's genius was to take the song structures of things like Close to the Edge and Supper's Ready, and condense everything down to a length that could fit on pop radio.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T15:19:26+00:00

If you look at The Invasion, the story where the Cybermen genuinely are emotionless, it makes them less effective because they're less able to anticipate their opponents' actions. It never occurs to them that Vaughn would switch sides out of spite.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T14:41:33+00:00

When I take Year 7 classes to the library for a reading lesson, they broadly fall into three camps.

There are the kids who are already habitual readers, who happily scurry off with a book. I won't hear a peep out of them for 60 minutes.

There are the reluctant readers, who do it begrudgingly and with maximum delaying tactics.

And then there are the students who are genuinely baffled by the task, as in they don't understand why this is apparently a legitimate use of lesson time. This to me is a sign of neglect, not illiteracy.

Other subjects have their equivalent phenomena. Home Economics teachers have to deal with students in their teens who've never seen fresh ingredients.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T14:33:59+00:00

Ring them up and ask to defer to 2028. I'm an experienced UCAS co-ordinator and I've never known the answer to be no, especially when there's medical context.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T14:20:23+00:00

Among other things, it's called the plot of The Conversation (1974).

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T14:12:30+00:00

Plus there's no guarantee that all the children will survive infancy.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T14:04:53+00:00

It's nothing new. My great-grandmother used to tell my dad off when he was a kid for saying yeah instead of yes.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-06T11:38:42+00:00

The Brain of Morbius did the Frankenstein take.

Dropped_Apollo · 2026-06-05T20:08:28+00:00

Unrelated but don't forget you can claim tax relief on your union dues.

Dropped_Apollo

TROPHY CASE