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Comment How to get good (Score 1) 87

Nobody is going to like this, but the secret to doing arithmetic: repetition.
You're not going to get it right the first time. And you're not going to remember it long-term unless you've been drilled on it so much that you've been in tears over it.

Math isn't natural for our brains, so it's rather difficult to learn at first, but everyone needs some basic grasp of arithmetic in this society. We're not hunter-gathers anymore, we have bills, taxes, and far more complex lives than we did 1000's of years ago. And we can't just sit in front of a phone and watch videos roll by and expect our lives to amount to anything. You learn by doing, and you get better with practice.

Comment Re:"education experiment" (Score 1) 87

This aspect is troubling to me too. You know they keep making changes because "studies show..." Yet so much of the time, what studies show does not pan out IRL. I am (was) a researcher (in a technical field), I am not anti-intellectual. I want there to be an evidence-based argument for designing programs that work better than before. Yet it seems like it is not working.

I feel the same about discipline (or rather the lack thereof) in the classroom, "studies show" being coerced is bad for them, but now one problem kid that can't be controlled or moved out of the general population classroom is destroying it for 24 others in that class. There are certain kids who don't respond to instruction, and once they realize nobody can actually do anything to stop them (and I mean that literally, even while they are physically assaulting other students) it's all over.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 32

In the long-term, consumers don't benefit. But the con is in the short-term gains and the benefit is to investors that get out in time, or otherwise have instruments that manage risk of a soon-to-be toxic asset.

Your average 401K or retirement fund manager isn't going to keep people's retirement safe, their focus is on the commission they earn for selling retirees extract things they probably don't need, like term life. Or doing almost nothing if they aren't using commission-based or hybrid compensation. I bring up 401Ks because that's where the significant fraction of the free money that fills these worthless investments comes from. It's ultimately the middle class that gets the short end of the stick in stock market fluctuation. We've seen people's retirements hit hard in previous bubbles, and there is less regulation now than there was in the 2000's and 1980's.

Comment Re: Trucks booked as sold? (Score 1) 62

China's geology is really bad for petroleum production. A bad lot in the luck of the draw.

They are building a monster pipeline and rail system across Mongolia and Siberia to Russian reserves but it's a decadal project.

Electric transportation is a smart option for their situation. Their necessity has become their Mother of Invention and they are dominating the world in electric power systems innovation.

Comment "a full school year behind " (Score 1) 87

If we're graduating Seniors with Junior level math skills that's hardly "Can't do Math."

I suspect even that claim is wrong and we're also teaching the wrong math for an informed electorate. In undergrad we need people sharp in probability and statistics more than matrix algebra. So they can be numerate against politicians' bullshit. I guess we should ask politicians to work on that.

Comment Re: Alternate headline (Score 0) 50

Some of us are neither Republicans nor Democrats but would support a strong 10th Amendment with strict observance of Article I limitations.

But nearly all the Democrats and Republicans want to selectively choose which parts of the Constitution to ignore. There is no will for Rule of Law.

The Congressmen get elected on the principle of stealing money from one person to give it to five. That's a guaranteed win in a Universal Suffrage system with no strong moral foundation.

The trick is they inflate the money supply to actually do it so everybody pays. The five "winners" suffer the most in real numbers.

I'd rather see a stable Constitutional order but it's fantasy to believe that's achievable. We'll see fiscal collapse, likely War and a Draft, and chaos instead. All because oligarchs and the poor want "free stuff". And it's hard to blame the poor when everything they want is unachievable for them because the markets are all rigged against them.

The Gini Coefficient is too damn high, so don't get between them and the guillotines.

Comment Re:Obvious answer (Score 4, Insightful) 108

I think because it is not dependable....it still quite often gets things wrong and gives wrong answers.

Hell, just the other day, it got the wrong songs on an album being discussed, info that is out there on the web for easy verification.

If you can't trust if for simple things like that, it's then a QC nightmare when you try to trust it for important code or design....where tolerances can mean life/death or at the very least....severe LITIGATION.

Comment Re:photons, fiber optic cable... (Score 2) 34

It depends on the precise definition. But teleportation of sizeable objects is probably impossible. In the use of the term in quantum experiments it means something like "moving the state of one particle to the state of another without determining what the state is that you moved". And it's "moved" rather than communicating because the residual state has been changed. I.e., for a macroscopic analogy, if I "communicate" something to you, it doesn't make me forget it, but if I teleport (say a book) to you, I no longer have it.

Yeah, the word was chosen because it sounded catchy, but it *does* describe a legitimate effect that has no macroscopic counterpart.

Comment Re:Republicans never really cared about states rig (Score 4, Insightful) 50

The TDS is real;

Yesterday I got down modded for suggesting that the Anti-vax movement while lately embraced by MAGA; is hardly unique to that brand of politics, simply pointing out the easily observed truth that at least up until the pandemic you could find a lot anti-vaxers in very well-heeled, very granola blue areas, as much as anywhere on the right. I pointed out that RFK wasnt a Republican let alone MAGA until suddenly he and Trump thought they could advance their mutual agendas.

Now you people are going to go an insist that Drunk driving laws were some kinda Republican led thing, sure there were a lot of anti-drug right of main-line conservatives that were on board, but there were as many left of main-line liberals who saw it as public health and safety issue and the two came together to form a large enough coalition to get it done over the objections of the general public at the time. Once again though highly revisionist to claim it was GOP issue.

Ditto for the history of "cooperative federalism" as a concept. The GOP has certainly embraced it, and did so pretty quickly, but certainly did not invent it, that was New Deal Democrats!

Lord knows there are plenty of reasons someone can dislike Trump personally, object to the agenda, etc. However I become pretty unimpressed with most of those arguments because of posts like yours. They are mostly made by people who either are pretty ignorant of our political history, and/or are in some sort of deep reality distortion field where they believe Trump and anyone in his orbit actually invented these tactics, let alone anyone at Heritage. None of them have come up with anything new they are just flipping through their catalog of old grievances and successes alike and looking at what political tools brought them about. Then using them, usually with minimal finesse or competence.

Comment Re: Real Patriots don't mess with AI (Score 0) 33

Ever noticed how the fictional TV shows in Idiocracy, often incoherent nonsense that people can't stop watching, are basically the same as the AI slop we have today?

We're not going to be fighting an robot army, like in The Terminator or The Matrix, but a destruction of our humanity from within and of our own making.

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