Predominantly Erroneous (Exohedron nonsense blog)

Every once in a while I think about my math education, which took place primarily outside of the classroom. No real fault of the teachers, who were bound by curricula from on high, their own educational backgrounds, and the needs of the other students.

But if I had been forced to pay attention in math class, I probably wouldn't be a mathematician today. I remember being so frustrated that I probably would have started skipping school altogether. I probably wouldn't have been able to get away with it for long, but I definitely would have gone delinquent given how bad my temper was.

Fortunately by the fifth time I cussed at the teachers they decided that letting me curl up eith a textbook in the back of class was easier than trying to enforce actual discipline, and I had other sources of mathematics than just school. At that point I had at least demonstrated that I was pretty self-motivated ehen it came to learning mathematics.


I guess then I should think about my stance regarding public education, given that my own was semi-private. I want to tell myself that a better-funded public school system would have worked for me, with more teachers with stronger backgrounds and less interference, but I am not actually sure that that is true.
On the other hand, maybe I am merely willing to sacrifice other people like myself for the sake of education at large, although that sounds a bit strange given how cynical I tend to be about schooling in this country.

 

Kind of funny that Rome, the place whose language the word "empire" is derived from, was, by most modern definitions, imperialistic long before it became the Roman Empire.

 

Whenever I see that "hope is a skill" post I wonder how many people in the chain realize that the first response is a bot.

 

I don't think I value authenticity very highly.

 

Came across that "if buying isn't owning then pirating isn't stealing" thing again (the irony of me not being able to properly attribute the quote) and that does bring up the question of what does the money actually purchase?
And as far as I can tell, subscription is most closely related not to service but to access. You pay to have access to a thing which you can use as many times as you want within a window of time, at which point you have to either leave the amusement park or pony up more money. You don't own the amusement park, and your access to it doesn't really impact anyone else's access to it.

So instead of stealing, digital piracy might be better understood as trespassing. Which, still illegal, but a different crime.

 

Kinda surprised that I haven't seen the phrase "banana Republican" hit the political discourse yet, but also I'm not really looking.

 

If I had a house I would definitely carve a fake door into a wall on the second story. It would be just deep enough to imply an openable door and it would have a knob but it wouldn't actually be a separate piece from the wall and would only exist on one side of the wall. Probably harder if the house is made of bricks instead of wood.

In fact, I'd have two fake doors: one on the outside, one on the inside, three feet apart from each other.

 

Gonna start referring to it as "weed-40" in front of engineers. See how long it takes for someone to spray me in the face with it.

 

Watching the most 40-year-old white suburban dad you've ever seen, football-team sweatshirt and all, breaking it down at the hiphop dance competition in front of a hundred urban 20-year-olds and also two of his kids.
Gotta admit, dad's got some moves.

 

And now there's an 8-year-old, but at least that's somewhat of a trope by now.

 

Plato voice: I'm coming out of my cave and I'm doing just fine

 

It's kind of funny reading about people in Australia complaining about how it's 33 degrees down there while here it's also 33 degrees and people are also complaining but for different reasons.

 

If you're on the gold standard and the gold is cursed, does that affect the money backed by that gold?

 

In this case they might be better described as landyours.