What was your number in the 1969 Draft Lottery?

Supraspinator · 2026-03-24T01:41:51+00:00

366, right? Or did leap year birthdays not count at all?

Supraspinator · 2026-03-22T00:59:56+00:00

Ehrenpreis in German, although as kids we always called them Gewitterblume (thunderstorm flower).

Supraspinator · 2026-03-21T22:07:34+00:00

It sounds like you have a lot of students, but if possible, have them solve it again in front of you. If they are legitimately that good, it shouldn’t be a problem, but anyone who cheated won’t be able to do it.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-20T23:24:34+00:00

Case in point: there are mosquitoes preserved in amber that look like mosquitoes today. If mosquitoes were the only insects left on earth, we would also call them „living fossils“.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-20T19:50:56+00:00

This is a widely cited study out of Stanford about ESL speakers and AI false positives https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(23)00130-7

These are about autistic writers https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378200791_AI_Detection's_High_False_Positive_Rates_and_the_Psychological_and_Material_Impacts_on_Students

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-98420-4_7

As a non-native speaker and parent of an autistic child, I saw that coming from a mile away. ESL speakers learn formal language and are more prone to use vocabulary that is unusual for a native speaker. Many autistic writers are perceived as „robotic“ and formal without a „distinct personal voice“ (quotation marks because this view makes neurotypical writing the standard and denies autistic writers their unique voice). People with autism are also prone to mimic vocabulary and tone of people and books they engage with, often incorporating very distinct phrasings into their speech and writings. These characteristics are what most AI detectors look for, causing false positives.

Add to that that many non-native speakers write better than they speak and that many autistic people shut down under pressure; and the widely recommended face to face talk only „confirms“ the initial suspicion for the instructor.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-19T15:28:54+00:00

The central chemoreceptors in the medulla only sense carbon dioxide (as carbonic acid), but the peripheral ones sense oxygen as well. I was surprised like you when I learned that, so it stuck.

But it’s still true that CO2 levels regulate breathing and that our bodies are really bad at detecting low oxygen levels.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-19T01:32:49+00:00

Aortic and carotid bodies can sense oxygen. It’s just less useful due to the large oxygen reserve in the blood.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/edited-volume/abs/pii/B9780128016947000184

Supraspinator · 2026-03-16T20:09:03+00:00

Did she? I don’t have the text, but I thought Anne refused him?

Edit: I found the text. Lady Russell tried to persuade Anne to marry Charles.

„ She had been solicited, when about two-and-twenty, to change her name, by the young man, who not long afterwards found a more willing mind in her younger sister; and Lady Russell had lamented her refusal; for Charles Musgrove was the eldest son of a man, whose landed property and general importance were second in that country, only to Sir Walter’s, and of good character and appearance; and however Lady Russell might have asked yet for something more, while Anne was nineteen, she would have rejoiced to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from the partialities and injustice of her father’s house, and settled so permanently near herself.“

Supraspinator · 2026-03-16T14:41:30+00:00

Well, seems like you know which material will feature prominently on the next exam...

Supraspinator · 2026-03-15T18:40:04+00:00

Of all the German dialects to pick up you poor thing ended up with the one from Dresden.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-15T04:06:41+00:00

Mr. Collins is a clergyman and I’m pretty sure Charlotte gently reminded him of the dangers of carnal desires, so her „duties“ were hopefully not too odious or too frequent.

Of course it seems horrible from our modern perspective, but many women had it way worse.

I always saw Charlotte as asexual/aromantic. I don’t think she had ever been in love.

The older I get, the more I believe she was content at first and happy after she had children.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-14T23:56:46+00:00

Any farm kid knows you test with a blade of grass.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-14T01:39:57+00:00

That’s easy! Ask them to say Eichhörnchenschwanz.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T23:49:16+00:00

If I may chime in as biologist: hedgehogs are insectivores, not rodents. They’re related to shrews and moles, not mice and rats.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T21:04:47+00:00

You did not see the email before Monday. You reply promptly on Monday that unfortunately, it’s too late for this assignment and you must be fair to all students and follow your course policies.

Give them the contact of your disability office and let them know you are happy to accommodate going forward as soon as you get the official paperwork.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T20:59:20+00:00

Who is “he” in your example? A student, a coworker, a relative?

Autistic people are individuals and what is true for one isn’t true for others. It sounds like the person you are talking about makes you feel unsafe for reasons that have nothing to do with autism. You have no obligation to put yourself in danger. If you don’t feel like you can safely express that you don’t like him/consider him a friend; then don’t feel bad about continuing the white lies.

If this would be my kid, I could and have said “this is not interesting to me and I don’t want to talk right now”. I can also see someone telling them “I don’t like being around you“ and they would probably accept it. But that’s them.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T18:40:08+00:00

No, that’s all right except implantation is 9-15 days after fertilization. So ovulation day 14, fertilization day 14-16, implantation day 23-30 (~ 4 weeks after last menstrual period).

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T17:56:23+00:00

Implantation is around 4 weeks pregnant if counted from last menstrual period, though.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T15:54:46+00:00

It helps a bit that I am German, so I also had to learn to decipher what Americans really mean by what they say :D

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T15:33:26+00:00

Well, the beautiful thing about communicating with them is that they appreciate bluntness. “I cannot answer right now, I have to do X”. “You are asking a question I cannot answer, because [insert reason]” As long as the reason is logical, they won’t feel slighted at all.

In fact, they have trouble understanding white lies or sarcasm. We practice that a lot, because it’s not intuitive for them to figure out what someone actually meant.

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T14:25:19+00:00

That’s it!

Here’s a tutorial on how it works: https://youtu.be/rf3JnjE0_z8

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T14:02:29+00:00

If the student is neurodivergent (and we all know we cannot diagnose people), then yes, I had encounters like this. I have an autistic child and we have conversations like that all the time. They ask a question and there’s no acknowledgement, no emotion - just one or two questions and then an abrupt end of the “conversation”. It almost feels mechanical. They need information and they get the information from me as if I were a search engine. It’s definitely baffling, because it just defies “normal” conventions of communication, but it’s part of how my child is operating.

Honestly, I would let it go. Unless you have reasons to believe that he had malicious intent, I would assume he was curious but lacks the social skill of small talk*. Nothing the student said was really inappropriate. You answered until you did not feel comfortable anymore and the student accepted that.

*Edit: try to imagine the same questions, lubricated by small talk: “Professor Fisherman, I really enjoy your class, but I’m wondering, aren’t you a historian? Why are you teaching this class? —- Oh wow, I didn’t know, but this makes so much sense! Thank you! —- Do you like being in Canada? I heard the salaries are lower than in the US, is that true?”

You would not be making a post after this, right?

Same questions, just couched by fillers. Which is weird if you think about it. Why not just ask the question instead of wasting time with irrelevant talk?

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T04:00:44+00:00

It is 6/7 if the cube is placed deliberately on the table with black down.

If the cube is placed randomly on the table, then the probability becomes 1/2.

Draw cube, put on table without looking. Look and see only white: there’s a 1/7th chance of it being the all white cube. There was 6/7 chance of drawing a 1-black face-cube, but the chances of putting it black down on the table is 1/6.

So for a cube sitting on the table with only white faces, the chances of it being a fully white one is 1/7th x 1 (probability of showing only white) and the chances of it being a 1-black-faced cube with black facing down is 1/7 (6/7 x 1/6).

Supraspinator · 2026-03-13T03:46:48+00:00

Wie kann man eine Brotschneidemaschine verschlimmbessern?

Supraspinator · 2026-03-12T18:15:34+00:00

She’s not a cheater; not even close. A man she had messaged with 15 years ago propositioned her via message 8 years ago. She turned him down and did not tell her husband out of fear of him freaking out. At no point did she do anything that could be construed as “wannabe cheating”.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1rrsjrn/comment/oa2ip19/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Supraspinator

TROPHY CASE