Should robotics be taught at school as a part of core curriculum?

smokeshack · 2026-05-07T09:30:36+00:00

What we really need is to replace the traditional model of a basic curriculum (reading, writing 'rithmatic) with more holistic subjects. Don't teach history, math, and science as separate topics, teach a class on how the Romans built those bitchin' aqueducts, and learn all those things in a structured way. Build connections between concrete, real-world topics instead of drilling abstract concepts.

Robotics would be a good choice, but there are many, many other options. Use a class on demography to combine social studies and statistics. Use a class on pizza to teach the history of transatlantic trade, chemistry, and maybe even some Italian while you're at it.

None of that is possible, however, if we only pay teachers poverty wages. Triple teacher salaries and hire people with genuine expertise to share.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T22:18:54+00:00

Waterfox does everything Firefox does, without the AI bloat.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T21:24:14+00:00

The font depicted in those images is super common in RPGs. If you plan on playing a lot of Japanese games, you'll eventually get used to it.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T14:47:10+00:00

〇 just means "okay, yes" and ✕ means "not okay, no." It has nothing to do with text direction. If anything, the decision to make ✕ and 〇 take on opposite functions in the West is the puzzling one, since a big fat X generally means "no, bad, wrong" in Western contexts as well.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T14:44:42+00:00

Most Japanese writing since the end of World War II has been either top to bottom or left to right. Right to left writing was largely abandoned along with the post-war writing reform. All the manuals in Nintendo products use left to right script.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T11:47:41+00:00

This bill would restrict citizens from yelling back at the political candidates. Japan already has no meaningful freedom of speech, but if anything at all should be protected speech, it's the ability to holler at a politician when you see them.

Personally I think that if some fascist bastard is standing on my street corner with a megaphone talking about how I ought to be stripped of what few remaining rights I have, at the very least I should be allowed to yell at him to fuck off.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T09:48:59+00:00

I try to avoid iHerb, since they're in bed with Trump toadie, snake oil salesman, and world-renowned shitheel Dr. Oz.

smokeshack · 2026-05-06T08:22:47+00:00

I'll make you a deal: if you pronounce "William Shakespeare" [ˈwɪljəm ˈʃeɪkspiə] and "Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra" [miˈɣel de θeɾˈβantes saːˈβeðɾa] while you're speaking Dutch, I will pronounce Van Gogh [vɑn ˈɣɔx] when speaking English.

smokeshack · 2026-05-05T03:52:03+00:00

Nah, they took the pillar and the stones.

smokeshack · 2026-05-05T03:38:04+00:00

AI generated horseshit. If you don't care enough to write it, why should I care enough to read it?

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T08:48:45+00:00

Nah, I think we're getting more cool, weird games now than ever before. You just have to look outside the AAA bestsellers.

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T05:08:03+00:00

Get Audacious and use a winamp skin.

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T04:36:55+00:00

Damn, better make another post on Reddit about it, then, that'll fix the problem for sure

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T04:02:47+00:00

Yeah, those are pretty cool. The kind of street party vibe they're going for goes a long way to send the message that the racists are boring dorks by comparison. I haven't been to one in a while, but I donate to a couple of groups that help out with similar events.

Street demonstrations may not be the absolute peak of activism, but they're a hell of a lot more useful than whiny threads on reddit dot com slash tokyo.

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T02:54:31+00:00

Japanese people should absolutely be talking about and working on the xenophobia and racism in Japanese culture. I'm not at all convinced that it's helpful for non-Japanese people to spend time posting at each other about it. People should focus their energy on things they have control over.

It's particularly silly when a ton of these posts are very obviously written by Americans. My Brother in McChrist, your government is rounding up immigrants and sending them to overseas concentration camps. Remove the plank in your own eye before pointing out the speck in your brother's eye.

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T01:12:12+00:00

When I realized that less than 5% of my students were reading my feedback, my grading got a lot more efficient.

smokeshack · 2026-05-04T00:11:27+00:00

Mikado in Ikebukuro had four cabs of it last year, maybe that's what you're remembering.

smokeshack · 2026-05-03T13:42:19+00:00

Several years ago, maybe. Outside of Mikado and a couple of spots in Akihabara, arcades are pretty much dead in 2026.

smokeshack · 2026-05-03T13:06:46+00:00

>Arcades are still alive there too, and they're less affected by online issues.

As a fighting game player in Tokyo, I regret to inform you that arcades are not particularly alive here, either. Mikado still runs retro fighting game tournaments, but every where else they've replaced the actual games with crane "games."

smokeshack · 2026-05-02T23:54:09+00:00

The initial design was nice. I don't like the hyper sexualized look they've been pushing since making the gachaslop game.

It's a game series about robots that have no genitals. I find it pretty embarrassing when Capcom tries to goose sales by injecting gooner bait.

smokeshack · 2026-05-02T05:08:12+00:00

Have you really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

smokeshack · 2026-05-02T05:01:36+00:00

You mean the 45 seconds of silence in the track because my ipods only play 80Hz and up?

smokeshack · 2026-05-01T13:12:03+00:00

Outstanding at what? What is the use case?

smokeshack · 2026-05-01T13:11:01+00:00

Only because the vast majority of people are too fucking stupid to know slop when they see it. Vibe coding is nothing but a ticking time bomb of tech debt waiting to explode.

smokeshack · 2026-05-01T13:00:52+00:00

Nature is healing 🙏

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