czstar

From what I’ve read some of the safety systems did not give real-time feedback and the critical error occurred because the operators didn’t know they were in trouble due to lack of real-time feedback. I’m not an engineer and know nothing of these things but the test was not unauthorized and it wasn’t an experiment. As far as I read about the accident.

I don’t grade on a curve. Each person’s grade is independent of each other student. There is no competition for grades as such. Me sucking as a teacher is a different matter.

My question to you. Given what I implied about pay and what I said about apathy of my bosses on this issue what makes you think you’d respond differently than me after 25 years in the system?

At my salary? Not worth the trouble. Especially since no one in the chain of command wants to deal with it and nothing of real consequence will happen. The problem is far greater than me and it’s not worth it to try to care.

I teach at a college. I stopped caring about cheating a while back. It’s not worth the hassle of reporting a student who cheats and the college needs students. College is being treated as a business and the client is the student.

Telling a white male student, You are only a double Ivy because of privilege is just as bad as telling a black student they are a double Ivy because of affirmative action.

Saying, “the statistics show that black double Ivy’s occur mostly due to affirmative action” is not objectionable if it’s true. Saying, “What do the statistics say about the background of black double Ivy’s?” is OK even if it’s not true that affirmative action is the reason because inquiring about causality is a good thing. Telling a student, “you are here only because of affirmative action” is never ok because it demeans the individual on a personal level.

From the article:

Wax presumably knew something more than we do of the student’s qualifications in making the statement. But even if she didn’t, how can her assertion that a black student with two Ivy League schools on her resume is likely to have benefited from affirmative action be taken as an insult in a culture that openly defends the positive good and undeniable need for affirmative action to achieve desired levels of minority representation? It is widely known that black students on average have lower GPAs and standardized test scores than whites and Asians, and that their performance relative to other groups remains comparatively low through the college years. How is it an unmentionable transgression for Wax to allude to a set of facts no one who knows the data disputes?

This is where the article lost me. The position stated above is disingenuous. The writer apparently doesn’t understand that something can be true and stated in an insulting or inappropriate way or stated in a demeaning way. Telling a student that they are a double Ivy due to external programs and not talent is inappropriate even if it is true. You don’t demean your students or attempt to tear them down in this way. A person lacking a sufficient amount of tact ought not be a teacher.

Saying inappropriate things to a student and being punished for it is not on par with banning books or banning teaching of certain concepts. This is obvious.

I believe you are wrong about the causes of the Chernobyl disaster. The consensus these days is that it was due to poor reactor design.

I remember when Palin ran for Vice President she had a day of interviews for local media types from various parts of the country. She did a number of consecutive interviews and in one made a dumb mistake conflating North Korea with South Korea. She was ridiculed by people for not knowing the difference. Now, I believe Palin is profoundly dumb and ignorant but she didn’t deserve to be attacked for making a mistake during a full day of interviews.

You mention one statement from the Press Secretary ascribe to it malice. Do you know she lied rather than was misinformed? Assume she is lying. Does this mean the whole administration lied? The discussion at hand is about Yellen (and by extension economists at NBER and other agencies). One statement by the Press Secretary is evidence of a lie by these people? I don’t think so.

It’s believable that Yellen and Biden and Pskai did lie because in politics you try to sway public perception and opinion. I don’t believe NBER has lied and to blame inflation on fiscal stimulus that largely occurred two years ago seems outright bad thinking. Especially to then blame the current administration for it. Inflation is going on all over the world. It’s not Biden’s fault. There’s a collection of reasons and mechanisms at play and Biden can only do so much.

I’m not an economist. A number of respected economists believed a year ago that inflation was mostly supply chain issues and was transient. Now, with new information, opinions are changing. I believe the monetary stimulus mostly occurred the first year of the pandemic but maybe it’s continuing. I don’t know. Since inflation is a global phenomenon it seems reasonable to conclude that fiscal stimulus in the U.S. is not the cause.

I believe the statements regarding the Ukraine war were that it was going to increase inflation and not that the current level of inflation was due to the war. The statements I recall were of the form, “due to the war inflation will be exacerbated.”

If it was caused by money injection into the U.S. economy then how do you explain inflation being a worldwide phenomenon? Quite a few experts believe a year ago that inflation was a result of imbalance in supply chains due to lockdowns. New information arises and a reevaluation of old ideas occurs. No evidence of lying as far as I can see.

In January of 2007 President Bush said the economy was doing fine. Much later in the year the NBER said that the recession began in January. Was Bush lying or did he lack foresight? Determining when a recession began usually happens after the fact because of how “recession” is defined.

Do you have evidence she was lying versus being wrong? A number of notable economists thought inflation was transitory. It’s hard to predict things like the effect the war in Ukraine would have and the effect the shipping industry doing its thing would have.

It seems NATO needs to either go all out and give Ukraine as much weapons as possible in the hopes of attaining a Russian defeat before winter or let Russia do as it wants in Ukraine. The Germans in particular have been tepid in giving Ukraine weapons (judge by actual deliveries and not public promises) and I wonder how long before they either fully support a Russian defeat or abandon Ukraine.

This is all just my preference and opinion. Smoking likely would have been banned eventually under regulation. I think the smoking issue is orthogonal to the discussion. Your other points stand and I was thinking only about domestic flights when I made my comment.

I prefer coach during regulation to first class now.

Adding on to your well stated points. Today we have to pay for Pre Check in order to have an experience that is still worse than the status quo ante. We are paying for a less bad experience.

Yes and it’d be good from an environmental point of view if it had remained so. Even discounting the environmental aspect I still wish for the days of regulation. The cheaper air fares with the accompanying horrible experience is not worth it in my opinion.

I remember flying during regulation and I wish we’d go back to those days. Flying back then was so much better.

Thank you for your response. In my response to you I had to edit it to remove some incorrect statements. I had to do that because I read into what you wrote some implications that you clearly did not intend. It’s so easy to do that.

I didn’t use the word “terrorism” in regards to the British Army. I said the British Army got away with heinous murders too. So did loyalist terrorist groups. The British Army colluded with loyalist terrorist groups and innocents died as a result.

I did not pretend the IRA were not terrorists. I said nothing in this regard.

People fight using the means available to them. The IRA had no tanks, bombers, frigates, etc. They fought back the only way they could. To them it was justified. To you it wasn’t. But this is true in all wars. The Americans were considered uncivilized during the American Revolutionary War since we frequently targeted officers during battles. This was contrary to how European armies fought.

EDIT: Deleted incorrect statements.

I think there must be a number of hours of streaming per month for one account beyond which it is unprofitable for Netflix. I think they are trying to get more accounts below this number.

It wasn’t a line of reasoning or a justification. I was not justifying anything or arguing for or against anything. Web services are already location bound. For example, there are YouTube videos available in the U.S. but not in Russia. I’m certain there are emails legal to be sent and read in Iran that are not legal to be sent in the U.S. One state in the U.S. is attempting to ban abortion information being sent to people within that state’s borders (likely just posturing but the point stands).

I can see from Netflix’s perspective that maybe the cost of allowing too many streams from one account is not profitable. Clearly they think this is a problem.

The British Army got away with heinous murders too. So did loyalist terrorist groups. At some point both sides need to move on if peace is to be obtained. I like what Ghandi said: An eye for an eye makes the world blind.

I suspect there are also people who share their account out of inertia. Some kids go off to college and stay on their parents’ account. Sometimes they don’t think about it since the password is stored on the app.

Also, Netflix might be losing money when people share their account and want to get to a place where the profit per account increases and then go from there.

The comment you responded to was neither arrogant or superfluous. Prior to the internet people had cable TV subscriptions for their house and vacation house. The norm was TV subscription being location based. Now with the internet that changed a bit. Netflix is trying to come up with a way to ensure that people aren’t using a subscription login “unjustly” (as Netflix defines this). It’s a tricky problem to solve.

The U.S. Constitution badly needs to be updated. It needs to spell out more clearly the role of the Supreme Court and how many justices it should have. It needs to more clearly state the manner in which the Senate gives advice and consent regarding appointees by the President and what should happen if the Senate refuses to vote on appointees. It needs to reform apportionment of Representatives. One Representative from California has a lot more constituents than the one from North Dakota. The list goes on.

There is a power imbalance in the country and that imbalance can’t last long without some sort of backlash.

One can find instances of corruption in any party that has sufficient power. Key members of the Republican Party tried to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021 so from my perspective the Republican Party is the one more deserving of ire.

It is clear the Supreme Court is taking an activist stance. One member of the court has pretty much stated he is in favor of overturning previous rulings that granted sexual rights. The Court is now erring on the side of taking rights away rather than on increasing them or keeping the status quo in place.