I have discovered that teaching programming goes much better with my fifth grade students if I take the time to teach them about all the symbols I think of as "normal" that are totally new to them. "These are square brackets, you'll find them over the 'enter' key we use them for lists. In programming we have three kinds of brackets..." This reduced confusion so much. And I feel a little silly for not realizing that OF COURSE they don't know what they characters are or how to type them.

#PicaTheCat has the vibes of a Roman high official who has been posted to some far northern backwater in England, surrounded by "uncultured" people. (us) who can't even run her palatial manner properly or deliver meals on time. She is suffering so much poor creature. That is how she is looking at me right now. (I have added some photographic evidence of what she is like. Look at her!) #caturday #catsofmastodon #cat #cats #imperious #judgemental #leadership

I've had a few conversations on here about the corrosive impact of advertising and whenever I do I always see one comment that I sympathize with, but all find concerning. "At this point when I see ads it makes me want the product less." I think nearly everyone has felt this way from time to time, and yet the "adspace" keeps expanding to new frontiers and levels of obnoxiousness. Advertisers know that their ads are effective. Even on people who have promised themselves they aren't.

Is this geometry problem fun or is it evil? “prove LMNO is a parallelogram” #matheducation

There are young people who don't remember what the internet used to be like. They can't remember it because they were too young when it existed. They don't know that it was for a time, for some people*, better. And they don't know how that better internet was quashed and never really reached them. * If you have nostalgia for how, for example, google search used to work I think you need to grapple with the fact that only a small slice of the public ever experienced it in that way.

Do you financially support the media that you enjoy most often? If you enjoy posting on the fedi do you support your server? Other small servers? If you enjoy watching videos do you support the people who make them? If you read articles do you support the reporters? What about local theatre and music? If you have netflix money, spotify money, Hulu or Bobo or whatever money you have money that could do this.

“If the LLM produces a wild result, something that doesn’t meet with my expectations *then* I’ll turn to more reliable sources. I’m not blindly following just anything that says” People feel that this being a “responsible user of new technology” I think it actually proves the opposite. 1/2

Who do you turn to for financial news? My favorites are: Patrick Boyle: He is an academic out of NYC and a college teacher in business. He has a remarkable dry sense of humor and explains modern markets very clearly and carefully. He doesn't shy away from "bad news" Isn't interested in hype. Coffeezilla: A pretty prominent guy who cut his teeth chasing down crypto and rug-pull scams. For some reason he can get anyone to talk to him. There are others but these two I'm cheerful to recommend.

This guy generally does interesting work, but he's used an LLM to analyze the trends in a "creation science" journal over time, and I just don't think LLMs are effective for this kind of statistical task. Or have a missed something and they can count now? Thought I'd ask before leaving a comment about the possible issue.