Although the impact on children was big, the schools were only really closed for under a year. Lockdowns started Easter-ish 2020 and then the UK was going through its lockdown easing steps a year later after the vaccine program had been going full-steam since January 2021, with about 90% school attendance by March 2021. I remember American colleagues shocked at our levels of freedom so soon! London was buzzing again very quickly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Except his. He has a range of houses that he can move to as the bad air moves around. All of them paid for through by sleaze and corruption.

Have you been to London? The traffic in the centre is as bad as it ever was. It's faster to cycle.

Work from home has increased traffic in the outer boroughs during the work day.

The ULEZ brought the biggest improvements in air quality in the outer boroughs. Inner boroughs benefitted too. Sounds like a win.

The rest of your post is inarticulate. Take a breathe next time and explain the points you're trying to make properly.

I love that the Tory outer boroughs who fought hardest against the ULEZ have ended up the biggest benefits improvements of the ULEZ.

Sadly, their voters don't understand. Sadly, they don't get that their chosen politicians hate them and care little for their health.

"Houses" probably predate homo sapiens. They my just have looked like lean-tos, but they did the same job, just not as well. And if you demand mortared foundations, they didn't show up until the very late stone age.

The thing is, when you're mobile rather than settled, a house is a very temporary asset. And they have defects as places that house lice, fleas, etc. So you usually prefer to keep moving. Agriculture is what probably caused what we think of as houses to be created, but the first "permanent" houses were probably organic developments of the pre-existing "temporary shelters".

P.S.: Look into the construction techniques used by Chimps and Orangutans. These are called "nests", but they aren't trivial constructions, and as they're in the trees, their requirements are different from ground based constructions.

Being pro-Iran is, indeed, as silly as being pro-Israel. There's not much moral justification for either. Once upon a time there was a bit of economic justification, but as governments have changed that has mainly evaporated.

If you think they just track license plates you haven't been paying attention.

Meanwhile I also own a Tesla, and am using a CarPlay adapter with it. Maps is better, particularly lane guidance and actually telling me which motorway junction number I'm coming off at. I can share an ETA with my contacts. I can listen to subscriber-only (paid) Podcasts. I can use WhatsApp (via voice of course), something sadly essential in the UK as the vast majority use that. I can listen to audiobooks from other than Audible. I can use the BBC Sounds app. I can...

You get the idea. I agree with you about integration - the time I will use the built-in map is if I'm on a longer journey that needs charging on the way, or if the journey is so short that none of the above really matters.

Personally I hope the rumours about CarPlay integration being worked on by Tesla are true, although I'd be surprised I must admit. But for me - works well.

Answer: No, using AI to write an op-ed has no impact on the report about dismal math skills, besides improving the organization and legibility of the report which is a positive. The most important point is that college students lack elementary school arithmetic skills, and no test is being used to replace SATs. Actually AI might be useful in both teaching remedial skills as well as in evaluating readiness for college. Maybe some effort could be put into developing free, online automated teaching assistance that does not track you, that can be used by any prospective student to see where they stand and attempt to advance. Maybe a non-judgemental, free AI tutor with multiple teaching methods available to it could teach kids fractions for example, and it could be done long before college entrance.

Well wtf does he mean by speedtest then? If he's doing it from his phone or wifi connected laptop, then it's going to reflect the speed of his wifi. If he's doing it from his router, and complaining that the speedtest is wrong because his wifi is slower than his router uplink, I'd say that's a statement only a doofus would make.

"Now I'm currently using fiber at the speed fast than my wifi router, which makes my speedtest always wrong."

oh please expand on this - this is gunna be hilarious

There are definitely use cases for which it isn't needed. But that doesn't cover everything. There will ALWAYS be use cases that would require (or at least benefit from) higher connection bandwidth...and speed can often substitute nicely.

I'd guess, but stressing guess and agree would need to be studied, that your bias would be correct. I'm not necessarily a fan of the every single person's study plan is different school of thought, and think there's a lot to be gained from structure.

On the socialising I'm not quite so sure though - it's definitely changed the nature of it though. My 'kids' (now all adults, youngest about to enter final year of university) socialising all the time on-line. Voice chats with friends, Discord is how they organise meeting up etc.. They've also all three kept a healthy in-person socialisation side too, which is the part I was initially worried by when I saw this panning out over several years. I think that last bit is key - if you can balance both, then you get the benefits of going out with your friends with also the benefits of having a wider geographical friend base and the ability to stay in touch more easily.

Perhaps read the actual comment? I am agreeing with the study - quoted directly: ""The findings suggest that screen time can support children's and adolescents' cognitive processing. Presumably, the essential point here is what kind of things they do in their screen time. Teachers and parents should encourage children to use devices and screens in such ways that promote active thinking, problem-solving, creativity and learning," states Doctoral Researcher Petri Jalanko from the University of Jyvaskyla.".

Yes, it's nice to see a study backing it of course but this has been intuitively obvious for a while. The "screen time is killing our kids!" crowd is just the latest generational re-incarnation of the "computer games are killing our kids" from the 1980s, or "Dungeons and Dragons is killing our kids!" from the late 70s through the 80s, "TV is killing our kids!"...right back to Socrates moaning about writing. Just another moral panic.

Since we're in 80s mode, let's quote The Karate Kid: "concentrate on quality of what you know, not quantity". It's the nature of the screen time that's important, not necessarily the raw bulk. Are you interacting with people online, are you reading stuff? Are you watching some videos where you learn some things as well as just the latest cat videos or TikTok dance? In short, are you using the screen as a portal to the generalities of life instead of just watching brainrot all day every day?

I suspect knowing that will be key to whether the screen time is hurting or helping. And as ever, a balance is required. 100% screen and no in-person interactions is obviously harmful, provably so thanks to the pandemic providing us with data here. I'd also posit that 100% outside and in-person will be good, but not as rounded as a decent mix between the two since you gain access to different experiences online.