"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
*heh* ALP (Aussie Lap Puppy) has been doing well with his clicker training, but I didn’t have the clicker on me yesterday when I wanted to give him a “down” click (he’s learning specific patterns for core commands). So. . . I picked up a squeaker from a toy he had demolished and used THAT as a clicker. Perfect.
He’s a pip.
In many places nowadays, schools are tending toward shielding themselves from parents supervising the schools’ activities: general and specific policies, teachers’ behaviors, etc., including enabling children in empowering gender dysphoria, punishing children for being. . . normal, and engaging in psychological evaluations and labeling that pubschools are unqualified to do (not that a growing number of credentialed p-sychs are not disqualifying themselves, but that’s another issue).
But schools have always, well, as long as I’ve been alive, at least, had problems with teachers or admins arrogating powers unto themselves that they are not qualified to wield.
Exhibit A: 9th Grade. I was sent to thee principal’s office for disrupting my English class. what was my actual offense? I had finished an in class written assignment FAR too quickly, because I had read the textbooks during the first week of class, and was able to (correctly) finish the assignment without re-reading thee assigned material from the lit book. Unacceptable! I was instead supposed to wear Harrison Bergeron’s handicaps and plod along with thee rest of the cud-chewers.
Fortunately, my parents were called, and the teacher ended up allowing me to work at a reasonable (for me) pace for the rest of the year, and the following years I was not placed with the cud-chewers. (When a similar situation cropped up in my second year of Spanish, that was nipped in the bud before it became a problem. History helped in that case.)
Parental engagement–though not the “parental Karens” kind–can be a positive force for good.
(N.B. I was placed in cud-chewer, A.K.A. “normal,” classes in 9th grade because we had moved from out of state, and the new district just did not want to credit past performance. This also resulted in a biology class that was a lower level review of my 7th grade bio class, notwithstanding the fact that my 8th grade human anatomy class surpassed even that. Nowadays, I shudder to think what might happen.)
BTW, I was NOT, and never have been, a model student, at least not in the institutional frame. I am like our Aussie Lap Puppy in one regard: I learn what interests me. Oh, if a compelling reason presents itself, I can and do learn things that are otherwise not interesting to me, but the inducement in those cases has to be pretty convincing. ¯\_(?)_/¯ For example: I never saw a convincing reason to learn how to use a keyboard until I ran across a piece of software that enabled engraver-level composition, transcription, and arranging of music playing between my ears. Finally, a motivation.
. . .that they don’t even care enough about those they are sodomizing to use lube.
*huh* .32 H&R snake shot: a legitimate use for an oft-neglected caliber handgun (hiking, backyard work after high creek waters—water moccasins, etc.). Limited usefulness (maybe rats, other very small varmints), but seems a decent use to put a collectible (~100-year-old) firearm designed and built for modern propellant that is in excellent condition. Otherwise, it’s pretty much just a plinker.
Well, I’ll find out.
Was prepping some potatoes for tonight’s colcannon, and thought. . . “Hmmm, I have some chicken soup that’s started cooking away, why not cook the potatoes ahead of time i0n the chicken soup?”
And so I am doing. We’ll see how it turns out. But this way, a dinner of andouille sausage, colcannon, and green beans will have little to do but
fry up the andouille
sauté the onions, garlic, and cabbage
combine the potatoes and OGC and whip
warm up leftover green beans
Ith agus bain taitneamh as!
Followup: Yeh, that IS thee way to cook potatoes for mashing!
I have had fun reading a few LitrPG books a week (a fair percentage—maybe ~30%?—of the 10 or so books I read in a week are from this relatively new genre). The big appeal if getting inside thee heads of the writers, since almost all of them fall into a demographic that I have had little exposure to. *heh* Lil sidebar: this Olde Pharte surprised a fast food worker when I recognized his GamerSpeak™ and simply looked at him and said, “Gamer, eh?”
Oh, and filed under “Guilty Pleasures of Which I Should be Ashamed But Am Not,” I spend at least 25% of my time in the average LitRPG book marking it up with comments on errors. Almost universal crap editing of not-ready-for-publication writing. Yeh, yeh, I couldn’t write these things, but I can critique ’em. Shameful. . . that I’m not more ashamed of that than I am (which would be ANY shame at all. 😉 )
Well, it’s a hobby.
My fav of the LitRPG self-pubs are those from native Russian speakers/writers, even though the translations are sometimes a bit. . . rough. eh, maybe even a wee tad because the translations are sometimes a bit rough. English idioms and syntax are the most common problems. Still, even though the demographic the writer pool is drawn from may not be that of the average contemporary Russian people (well, not any more than US RPG gamers/writers are typical of the average American. . . though sometimes it seems they share a lot of common ground with typical 23-30-somethings. Sometimes), I still am able to get a feel for deep-seated psycho-sociological traits, and that is fascinating. What is even more fascinating, is that the attitudes of the Russian LitRPG writers, though less literate than 19th Century Russian authors (still more literate than most 21st Century American writers, IMO) are fairly consistent with earlier writers. Fascinating.
One thing that annoys me about roughly, well, almost all LitRPG writers is that they seem to have knowledge bases almost completely circumscribed by what they learned from gaming, thus, for but one recent example, a character “destroying” a bioweapons research center with a large ANFO bomb. No. In order to INCINERATE biological materials, and ANFO explosion must be VERY carefully designed and executed (and no, I will not discuss the construction and execution of such a thing. The NSA is listening, you know, and I do not want to be unjustly persecuted by the feds), and given the description in the book, the character had NO idea what he was doing even with a basic ANFO device. Ah, but maybe the writer feared his own government, so that might not be thee best example. ‘S’all right. There is a myriad of others. . . *heh*
(Then again, the writer/character uses a hydrogen bomb as having analogous destructive characteristics, so maybe allowing the writer an excuse isn’t warranted.)
while waiting in the checkout lane at my fav “Fell off the back of a truck” store the other day, I met a young Island Lady (well, my Wonder Woman’s age—that’s young enough) who shared with me the circumstances of her birth. Yeh, I know. Complete stranger. . . for all of five seconds. *heh* She just HAD to tell me she was “born in a canoe.”
You have NO idea the level of self-control I had to exercise to bite down on the old joke.
Yeh, yeh, I check my gig line, but shirt garters? *blech* Nah, one line too far. You can just go ahead and call me a messy dresser. I also don’t roll my sleeves “properly,” so?
So, my Wonder Woman gave Aussie Lap Puppy a birthday present she had bought him (a heavy duty nylon “bone” with a beef wrapper). He gently took it from her hand, then set it on the floor and laid down just “cuddling” it for a bit. THEN. . . bit. And chewed and chewed and chewed. . .
Happy puppy. (The part where he grabbed it between his paws and rolled over on his back to enjoy it from another angle? *smh* Nutso.) 12 months old today and undergoing another wee growth spurt? Yeh, that.
One fun thing about so-called “instinctive shooting” (pointing/aiming a firearm as a simple extension of one’s hand, like pointing a finger) is practicing peripheral vision target acquisition. Oh, it’s not really a practical shooting, urm, practice, but it’s fun to acquire a target out of the corner of one’s eye, fire, and check one’s accuracy. Do note, however, that is is ESSENTIAL to determine in advance where EVERYTHING one does not want to harm is NOT accessible to one’s fire. ESSENTIAL. BEST to practice such fun stuff on a well-defined and well-regulated range, and ONLY acquire targets that are located in a safe direction as defined by the range master (if such exists).
Of course, I have only taken up “instinctive shooting” practice because of my ageing eyes—mine are uncooperative with the iron sights on handguns—making “IS” practice. . . practical. For me. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), as far as handgun practice goes, the techniques have actually seemed to markedly improve my accuracy for mid-to-short range handgun use.
Whatever. It’s fun for me. YMMV.