Yeah - I’ve noticed Big Lots (similar kind of store) hasn’t been that much better than Walmart or whichever store the items first came from.

Clearance sales also seem to getting worse across the board. My Walmart puts dented cans and packages with missing stuff out for maybe $1-2 off at most.

Which makes me wonder - getting stung by a scorpion makes more sense than getting bitten?

(From that same list, my favorite was “brewing beer.”)

Isn’t it wonderful that google SEO algorithm updates essentially killed off independent forums and blogs? Half of my search results are Reddit and completely irrelevant AI spam.

For as long as it lasts. It’s clear they’re neglecting it - features like chat don’t work well. Not that the app isn’t a broken glitchy mess either.

My university gradually replaced all the affordable on campus place with over priced prestige brands. The coffee places all got swapped with Starbucks and doubled in price. The on campus taco mayo got replaced with a chipotle.

Pain is googling “instant heartburn relief” at 3 am. “Have you tried going back in time to eat less garbage?” as well as the suggestion to literally drink acid (apple cider vinegar).

This is a photoshop. It’s not real. It’s old enough that it’s not even “AI.”

“This tablet is of a type used by the Assyrian merchants to track the income and expenses generated by caravan shipments. The cuneiform text, read from left to right, records not only the amount of silver invested in tin and textiles, but also the less commonly traded precious stone lapis lazuli, which was sourced from Afghanistan. In addition to investments in trade items, these shipments required various expenditures like clothing and wages for guides, as well as donkeys and their equipment and fodder. Donkeys became important trade items themselves and were often sold upon the caravan’s arrival in Anatolia after the arduous 6-8 week journey from Ashur. The tablet also records other fees, payments, and purchases, before calculating the total money owed to the prominent merchant Imdi-ilum who was active in the caravan trade between 1888 and 1876 B.C. Interestingly, the final balance recorded in the tablet, 1 mina and 50 shekels of silver, is slightly more than the actual total calculated from the figures provided (1 mina, 48 5/6 shekels). Such minor discrepancies are common in the Old Assyrian texts and several erasures on the text indicate the care with which the account was made.”

-The Met

Also this thing is from like the 19th cent. Which makes sense - 2800 BCE don’t bruh

This is unlikely to happen unless you are neglecting your home maintenance - the mushrooms are probably the least of these folks worries.

I think seeing his fans then was a contributing factor…

The Schrödinger equation is a multi variable second order partial differential equation. You end up with a “position operator” and a “momentum operator” (momentum is mass times velocity, so we focus on the velocity bit). Because of the way that taking a partial derivative works, you end up applying one you can’t get the other.

Idk that’s probably a terrible explanation (I got a C in that class lol), but it is really cool when you see how the math works.

In my specific context I’m usually tutoring and not introducing the concepts - they’ve all learned PEMDAS and changing one letter is much easier. I suggest “groups” because they absolutely struggle with manipulating expressions inside radicals. I usually pair it with a short discussion of the purpose of notation.

I appreciate your mention of the importance of teaching the difference between operators and terms. My pedagogical background is in the sciences and I’m much better at doing math than teaching it 😅

I would like if math classes (in my area) did more explicitly teach the difference between terms and operators. I say “you can’t divide out the log” pretty much every day.

Is it? My understanding is that Japan didn’t have a lot of awareness of the AIDS crisis (and still doesn’t really?)

I thought the body horror was more associated with fears of scientific progress. I’ve only seen Akira once so I’d love to watch it again in light of other interpretations.

I did a pizza party for the class that made the most improvement on a benchmark test. Paid ~$100 in my own money, tried to get everyone enough for two slices. It wasn’t the right kind of pizza, they were still hungry, I didn’t get the right soda… fuck me for not dropping that cash on a fat j instead.

I love all the candy that is “fat free.”

It might be helpful to try both techniques yourself.

You can buy a spool at Walmart for pretty cheap, they’re often available at thrift stores for less. You’ll want to look up an “i-cord” tutorial. Any old yarn will do honestly, the acrylic super savers will work.

Nålbinding will require that you use wool. The joining process involves felting the ends together (an extra knitter might do this, but it’s not necessary - it’s okay to tie them together because you’re weaving in ends afterwards). Felting is using water and patience to shape wool. For practice, you can use a cheap plastic tapestry needle honestly - save money here because the wool is going to run you a bit more.

I find nålbinding uncomfortable and slow, personally.

You’re wrong, but here’s some cool socks that someone might have worn while making dodecahedrons: https://youtu.be/SCIV27RVA90?si=inVWHIQz5bDV9LV3

Nålbinding is a very different technique because it is early - working with small scraps of fiber because you’re just grabbing what’s available, and it’s a technique that closes itself (unlike knitting or crochet, you don’t have to “weave in” the ends). Nålbinding also involves you working “off thumb.”

It’s very fun to imagine that Romans had a nifty way of mass producing gloves. But it’s a massive stretch. Clothing was made at home, by the women of the home. Poor women would not have been able to afford a fancy doohickey. Wealthy women didn’t make their own clothes. Prestige clothing (eg togas) was primarily woven.

I’ve seen lots of cool people make art with things that weren’t intended for the purpose of making art, and that’s great! Folks can write messages in the sky with airplanes - that doesn’t mean that airplanes were invented for skywriting.

Nålbinding and knitting are not the same. They look very similar in the finished product, and can be hard to tell apart by non-experts, but are made by entirely separate processes. Because of the difficulty in identification - because honestly, many archeologists and historians before the 1970s were extremely ignorant on the history of “day to day” folks - many items were misidentified.

What the granny did was spool knitting - see https://youtu.be/cWNhi1iEIvk?si=g38FJCuCr3l78gPe

Nålbinding looks like - https://youtu.be/ouOHK-D0TGM?si=uXTwlbXpl6IyOdvY

Key differences: Nålbinding uses smaller, shorter strands tied together (early spinning methods = shorter bits to work with). Nålbinding works with one finger holding the stitches, the earliest knitting (which tbh, didn’t really reach Europe until the late medieval period) was worked in the round on multiple double pointed needles. What the earliest knitting looked like wouldn’t have looked what granny was doing, or either of the two videos linked above. (I tried to find a video but FUCK dpens, circ gang 4lyf)

Less ambiguously worded: knitting did not exist in Roman late antiquity. Romans produced their fabric by weaving. It’s very easy to tell the difference when looking at a fabric if someone points it out to you. Knitting was an early medieval probably Middle Eastern/North African invention. It took a while to spread.

It’s very awesome that someone was able to use a model of one of these to knit a glove, but one time I got wasted and knit with pencils. I really love imagining little Roman schoolchildren in woolen mittens and beanies, but it’s just not realistic.

Knitting isn’t attested until almost a millennium after this artifact was created. Nålbinding was practiced during this era in a variety of areas and can look very similar, but is mechanically very diffferent.