Via the Althouse Blog:
Any similarity to a social media megacorp that is ruining western civilization is purely coincidental.
Via the Althouse Blog:
Any similarity to a social media megacorp that is ruining western civilization is purely coincidental.
This video is, I believe, probably two to three decades old…
Back before the yammering yahoos were forever going on about the need for “strong women characters,” pop culture was *full* of strong women characters. Star Trek: Voyager ended up kinda jam-packed with them… Janeway, Torres, Seven of Nine all ended up being well-written, well acted characters with distinct respectable personalities. Kes… meh, not so much. Modern live action Trek, sadly, has failed spectacularly in that regard, producing characters (both male and female) who run the short gamut from utterly forgettable to incredibly childish and annoying. Honestly: the bridge crew of the Discovery is *loaded* with women. How many of them do you even know the names of?
Janeway was a *proper* Starfleet captain: she commanded respect without having to berate people; she was emotionally affected by the things that happened around her and to her crew, but she was Captain enough to know when to keep it together. But then there’s “Michael Burnham.” Gah.
Burnham deserves no respect. Nor do the talentless hacks who write her.
Well… maybe some of us. Not me, but maybe somebody.
Sure, this is Britain, but the same nonsense would likely apply here as well:
A Cambridge University physical sciences professor sent out an email to his student saying:
“Please be careful how you handle yourselves here in these early weeks: remember that you are NOT at any other uni, where students do drink a lot and do have what they regard as a “good time” – and you are NOT on a course, as some Cambridge courses sadly are, where such a behaviour pattern in possible or acceptable.”
“Physical Sciences is a VERY hard subject, which will require ALL of your attention and your FULL brain capacity (and for a large fraction of you, even that will not be quite enough). You can ONLY do well (i.e. achieve your potential, which rightly or wrongly several people here assumed you have) I you are completely focused, and learn to enjoy the course. People who just TAKE the course, but enjoy their social life, can easily survive in many subjects — but not in this one.”
He is… NOT WRONG.
But people flipped out anyway.
I remember a few professors early in my aerospace engineering studies who made the same point, and they were not only not wrong, they were not wrong to do so. I had one Statics (a basic course required of *all* engineers, so the classroom was a huge auditorium) professor in particular who spent the first week badgering us, more or less bullying us to quit and find some field other than engineering. And he was partially successful: as memory serves, something like a third of the students bailed in that first week. And they were right to do so: if you can’t take some pressure, you shouldn’t be an engineer. If you go into art and get it wrong… who cares/ if you become an engineer and get it wrong. buildings collapse, planes explode, people die and nations fail. Science and engineering are *hard,* and spending your time partying and drinking will *not* help you. if the professor here convinces a student to study rather than party, he could well prevent an adequate student from becoming a failed one.
Those who are arguing that the professor is wrong are setting up students to fail. Even if the university dumbs down the requirements for graduation so that students who should have failed end up passing, once they get out into the private sector, they will find that they are incapable of remaining employed.
Gotta know how to talk to ’em.
When someone creates a fiction for political purposes, it can be Big News. When the story crumbles, look for it to not show up on the news at all.
Example:
One of the older videos on YouTube… a hundred tons of explosives going kerblam. Things to note:
1) Low rumble from the ground shock preceding the actual *bang*
2) the intersection of shock waves from separate explosions creating a toroidal vapor cloud
3) A whole lot of shrapnel spinning through the air.
It’s “age restricted” for no good reason. It’s not like people get blown up; it’s a controlled demolition. But it should play if you click through to YouTube.