Official BBO Hijacked Thread Thread

[Al_U_Card]

Fundamentals, judiciously practised and rigorously applied.

When swimming, do the hands dig deep or stay as shallow as possible?

When golfing, is the clubhead path to contact outside-in, as straight as possible or inside to out?

Even the application of vision and psychology are apt. Mentally seeing the action to be performed. Focusing on the object of interest. Choosing the smallest target possible. (My favorite and really applicable to my activities of golf, curling and bowling.)

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. :)

[Winstonm]

Absolutely everyone has their own style of learning. Here i my golf experience:

 

My Boy Scout troop ran scores at the St. Paul open. Sam Sneed, "Thunder" Bolt, many others. It looked like fun. I bought a bag, balls and clubs at the Salvation Army and got up early in the morning to play before anyone else was there to collect fees. I took the view that the idea was to hit the ball with the club. So I did. I wasn't great, but not awful, and I enjoyed it. In college I took a lot of Phys. Ed classes, swimming, gymnastics and swimming I remember. The guy teaching the golf class had a fine reputation I gather pros came from far away to get a tune up from him.. It totally ruined my game. I kept trying to do what he told me instead of what seemed to work. The swimming teacher had a different approach. He made sure we stayed in the water for an hour each day, but he kept the instruction to a few simple points. One time I swallowed some water and went to the edge of the pool to hang on. He stomped on my hand. I got a good deal better at swimming.

 

I have come to think of myself as pretty extreme in how I learn things. I very much need to think things through myself. Group learning has become popular in many schools, high schools at least. It would not have worked for me. I happily discussed things with friends, but only for a while. Then I needed to get away by myself and think about it. No conversation, no music in the background, no nothing.

 

One of my memorable experiences was attending a conference on learning where one guy lectured for an hour or more on why lecturing was an ineffective style of teaching. I think the irony of this never occurred to him.

 

Interesting. I found myself in similar position in that I have never been much good at rote memorization - to learn something I need the cause and effect, the how of it rather than the why of it. I wonder if there is a way that bridge players learn that is different from the population at large?

[kenberg]

Interesting. I found myself in similar position in that I have never been much good at rote memorization - to learn something I need the cause and effect, the how of it rather than the why of it. I wonder if there is a way that bridge players learn that is different from the population at large?

 

I am a strong believer that intelligence is highly varied, more so than people think, more so than can reasonably be measured.

I have a grandson in his first year in college, I was chatting with his mother. She mentioned how well he was doing, especially in math and physics, but he finds chemistry more of a challenge, mostly he finds it a challenge to get interested. I opined that physics and math make sense, once you understand the ideas you hardly need to memorize anything, while chemistry requires a lot of memorization. There is no reason that carbon should have an atomic number of 6, it just does (I think). My daughter was stunned, since he had told her almost exactly the same thing. My daughter's mother, my first wife, was (and is) an artist. Oil paintings and such. Bridge made absolutely no sense to her, but she could beat me at chess. Visualization, I guess.

 

Sometimes education people talk about how not everyone learns in the same way. Very true, but then they get off the track. Since not everyone learns in the same way, they somehow conclude from this that everyone should do group learning. No. We definitely need to learn things. There are various ways to go at it. And it's best if young people learn that they just might have more skills than they at first think. They find this out by trying.

 

Ok, I have platituded long enough.

[Winstonm]

I am a strong believer that intelligence is highly varied, more so than people think, more so than can reasonably be measured.

I have a grandson in his first year in college, I was chatting with his mother. She mentioned how well he was doing, especially in math and physics, but he finds chemistry more of a challenge, mostly he finds it a challenge to get interested. I opined that physics and math make sense, once you understand the ideas you hardly need to memorize anything, while chemistry requires a lot of memorization. There is no reason that carbon should have an atomic number of 6, it just does (I think). My daughter was stunned, since he had told her almost exactly the same thing. My daughter's mother, my first wife, was (and is) an artist. Oil paintings and such. Bridge made absolutely no sense to her, but she could beat me at chess. Visualization, I guess.

 

Sometimes education people talk about how not everyone learns in the same way. Very true, but then they get off the track. Since not everyone learns in the same way, they somehow conclude from this that everyone should do group learning. No. We definitely need to learn things. There are various ways to go at it. And it's best if young people learn that they just might have more skills than they at first think. They find this out by trying.

 

Ok, I have platituded long enough.

 

Not to beat a dead...well, you know...but in high school the chemistry teacher tried to make us memorize the periodic table - I refused because it made no sense when it was right there in the cover of the book. I figured it was a tool to be used. We didn't get to use our books so I made a D in chemistry that semester. Right or wrong, it left me not wanting anything to do with the sciences after that.

[kenberg]

Not to beat a dead...well, you know...but in high school the chemistry teacher tried to make us memorize the periodic table - I refused because it made no sense when it was right there in the cover of the book. I figured it was a tool to be used. We didn't get to use our books so I made a D in chemistry that semester. Right or wrong, it left me not wanting anything to do with the sciences after that.

 

An extreme reaction! Once when I asked a girl out she replied "Me? Go out with you?" I gave up on her but not on girls.

But I sometimes think that many ideas about education come from people who have totally forgotten their adolescent years.

[Winstonm]

An extreme reaction! Once when I asked a girl out she replied "Me? Go out with you?" I gave up on her but not on girls.

But I sometimes think that many ideas about education come from people who have totally forgotten their adolescent years.

 

 

The hormones were raging at that time so it didn't take much to unbalance the decision-making processes. :(

[Winstonm]

Words have consequences. From Daily Beast:

 

Three Illinois men have been charged in connection with the bombing of a Minnesota mosque last year that was allegedly carried out to “scare” Muslims out of the country. The U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield on Tuesday identified the three men as Michael B. Hari, 47, Joe Morris, 22, and Michael McWhorter, 29. The three men are accused of carrying out a bombing attack on the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, last August that caused no injuries but sparked panic in the community. They are also suspected of attempting to bomb an abortion clinic in November. It was not immediately clear why the men allegedly targeted the Minnesota mosque rather than one closer to home, but one of the men, McWhorter, reportedly told investigators the group wanted to show Muslims they are not welcome and “scare them out of the country.” Hari, accused of recruiting the other two men for the mosque attack, told the Chicago Tribune last year that he’d drafted a $10 billion plan for President Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border-wall initiative.

[Winstonm]

This is difficult to read without becoming nauseated.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A man who registered as a Green Party candidate for Montana’s U.S. Senate race was on the state Republican Party’s payroll and heads a newly formed anti-tax group, according to a review of election documents.

 

Timothy Adams filed as a challenger Monday against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, who faces a tough re-election campaign, in a race where a Green Party candidate could siphon votes from the Democrat.

[Al_U_Card]

This is difficult to read without becoming nauseated.

Yet another conspiracy to nauseat Winston by the Great Pumpkin? .... lol

[y66]

From the editors at the NYT Morning Briefing:

 

The reaction to our collaboration last week with The Times’s crossword column, Wordplay, was overwhelmingly positive, so we’re doing it again.

 

Each week, Wordplay’s editor, Deb Amlen, highlights the answer to one of the most difficult clues from the previous week.

 

This week’s word: aubade.

 

It was the answer to a clue in last Friday’s crossword: “Poem greeting the dawn.” (It might also be clued as “Morning music,” “Morning song” or “Sunrise song.”)

 

An aubade (pronounced o-BAHD) can also be a musical composition about the morning.

 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was first used in 1678 and was adopted by the French from the Spanish word “alba,” meaning sunrise.

 

An example is John Donne’s “The Sun Rising,” which, if nothing else, suggests that the English poet was not a morning person.

 

With that, we wish you a wonderful start to your day.

Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)

[Al_U_Card]

There is also the French : l'aube = the dawn.

I used to do the NYT for a while back in the late 90s, but the Sunday one was just too much like hard work ;)

[y66]

Not to beat a dead...well, you know...but in high school the chemistry teacher tried to make us memorize the periodic table - I refused because it made no sense when it was right there in the cover of the book. I figured it was a tool to be used. We didn't get to use our books so I made a D in chemistry that semester. Right or wrong, it left me not wanting anything to do with the sciences after that.

Last night at dinner my 4yo granddaughter talked about the egg-vinegar experiment. She does not know what chemistry is or what the periodic table is but she thought it was pretty cool to turn an egg into rubber. For Valentine's day my wife gave me a card that had these elements from the periodic table: Ni+Ce+As+S. Now I know what cerium is used for.

[Winstonm]

This is what happens when you treat conservative politics as your religion.

[Cyberyeti]

Last night at dinner my 4yo granddaughter talked about the egg-vinegar experiment. She does not know what chemistry is or what the periodic table is but she thought it was pretty cool to turn an egg into rubber. For Valentine's day my wife gave me a card that had these elements from the periodic table: Ni+Ce+As+S. Now I know what cerium is used for.

 

Your wife is sending you a card full of arsenic ?

[y66]

Your wife is sending you a card full of arsenic ?

More arse than arsenic in this case. If there was also an element of subconscious intent, it was not fatal. Not yet anyway.

[y66]

Good story by Elizabeth Weil at NYT: Why He Kayaked Across The Atlantic At Age 70 (For The Third Time)

[y66]

Meet Vaclav Smil, the man who has quietly shaped how the world thinks about energy by Paul Voosen at Science.

[Winstonm]

Any reasonable group - with the second amendment and gun rights as their reason to exist - would be rational and reasonable when it comes to frank talks about how to prevent criminals and other high-risk individuals from obtaining guns. With their continued attacks against teenage survivors of a shooting massacre, it is obvious that the NRA administration has no interest in protecting gun rights rather their sole reason to exist is to promote libertarian market-based ideology.

[Al_U_Card]

Any reasonable group - with the second amendment and gun rights as their reason to exist - would be rational and reasonable when it comes to frank talks about how to prevent criminals and other high-risk individuals from obtaining guns. With their continued attacks against teenage survivors of a shooting massacre, it is obvious that the NRA administration has no interest in protecting gun rights rather their sole reason to exist is to promote libertarian market-based ideology.

So, you are not a member and working to change them from the inside? ROFL

[Winstonm]

From Yahoo:

 

On Thursday, Laura Ingraham suddenly apologized for insulting and ridiculing school-shooting survivor David Hogg — but only after she began losing advertisers for her Fox News show and under the threat of losing more. The previous day, Ingraham felt not a twinge of decency when she tweeted an insult about Hogg getting rejections from a number of colleges, sneering that he was whining about it. In response, Hogg called for an advertiser boycott of The Ingraham Angle. By late afternoon, Nestle, Hulu, Wayfair, Johnson & Johnson, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, and others had yanked ads from her show.

 

Laura Ingraham could not act quickly enough to recant her previous contempt for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student and had the gall to dress her groveling in the cloak of religion. “On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland,” she said, and invited Hogg to appear on her show.

 

The quote is not entirely accurate. What Ingraham actual said was, "On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Shi#, I'm losing advertisers faster than the Titanic took on water, I apologize to my advertisers for being a complete network right-wing propaganda twit. To the Parkland kids, fu#@ off."

[Winstonm]

Well, Amen! brothers and sisters.

 

Former President George W. Bush’s longtime spiritual advisor, Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, the pastor of a Houston megachurch, has been indicted on federal charges of defrauding mostly elderly and vulnerable investors out of more than $1 million.

[y66]

From Tyler Cowen's review of The Away Game: The Epic Search for Soccer’s Next Superstars at Marginal Revolution:

 

I found this book by Sebastian Abbot very stimulating, though I wished for a more social-scientific treatment. The focus is on Africa, here is one bit on the more conceptual side:

 

But focusing on a young player’s technique still tells a scout relatively little about whether the kid will reach the top level, even when the observations are paired with physical measures of speed and agility. A study published in 2016 looked at the results from a battery of five tests conducted by the German soccer federation on over 20,000 of the top Under-12 players in the country. The tests measured speed, agility, dribbling, passing, and shooting. The researchers assessed the utility of the tests in determining how high the kids would progress once they reached the Under-16 to Under-19 level. The study found that players who scored in the 99th percentile or higher in the tests still only had a 6 percent chance of making the youth national team.

 

So what else might you look to?:

 

They assessed the game intelligence of players by freezing match footage at different moments and asking players to predict what would happen next or what decision a player on the field should make. Elite players were faster and more accurate in their ability to scan the field, pick up cues from an opponent’s position, and recognize, recall, and predict patterns of play.

 

And:

 

Researchers have found that the key ingredient is not how much formal practice or how many official games players had as kids, but how much pickup soccer they played in informal settings like the street or schoolyard.

 

The implications for economics study and speed chess are obvious. Finally:

 

Researchers found that athletes have a 25 percent larger attention window than nonathletes.

From Nicolas van de Walle's review at Foreign Affairs:

 

In 2007, Qatar, in an effort to build up its national soccer team, began a project to identify the most talented young soccer players in Africa and bring them to Doha for training. The effort was led by a Barcelona-based talent scout whose claim to fame was that he had discovered perhaps the most famous soccer player of the current era, the Argentine forward Lionel Messi. Abbot’s book follows the fortunes of three young African players who participated in the Qatari program and for whom soccer represented a ticket out of poverty. In the end, none of the three made it: it turns out that it is hard to predict who will be the next Messi, particularly in countries where it is easy to forge a birth certificate and convince a scout that a 12-year-old is actually 16. African recruits have become stars on many of the world’s top professional teams, but a far more common trajectory for them involves shameless exploitation by a motley assortment of fixers, coaches, scouts, and other intermediaries who all hope to profit off the players. Abbot’s book is an excellent introduction to this shady world.

[Winstonm]

Odd that a group of high school students have become the Herecles to the far right Hydra. Those who are hardliners will never change their minds, so that smaller base will always remain; but to win national elections, the right needs independents and people who are not so radicalized.

 

The prisoner's dilemma the right finds itself in is that it must condemn a bunch of high school kid victims of a mass shooting and lose their middle-of-the-road support or not condemn those kids and lose their base - when the rational outcome would be to hold principled and constructive discussions about genuine solutions.

 

Now, if we could only get those kids to cut off the other heads...

[Aberlour10]

WOW; One of Warsaw's main streets has just been named after Donald J. Trump. Who would have thought it....

[Winstonm]

New details at Daily Beast about the Prince Seychelles meeting.

 

Tick-tock, tick-tock...