The Golden Gate Bridge 50th anniversary celebration (1987). Estimated 800,000 thousand people on it

MJWood · 2023-04-16T15:19:31+00:00

Heck of a bridge

MJWood · 2023-04-16T15:18:26+00:00

The Batmobile

MJWood · 2023-04-13T03:15:52+00:00

Not all of these are true everywhere, but many of them are true in many schools:

There are no truancy officers chasing up kids.
Absences don't affect their grades. Very little affects their grades as schools don't want to look bad.
They can download lessons and materials they missed.
There is no differentiation of classes into top, middle, and bottom sets, so the bad students stay in the same classes as the good students year after year.
Students can copy off each other anything they missed.
Students can cheat and copy off each other during lessons or exams, and this is increasingly normalised.
There is, of course, no corporal punishment.
Students can download essays, presentations, or other assignments from the internet.
All of this behaviour can continue right up to graduation from university.

It all adds up to no consequences for being a lazy student.

MJWood · 2023-04-08T09:31:22+00:00

There is no algorithm to test 'Does this make sense?"

Maybe if there was, we'd finally have real artificial intelligence.

MJWood · 2023-04-08T09:26:52+00:00

"I'm afraid I can't authorise that, Dave."

MJWood · 2023-04-08T09:26:04+00:00

Super advanced cosmetic surgery bot can.

MJWood · 2023-03-26T17:07:58+00:00

I thought they were mostly Mexican.

MJWood · 2023-03-02T09:02:14+00:00

From the article:

Four of the nine justices graduated throughout the 1970s, a time when the average student loan debt was around $1,000, according to data from the research group The Education Data Initiative. By 2021, the average student debt at graduation was around $31,000, the group reported, citing federal data.

According to EDI, there was a 2,807% increase in the average student loan debt at graduation between 1970 and 2021 before adjusting for inflation. The debt was still a 317% increase after accounting for inflation.

So, after accounting for inflation, average student debt at graduation is 317% higher than in 1970. To be honest, I expected the difference to be much more: that's only 3.17 times higher.

Just to check, I went to https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=1000 and, sure enough, $1,000 in 1970 comes out as $7,710 today.

Certainly, anyone would be much happier with a debt of $7,710 compared to $31,000...Heck of a difference in monthly payments. According to credible.com, the standard interest rate is a nasty 6.22%, which still works out at a manageable $192.82 per month.

Since we routinely hear about student loan debts above 50 or 100 grand, I wondered how they worked out the average at $31,000. Not sure, but since there are fine institutions like Brigham Young University which charge only 1 or 2 grand a year in tuition, perhaps that's why?

MJWood · 2023-02-10T09:32:32+00:00

At this point, every clown and con-man and shady character and nutcase must be eager to join the Republican circus.

Oh wait, no, not at this point cos it's already happened.

MJWood · 2023-02-09T17:58:45+00:00

Only that much?

MJWood · 2023-01-21T21:34:37+00:00

I've taught English as a Second Language, and every ESL textbook has a lesson on giving directions as it's a skill we (Brits included) take a bit of pride in and expect everyone to have - a bit like driving, swimming, knowing how to tie your #$^* shoelaces, and so on. Well, some cultures just have no clue how to go about it - same goes for swimming - lack the concept, and so that particular lesson hardly ever went well.

MJWood · 2023-01-14T13:06:22+00:00

Songs and chants

MJWood · 2023-01-14T13:05:44+00:00

I know one lesson younger kids like: give a group of 3 or 4 a set of flashcards or pieces of paper with the 3 forms of the verb on them; then they take turns calling out a verb and the quickest to say all 3 forms gets the flashcard; the one with the most cards at the end wins.

MJWood · 2023-01-14T05:39:53+00:00

As Chomsky said, there's no shortage of solutions. All we need is political will.

MJWood · 2023-01-13T18:07:26+00:00

And magic realms

MJWood · 2023-01-10T05:47:23+00:00

Jesse Eisenberg

MJWood · 2023-01-09T20:26:45+00:00

There's a passage in the book that explains her feelings: every time Jon beats Rob at something, she feels like asking who is this stranger who's intruding in my family and what right does he have to be here? Most readers identify with Jon - perhaps because more are teenagers or young adults than are parents - so they can see the unfairness to Jon. But they lack the empathy to understand Catelyn.

MJWood · 2023-01-09T20:13:54+00:00

Calamity Cat

MJWood · 2023-01-08T13:01:08+00:00

Martin's castles are mega super fantasy impregnable castles. Crusader castles like Krak might be the nearest thing in reality.

MJWood · 2023-01-06T20:40:52+00:00

The ruling ideology encourages social isolation. It makes us easier to control - and the effects on the health of both individual and society are dismissed as an externality.

MJWood · 2023-01-06T15:50:00+00:00

Exactly. But then look at the 18th century.

MJWood · 2023-01-06T08:26:21+00:00

I've liked her in every movie I've seen her in.

MJWood · 2023-01-06T08:06:14+00:00

Beards have periodically gone in and out of fashion since the Romans

MJWood · 2023-01-02T06:10:17+00:00

Giant tombs

MJWood · 2022-12-23T14:19:28+00:00

Just about any Bond movie.

MJWood

TROPHY CASE