Well, here it is: the end of math

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Aug 212022
 

Do you want to see the *dumbest* approach to math you’ll see today? If so, behold this presentation from the University of Michigan:

http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~glarose/dept/teaching/resources/RehumanizingMathematicsSlides.pdf

If that link doesn’t work, the Wayback Machine can hook you up:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210124223803/http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~glarose/dept/teaching/resources/RehumanizingMathematicsSlides.pdf

This presentation is on the topic of “Rehumanizing Mathematics” by one Rochelle Gutiérrez. Right from the get-go you can tell it’s stupid… if there’s one thing mathematics is *not* it’s “humanized.” Math doesn’t care about your feelings. Nor your politics, religion, ethnicity, family history, gender or any other kind of identity. 1+1=2 no matter your beliefs on the matter. 1+1=2 even if you are *dead,* or you are a parrot, or a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri, or a godlike entity from beyond the Antares maelstrom. And yet…

1. How we think/talk about our work matters
• Diversity (attention to difference, also used when no difference, often ignores history, no attention to positionality)
• Equity (often highlights universal approaches, closing achievement gaps, leaky STEM pipelines)
• Inclusion (tolerate, allow, participate on own terms, focus on individuals, understand exclusion)
• Centering historically oppressed (place at the core, dedicate resources and energy there, requires political clarity)

Ummm… no.

If you ever wonder why our infrastructure is falling apart and we can’t seem to do Great Things anymore… well, here ya go.

If you *really* want to burn off some excess brain cells and don’t have the funds for a few gallons of white lightning, watching this video will probably help. It’s about an hour of the person responsible for the above presentation. I can’t *really* say what all’s in it, as I only got a few seconds in before my Brain Worms alarm went off: “I just want to start by acknowledging that as a white settler nation we are standing on stolen grounds…” Blah, blah, virtue signal blah. What do you want to bet she happily collects those white settler dollars?

Also: anyone else get a distinct AOC vibe from her voice? Yeah, that’s not a compliment.

And here’s an idea. if you believe that this is a “white settler nation” *and* that that’s a bad thing…

 Posted by at 11:21 am

Time to close

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Aug 202022
 

You want food deserts? because this is how you get food deserts. Every store in a ten block radius that sells food or medical supplies should shut down until 90% of the people on camera here are arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced to a term of at least several years… or are “otherwise dealt with.” It’s up to the community to police themselves now that the police have been defunded and the prosecutors are “progressive.”

If you act like you’re in the third world… you’ll end up getting treated like you’re in the third world.

 

 

 Posted by at 4:30 pm

This week on “Bass Masters”

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Aug 172022
 

This video is from Ukraine, but is actually a few years old. Rather than depicting the aftermath of a missile or bomb strike, there was a nearby quarry and an explosion went a little “funny.” One thing that I *would* like an explanation on: at right about 26 seconds in, on the right side of the screen there’s a sizable plume.. and something large and dark seemed to *jump* out of the water. Theory: a very large chunk of rock finally fell out of the sky and hit something in the water, perhaps a log, and the thing that got hit see-sawed out.

 Posted by at 11:49 pm

Rain Of fire: updated

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Aug 172022
 

It seems the Russians are dropping air-burst incendiary weapons onto Ukraine, videos linked below. This is certainly visually impressive and doubtless monumentally intimidating… but damned if the engineer in me doesn’t wonder about how incredibly inefficient this seems to be. I mean… it looks like a *lot* of the WP magnesium is burning up while still in the sky. What’s you’d want is for it to burn in the *ground,* where it could do some damage. Clearly a lot of it is making it to the ground, but every bit that combusts Up There is that much less to do actual damage Down Here. Clearly these sort of weapons need to be set off somewhere above the ground for maximum area effect, but these seem to be getting set off way too high. I’m fuzzy on the legality of using incendiary weapons like this against civilian areas. I know it was a popular pastime during World War Two, but it was my understanding that the rules have changed a bit since then. But then, invading a sovereign nation in order to annex their territory is *also* supposed to be disallowed, and yet here we are.

UPDATE: more vids

Yeah, it’s visually damned impressive. It just seems like a *lot* of the incendiary potential is getting wasted. Which, under the circumstances, is a good thing, since these seem to be attempts to turn neighborhoods into firestorms.

 Posted by at 1:47 am

The pandemics march on

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., news, politics, science, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 162022
 

How thrilling.

Texas toddler presumed positive for monkeypox

Regardless of how the kid contracted the disease… A) it’s not the kids fault and B) kids tend to crawl all over each other. The more morons who couldn’t control their baser actions get the disease, the more likely they are to pass them on to kids, and then the more likely those kids are to pass them on to *other* kids. And soon enough… BAM, the schools shut down again.

A dog tested positive for monkeypox, and may have contracted the virus from his owners, raising questions about human-to-animal transmission

One more reason for the barbarians in charge of China to whack all their pets. If I lose pets due to this nonsense, I’m at the very least going to join a  class action suit against any organization that put on “Pride Month” events that spread this. My cats busting out on pustules because a bunch of perverts and weirdos could keep it in their pants for a few weeks would be the sort of thing that I would not forgive.

Polio May Have Been Spreading in New York Since April

Yay. I know Progressives think that FDR was actually a good President with a lot to emulate… but come on.

And it’s good to see how well Our Leaders  follow the science:

 Posted by at 11:52 pm

There’s no pleasing some people

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Aug 142022
 

So California and the rest of the southwest have been dealing with a “megadrought.” California responds to it with fires and riots and water bans and mass lootings (some of those are perennial California favorites drought or no drought). But now they have something new to complain about:

A disastrous megaflood is coming to California, experts say, and it could be the most expensive natural disaster in history

Claim is that thanks to climate change (remember: the carbon dioxide being burped into the atmosphere these days is disproportionately at the hands of China and India) a weather event that floods all of central California could come in the next 40 years and could recur every 50 years or so. If that’s the case, California would do well to prepare: Excavate new, vast reservoirs. Build aqueducts from likely flood zones to rivers and that great big ocean they’re sitting next to.

 Posted by at 9:58 pm

Expand your vocabulary

 AARRRGH, blather, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Aug 132022
 

A word for today:

vacuous [ vak-yoo-uhs ]

adjective

  1. without contents; empty: the vacuous air.
  2. lacking in ideas or intelligence: a vacuous mind.
  3. expressing or characterized by a lack of ideas or intelligence; inane; stupid: a vacuous book.
  4. purposeless; idle: a vacuous way of life.

Example:

Imagine “fireside chats” and “state of the Union” addresses like this.

 Posted by at 2:18 pm

And that’s the important thing

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Aug 132022
 

WHO plans to rename monkeypox over stigmatization concerns

Hey, here’s a thought: rather than renaming the disease, how about you tell people in important risk categories to stop being dumbasses and keep it in their pants for a month or two?

Oh, hey, and more good news:

Poliovirus detected in wastewater samples in New York City, health officials say

Anybody else remember when polio was one of them “old timey” diseases that nobody got anymore? Good times.

 Posted by at 12:31 am
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