WTF Bites
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@DCoder Explains why all of my devices were automatically logged out of Facebook yesterday.
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E4 is showing a Die Hard film each week - but has skipped Die Hard 3 for some reason that doesn't seem to have been explained.
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@loopback0 I feel like I've read this exact same post before somewhere on this forum.
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Did somewhere on this forum also explain it?
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@DCoder : it keeps getting better and better. Apparently the bug didn't affect just Facebook, but also sites that allow logging in with Facebook credentials. Which means lots of them.
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@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
also sites that allow logging in with Facebook credentials.
This is why, with exception to this and only one other site, I don't have FaceBook as a login method for anything.
Instead I use Google.
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Apparently having what should be standard features of a credit account means mountain biking is in my future...
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
@Scarlet_Manuka plus TI has a monopoly on standardized test-approved calculators. And the College Board doesn't want innovation in calculators. So they're charging an arm and a leg for something that's way weaker than even the worst smartphone, for about the same amount. Because the education system really does have greedy, grasping corporations running most of it. But not the private schools, the "support" side. Textbooks, standardized tests, supplies, curricula, etc. They're the worst. Worse than Oracle on its worst day.
Homeschooling and homeschool curricula FTW!!
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
@Scarlet_Manuka plus TI has a monopoly on standardized test-approved calculators. And the College Board doesn't want innovation in calculators. So they're charging an arm and a leg for something that's way weaker than even the worst smartphone, for about the same amount. Because the education system really does have greedy, grasping corporations running most of it. But not the private schools, the "support" side. Textbooks, standardized tests, supplies, curricula, etc. They're the worst. Worse than Oracle on its worst day.
Homeschooling and homeschool curricula FTW!!
Which doesn't help you an iota when it comes to standardized final tests.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
@Scarlet_Manuka plus TI has a monopoly on standardized test-approved calculators. And the College Board doesn't want innovation in calculators. So they're charging an arm and a leg for something that's way weaker than even the worst smartphone, for about the same amount. Because the education system really does have greedy, grasping corporations running most of it. But not the private schools, the "support" side. Textbooks, standardized tests, supplies, curricula, etc. They're the worst. Worse than Oracle on its worst day.
Homeschooling and homeschool curricula FTW!!
Which doesn't help you an iota when it comes to standardized final tests.
I always scored highly on those. My scores on the standardized tests I took during my K-12 years were always in the top quartile (and I think even in the top decile), and my ACT college entrance exam scores were all 35 or 36 (ACT is 1-36), except for my Math score, which was 32.
But my mom has a master's degree in elementary education, so she knows how to teach and how to pick a curriculum, and she stayed at home to teach my siblings and me.
I'll be the first to say that homeschooling is not for everyone, and there are a lot of ways to do it wrongly. But done rightly, it has the highest outcomes of any of the education systems (public, private, home).
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@djls45 Way to miss the point.
Also, big surprise that a one-on-one setting produces good results. Not.
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@Tsaukpaetra
There are worse predictions ... A great way to get out in the open and to perfect the fine art of falling off your bike. When it starts to come naturally switch to click pedals for extra fun.
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Somewhat related:
https://youtu.be/AwgeT6-XakE?t=112
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@djls45 Way to miss the point.
If you weren't claiming that homeschooling doesn't help with standardized testing, then what was your point?
Also, big surprise that a one-on-one setting produces good results. Not.
I seem to recall you castigating homeschooling, yet this individual attention is one of the, if not the, biggest arguments in favor of it.
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@djls45 Has side-effects of continued, determined belief in impossible, acausal scenarios.
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@djls45 Has side-effects of continued, determined belief in
impossiblenecessary, acausal scenarios.As opposed to continued, determined belief in impossible, anti-causal scenarios?
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@djls45 Ask me again in 6,000 years.
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@djls45 Way to miss the point.
If you weren't claiming that homeschooling doesn't help with standardized testing, then what was your point?
Maybe try having a look at the chain of replies next time to see what we were talking about.
It was about mandated standard calculators.
You then rode in and proclaimed that homeschooling would free you from the evils of mandatory standard calculators!
However, standardized tests (which you still have to undergo) will have similarly standardized requirements for the tools you are allowed to use. Which means that if calculators are allowed in such tests, you'll have to use one of the ones on a standard list. Just to make sure, for example, that the examinor can successfully reset your calculator to factory defaults.
And, yeah, let's all have stay-at-home mums (or dads, let's be equal-opportunity, okay?) so everyone can homeschool. Of course, that would pose a little problem for single parents or the ones where even the three jobs the father has at the same time don't quite yield enough money. Or the ones where the parents don't feel educated enough to be able to school their children.
And, let's not beat around the bush: Your own education has shown to have some serious flaws in the Biology department so I'll take your statements with a very big grain of salt.
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@Rhywden not all states require standardized testing for non public education. And not all colleges require standardized test scores for admission.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
@Rhywden not all states require standardized testing for non public education. And not all colleges require standardized test scores for admission.
That sounds like a huge
to me. But surely there is at least some kind of test that's administered, yes?
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@Rhywden nope. Independent schools get their requirements from the accreditation board (of which there are many private ones), many states don't regulate homeschooling more than trivially, and the colleges that are "test optional" are often the tonier private ones.
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@djls45 Way to miss the point.
If you weren't claiming that homeschooling doesn't help with standardized testing, then what was your point?
Maybe try having a look at the chain of replies next time to see what we were talking about.
It was about mandated standard calculators.
You then rode in and proclaimed that homeschooling would free you from the evils of mandatory standard calculators!
Oh, wow, you missed what I was contrasting! i was responding to the last half of @Benjamin-Hall's post that was denoting the horribleness of the education support companies, which included "[t]extbooks, standardized tests, supplies, curricula, etc." Some (not all, nor would I argue even most) homeschool curricula are better than that provided by these businesses. The curriculum my family used was one of them.
However, standardized tests (which you still have to undergo) will have similarly standardized requirements for the tools you are allowed to use. Which means that if calculators are allowed in such tests, you'll have to use one of the ones on a standard list. Just to make sure, for example, that the examinor can successfully reset your calculator to factory defaults.
And like I said, I (and many other homeschoolers as well) did (and do) very well on those tests.
And, yeah, let's all have stay-at-home mums (or dads, let's be equal-opportunity, okay?) so everyone can homeschool. Of course, that would pose a little problem for single parents or the ones where even the three jobs the father has at the same time don't quite yield enough money. Or the ones where the parents don't feel educated enough to be able to school their children.
You'll note that I did say that homeschooling isn't for everyone. There are a wide variety of reasons that families may not be able (or even want) to do it.
And, let's not beat around the bush: Your own education has shown to have some serious flaws in the Biology department so I'll take your statements with a very big grain of salt.
Like what?
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@Benjamin-Hall No serious oversight at all? No required curricula? Nothing?
Seriously?
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@Benjamin-Hall No serious oversight at all? No required curricula? Nothing?
Seriously?
Education is on a state-by-state basis here in the US. Some states regulate things quite heavily, others are much more hands-off. Required curricula or banning private schools (which amounts to the same thing under current legal doctrines) gets iffy due to constitutional parental rights to make important educational decisions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierce_v._Society_of_Sisters).
https://hslda.org/content/laws/ has a good overview of the legal status of homeschooling:
- 5 states (all in New England) are classified as "High Regulations: State requires parents to send notification or achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification of parents, or home visits by state officials)."
- 18 have "Moderate regulations: State requires parents to send notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student progress."
- 16 have "Low regulations: State requires parents to send notification."
- 11 have "No regulations: No state requirement for parents to initiate any contact."
So most are in the moderate to low band.
Florida, in the "moderate" category, requires:
- File a notice of intent to homeschool.
- Maintain a portfolio.
- Evaluate your student annually.
- File an affidavit of termination.
Where step 3 requires (annually) one of the following:
Have educational progress evaluated by a teacher holding a valid regular Florida teaching certificate and selected by the parent—the evaluation must include review of a portfolio and discussion with the student;
Take any nationally normed student achievement test administered by a certified teacher;
Take a state student assessment test used by the school district and administered by a certified teacher, at a location and under testing conditions approved by the school district;
Be evaluated by a Florida licensed psychologist or school psychologist; or
Be “evaluated with any other valid measurement tool as mutually agreed upon.”
But note that you can do it under a "private school umbrella program" which may or may not require any of those things (since it counts as being part of a private school).
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@Benjamin-Hall Yeah, I don't see that as not being exploitable at all.
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@djls45 Your stance on evolution pretty much invalidates anything you're saying about your "big accomplishments". That's my personal opinion but any teacher who allows that shit isn't a real teacher.
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@Benjamin-Hall Yeah, I don't see that as not being exploitable at all.
Thing is, it requires effort on the parent's part. And most who would really exploit it aren't willing to put in the effort to clear even a minimal bar. The worst parents for education are the ones who just don't give a flying @#$#@ and treat school as daycare. While there are a non-trivial number of nuts out there, they're spread throughout the political and religious spectrum and aren't an overall problem. They're well into the noise of kids who just plain don't show up. Absentee rates at public schools are alarming--
Chronic Absenteeism in the Nation's Schools
Students who are chronically absent—meaning they miss at least 15 days of school in a year—are at serious risk of falling behind in school. Yet, for too long, this crisis in our nation’s public elementary and secondary schools has not been fully understood. Now, under the Every Student Succeeds Act...
Overall, almost 20 percent of students in high school are chronically absent compared to more than 12 percent of students in middle school. The chronic absenteeism rate was the lowest for elementary school students, at 11 percent.
And those kids aren't being taught anything (although at some schools even the kids who are there aren't being taught). I'd rather take my chances with a nutty parent than an abusive, cruel system or the streets. Because I've known lots of nutty people--their kids generally turned out OK because they rejected their parents' nuttiness.
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@djls45 Your stance on evolution pretty much invalidates anything you're saying about your "big accomplishments". That's my personal opinion but any teacher who allows that shit isn't a real teacher.
What if I said that evolution just really isn't that important for most people? It matters for a few portions of one class, and a few careers.
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless--there are lots of theories I don't believe in but still use because they're the best ones we have. I know the Standard Model isn't right. But I still use it since we don't have anything better. You can be a perfectly good biologist even if you don't believe that evolution is "true" if you're willing to act as if it is because you don't have any better tools. Theories and models are tools. They're not truth, they're not fact. They're not even true or false, they're useful or not useful.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless
Nah, it's pretty meaningful. The real question is not about believing in evolution or not. It's about whether your beliefs are based on facts and logic, or not.
And that distinction has deep consequences for everyone. Health, for example (when you're sick, are you going to use a drug based on science, or pray to get better?)
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@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless
Nah, it's pretty meaningful. The real question is not about believing in evolution or not. It's about whether your beliefs are based on facts and logic, or not.
And that distinction has deep consequences for everyone. Health, for example (when you're sick, are you going to use a drug based on science, or pray to get better?)
Non sequitor. You can use something without believing in it. Science doesn't care if you believe, only if you act. Frankly, facts and logic are useful tools, but they're not the only thing. Because given a choice of starting axioms, I can logically derive anything that is self-consistent. And facts are notoriously squishy and context dependent. We don't know a lot of the things we think we know. Not really. And anyone who says otherwise is a crappy scientist--they're promoting cargo cult science (or worse, the unthinking worship of "science" falsly-so-called).
I don't believe in Newtonian mechanics, relativity, or the law of definite proportions. Just like I don't believe in my hammer. They're merely tools to be used where appropriate, with a sober understanding of their limitations and basic assumptions. For 99% of everyone, evolution (or in fact most other scientific theories and models) just doesn't matter. It matters whether the drug works (for them), not how it was made.
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And, yeah, let's all have stay-at-home mums (or dads, let's be equal-opportunity, okay?) so everyone can homeschool. Of course, that would pose a little problem for single parents or the ones where even the three jobs the father has at the same time don't quite yield enough money. Or the ones where the parents don't feel educated enough to be able to school their children.
What is the point of this paragraph? Are you just making the banal claim that it doesn't suit every situation?
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@Benjamin-Hall No serious oversight at all? No required curricula? Nothing?
Seriously?
Just like public schools!
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@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall No serious oversight at all? No required curricula? Nothing?
Seriously?
Just like public schools!
Pretty sure public schools have a required curriculum. That's why everyone in education hates Obama and Bush so much.
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@ben_lubar said in WTF Bites:
@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall No serious oversight at all? No required curricula? Nothing?
Seriously?
Just like public schools!
Pretty sure public schools have a required curriculum. That's why everyone in education hates Obama and Bush so much.
I should have emphasized that I was responding to "No serious oversight at all?"
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@ben_lubar said in WTF Bites:
@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall No serious oversight at all? No required curricula? Nothing?
Seriously?
Just like public schools!
Pretty sure public schools have a required curriculum. That's why everyone in education hates Obama and Bush so much.
Not really...they have a "curriculum" but no one cares if you actually teach any of it or not. Or they do, depending on which school you're at. And sometimes teaching too much gets you in trouble from your peers, who you're making look bad. Or so I've heard from my public school teaching friends. It's a screwed up system, top to bottom.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
but no one cares if you actually teach any of it or not
standardized testing was very much a thing when I was in school
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@ben_lubar said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
but no one cares if you actually teach any of it or not
standardized testing was very much a thing when I was in school
It's a thing, but until recently no one cared what the results were (at the institutional level). Even after NCLB (which sucked, btw), they only cared about gaming the system.
And the sad part is that the majority of what's covered on those standardized tests has very little to do with what's actually on the curriculum. Same goes for the AP tests (and there there's mandated curriculum). They focus very heavily on things that are easily testable but not that important and change it regularly, making it so you have to customize your curriculum to what you guess will be on the test (which ruins the test as a measuring tool).
Instead, a good standardized test (not that such a thing exists, but...) should cover the "important" issues and skills in a discipline/level. You shouldn't have to teach to the test--you should just teach chemistry (or history, or whatever).
The "required" curricula have more to do with what the latest ed-school BS is than what actually matters. And it goes in cycles every 30 years or so, mostly to keep ed school professors in jobs.
I may be a bit cynical...
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless
Nah, it's pretty meaningful. The real question is not about believing in evolution or not. It's about whether your beliefs are based on facts and logic, or not.
And that distinction has deep consequences for everyone. Health, for example (when you're sick, are you going to use a drug based on science, or pray to get better?)
Non sequitor. You can use something without believing in it. Science doesn't care if you believe, only if you act. Frankly, facts and logic are useful tools, but they're not the only thing. Because given a choice of starting axioms, I can logically derive anything that is self-consistent. And facts are notoriously squishy and context dependent. We don't know a lot of the things we think we know. Not really. And anyone who says otherwise is a crappy scientist--they're promoting cargo cult science (or worse, the unthinking worship of "science" falsly-so-called).
I don't believe in Newtonian mechanics, relativity, or the law of definite proportions. Just like I don't believe in my hammer. They're merely tools to be used where appropriate, with a sober understanding of their limitations and basic assumptions. For 99% of everyone, evolution (or in fact most other scientific theories and models) just doesn't matter. It matters whether the drug works (for them), not how it was made.
The point he was trying to make isn't the distinction between "this theory is perfect" and "this theory is accurate enough for what we're using it right now", but instead about the complete rejection of it on unscientific grounds. Which leads to his complaint about people praying instead of taking medicine, or (to be fair and use an example completely unrelated to religion) people not vaccinating their children because their tin-foil hat says it causes autism.
That's the kind of "belief" that's relevant: do you believe in the effects of an established theory, or do you believe in unfounded things.
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@Benjamin-Hall: The non-sequitur is on your side. It's not as if the evolution debate was between two scientific theories, both plausible and compatible with observable facts, and the only difference was in details that are hard to prove or disprove.
It's between those who believe in a science-based theory, and those who believe in a religion-based theory.
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@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless
Nah, it's pretty meaningful. The real question is not about believing in evolution or not. It's about whether your beliefs are based on facts and logic, or not.
And that distinction has deep consequences for everyone. Health, for example (when you're sick, are you going to use a drug based on science, or pray to get better?)
Non sequitor. You can use something without believing in it. Science doesn't care if you believe, only if you act. Frankly, facts and logic are useful tools, but they're not the only thing. Because given a choice of starting axioms, I can logically derive anything that is self-consistent. And facts are notoriously squishy and context dependent. We don't know a lot of the things we think we know. Not really. And anyone who says otherwise is a crappy scientist--they're promoting cargo cult science (or worse, the unthinking worship of "science" falsly-so-called).
I don't believe in Newtonian mechanics, relativity, or the law of definite proportions. Just like I don't believe in my hammer. They're merely tools to be used where appropriate, with a sober understanding of their limitations and basic assumptions. For 99% of everyone, evolution (or in fact most other scientific theories and models) just doesn't matter. It matters whether the drug works (for them), not how it was made.
The point he was trying to make isn't the distinction between "this theory is perfect" and "this theory is accurate enough for what we're using it right now", but instead about the complete rejection of it on unscientific grounds. Which leads to his complaint about people praying instead of taking medicine, or (to be fair and use an example completely unrelated to religion) people not vaccinating their children because their tin-foil hat says it causes autism.
That's the kind of "belief" that's relevant: do you believe in the effects of an established theory, or do you believe in unfounded things.There will always be people like that. And the more we turn science into a religion, overseen by its high priests (the scientists) and disseminated by teachers who preach its infallibility, the worse that will be. Because people see science as a substitute for their (other) beliefs, and so take an exclusive view. Science is a tool. Does it work well enough? Great. Does it not work well enough? Make it better. The more people push "science/logic as the one true way", the more you'll turn off people who realize that that's not true.
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@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall: The non-sequitur is on your side. It's not as if the evolution debate was between two scientific theories, both plausible and compatible with observable facts, and the only difference was in details that are hard to prove or disprove.
It's between those who believe in a science-based theory, and those who believe in a religion-based theory.
SCIENCE != TRUTH. Believing in a theory is a non-scientific state of being. Belief is irrelevant to science. You're pushing science as religion-substitute, a repository for belief. And that's a good way to turn people with more knowledge (or more sense) off of science. Because it goes against everything science stands for.
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@djls45 Your stance on evolution pretty much invalidates anything you're saying about your "big accomplishments". That's my personal opinion but any teacher who allows that shit isn't a real teacher.
And now we have moved into the cultural divide between the US and Germany. There are a lot of perfectly normal bankers, scientists, businessmen, software developers, doctors, lawyers, etc. who are perfectly intelligent in every other aspect except they're creationists. It is not that odd of an occurrence out here, especially in right-leaning states, and even though they're all categorically wrong it should not call their other work/accomplishments into question.
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@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
treat school as daycare
as opposed to
Fight Club.
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@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless
Nah, it's pretty meaningful. The real question is not about believing in evolution or not. It's about whether your beliefs are based on facts and logic, or not.
And that distinction has deep consequences for everyone. Health, for example (when you're sick, are you going to use a drug based on science, or pray to get better?)
You should go argue evolution with @djls45. You'll take about ten posts and say 'yeah, this is way out of my depth', and hopefully by some miracle you'll realize you were just taking authority's word for it too.
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@Benjamin-Hall: you have a very warped view of science.
Yes, science is about belief and truth. Science aims to be predictive, in other words you believe that the model you've developed is truthful enough to predict things that are measurable before actually measuring them, and that the results are repeatable.
It doesn't mean your explanation can't be refuted, or that it offers a completely exhaustive explanation of how things work. If you think that, whoever taught you science was wrong, or you didn't listen to him/her.
Do science and religion conflict sometimes? You bet they do. It's hard to believe at the same time that "lightning occurs when a god is angered at humans" and "lightning occurs as a result of an electrostatic process".
There are people who believe in both science and religion, but usually they turn to religion for questions that are either currently unanswered by science, or are more philosophical than scientific in nature.
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@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:
@Zerosquare said in WTF Bites:
@Benjamin-Hall said in WTF Bites:
Not to mention, belief or unbelief in a scientific theory is rather meaningless
Nah, it's pretty meaningful. The real question is not about believing in evolution or not. It's about whether your beliefs are based on facts and logic, or not.
And that distinction has deep consequences for everyone. Health, for example (when you're sick, are you going to use a drug based on science, or pray to get better?)
You should go argue evolution with @djls45. You'll take about ten posts and say
'yeah, this is way out of my depth', and hopefully by some miracle you'll realize you were just taking authority's word for it too.I can't take this anymore, please stop making it hurtLast Thursdayism may be self-consistent, but the arguments for it are pain-inducing.
