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ask-fantasy-sanders-sides · 3 years

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yeaaaaahhhhh, piety points……(what are piety points?)

Piety Points are the Game's way of measuring how devoted a humanoid is to their Deity, (and how much power the Deity and their temples give them in return,) completely independent of player Class or Race!

Peity Points are basically the God-and-Follower version of Bonds, measuring both the follower's personal devotion to their Deity and the Deity's approval of that follower's actions.

(Remember, since Bond numbers must be reciprocated, someone who follows a Deity's principles by nature but doesn't really venerate them will not have a bond/piety points, and neither will someone who adores a Deity but doesn't actually follow their rules. For example: Someone who worships Lathander but twists his teachings, and uses them as a justification to hurt innocent people? Lathander does not approve of that, so that person probably doesn't have Piety Points.)

You can have any number of Points, which are Earned and Lost based on criteria set by the Deity. They are very difficult to earn, meaning that a Player must do many great deeds in the name of their Deity to collect them! These Great Deeds can be personal or interpersonal; saving a town from imminent demise will obviously earn you some points, but so will overcoming personal weaknesses that are important to you.

There are five Ranks of Piety, which determine how much power you get from your deity and how well-known you are in your temple.

For a neat breakdown, let's look at Amaryllis and Sune:

As decreed by the Goddess of Love and Beauty, you can Earn Piety Points from Sune by:

Awakening love in others, or Inspiring them with your beauty

Embracing the throes of passion wherever they take you

Preforming loving acts, and responding to love from others

Taking decisive action on impulse

Acquiring beautiful items, and protecting the people that make them

And, likewise, you can Lose Piety Points from Sune by:

Hiding away or disregarding your own beauty

Betraying a loved one in any way

Denying the gifts of love to yourself or another

Putting outward appearance over inner beauty

Destroying beautiful things, actively or through inaction

Rank 1: Faithful (1-2 Piety Points)

Those who believe on a basic level are the most fundamental and common followers to a deity. However, there are those that stand above the crowds, those whose belief is unquestionable and unquestioned; They are the Faithful! Becoming a faithful grants you access to the most basic of the inner workings of the Church. You are able to request and receive personal aid from the church (like food, shelter, minor healing, etc), and you can perform ceremonies as well as bless certain actions in the name of your god. Sune's Faithful are known as Suneites.

Rank 2: Devoted (3-9 Piety Points)

You have proven that your belief is not simply faith in the god, but true and honest Devotion! Your superiors have come to value and rely on your service. It’s a heavy burden to bear, but you do it gladly, and succeed where others have failed. Your god recognizes your service with a gift! As a devotee of Sune, your incredible beauty has garnered her attention and adoration. You can cast Ceremony with this trait, requiring no material components, a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Rank 3: Votary (10-24 Piety Points)

Each person that achieves the rank of Votary has proven to be staunch and unwavering bastion of faith, devotion and service, both to the church and to the community that it serves. These characters have at their service a portion of the might of the Church, and can call on the assistance of the church for minor needs. A Pious character gains a title and rank within the Church, and is given the ability to command a small number of soldiers of the faith, or to requisition a number of scribes and clerics of the faith for research, transcription and other menial tasks. Sune's Votaries are known as a Sibling/Sister/Brother of the Ruby Rose. Sune's love glows warmly in your heart! With this trait, you can cast Beakon of Hope. Once you cast the spell in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell. In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against being charmed.

Rank 4: Disciple (25-49 Piety Points)

You have made a thunderous name for yourself among the church elders and much of the general populace throughout the land, with renown going far beyond your own temple. You have moved up in the ranks of the church, and are awarded with titles, lands and followers of your own! You are recognized as one of the leaders of your faith, and given great leeway with what you do, as it is assumed you are always doing the gods will. Sune's Disciples are known as Heartwarders, usually being the most handsome/beautiful clergy member both inside and out! They were expected to keep their appearance as flattering as possible to their own tastes, and shower others with sweet words at least five times a month. They often worked as matchmakers, etiquette instructors, artists, or teachers in a myriad of creative disciplines, such as visual arts, dance and performance art, vocal and instrumental music, personal beautification, and social etiquette. You have grown more than accustomed to the blazing fires of obsession; You can cast Flame Strike with this trait, requiring no material components. Once you cast the spell in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Rank 5: Champion (50+ Piety Points)

At this point in time, you have become a walking embodiment of the gods will on earth. Though you may not desire it, you have been gifted a grand title and immense pull with the faithful the world over. Your legend grows with every day you live and each story told about you blows your possible deeds out of proportion, crediting you with everything from the sunrise to the death of kings and enemies of the religion. You can ask for great services from the church, as the faithful flock to your command. You are the absolute pinnacle of deific influence wielded by a mortal. At this point a heartwarder became a creature of the fey, along with all their inherent strengths. In addition, You can increase your Charisma or Wisdom score by 2 and also increase your maximum for that score by 2.

(Amy is here! She has 69 Piety Points)

...Although there is no official “Piety Rank 6,″ it is believed that you do get more powers from passing even further than 50 points. Some Heartwarders who are particularly favored by Sune have been said to have one or more additional powers:

Through divine grace, heartwarders' tears can be magically changed into the waters of Evergold, aka the Fountain of Youth. This solution was deadly to opponents who were necrotic or infernal in nature. With more experience, Heartwarders could also use their tears to make a love potion valued highly by the faithful.

Through Sune's Caress, Heartwarders could heal others as their own flesh is mended.

Heartwarders could charge their kiss with rapturous power, bringing sensations of safety, adoration, and complete and overwhelming pleasure to any they bestowed it upon. This kiss blessed those it touched, granting them increased resistance against magical effects for a short duration. (A heartwarder's kiss was so potent that it sometimes confused and dazed the recipient as well.)

Heartwarders could also kiss those who were at a distance by means of a unique spell.

Heartwarders could imbue themselves with Siren’s Voice, which helped hone their voice into a sweet and enchanting sound that weakened the will of their enemies, in turn placing them under enchantment.

So great was the love heartwarders had for their fellow allies, that their divine power could absorb some of the harm caused to them. While it reduced the lethality of an attack, it hurt the heartwarder in turn.

Most of the Clergy also believes that Aasimar of Sune are born with all of these powers dormant within themselves, regardless of their rank or level! This has never been concretely proven, with Aasimar being so rare, but the belief persists...

#lets roll #long post #long answer #please tell me if i need to tag anything else!#game mechanics #game lore

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stitchlesswitch · 4 years

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Spell Jar to Protect Protestors, Protect Black People, and Bring Racial Justice 🖤

I know it’s not enough, but it’s a start.

I couldn’t find a lot of correspondences for Justice, so it was really tricky and I had to get creative. I tried to include as many ideas and substitutes as I could to make this widely accessible.

Instructions:

Step One: add your favorite protective correspondence that isn’t a crystal

I recommend using any form of dragons blood you have: burning incense, add the dragons blood crystal when we get to that part, for me, I have a dragons blood “solution” (the red bottle).

If you do not have dragons blood, please substitute it with your Favorite protective correspondence, such as sandal wood (again in any form).

Unless it is a crystal, add that ingredient First.

Step Two: add herbs

Garlic salt (or just garlic) for protection

Black pepper (or any form of pepper) curse breaking, to represent destroying racism

Thyme for strength

Cinnamon for speedy results

Black salt (mix any white salt with ashes from incense) for protection and curse breaking

(Other things you can use to represent protection: sand, eggshells, coffee, nails)

Step Three: add intent (note)

Next, write a note that says “Protect Protestors, Protect Black People, Bring Racial Justice” and place it inside.

Step Four: add crystals

Smokey quartz for protection

Carnelian for Justice

Kyanite—Black kyanite specifically corresponds to Justice, but I only had blue kyanite. Blue corresponds to speaking truth, so I argue they are similar enough if you only have blue like me.

I added literal charcoal, to represent absorbing the toxic racism. (Cut off a piece of sponge as a substitute if need be. Onions also work, but they rot.)

As mentioned earlier, if your favorite protective substitute is in crystal form, add it now.

Step Five: add justice correspondences

Now is where things get complicated. The only correspondences for Justice I could find were “Jupiter, Athens, Ma’at, chestnuts, carnelian, and black kyanite.”

If you have chestnuts, awesome, I didn’t. I had to get really creative on representations of Justice. In American culture a lot of symbolism for Justice is inherently tied to things that represent America, and for obvious reasons I tried to stay away from such imagery. Here’s what I did, with suggestions for ideas.

I added the triforce. Hear me out. Link from the legend of Zelda was the first hero I was exposed to as a child — to me he represents the essence of a literal knight in shining armor.

My idea for you is to use a superhero. Like Spider-Man for example. Some symbol of a superhero to represent justice.

Going off that train of thought, now would be a good time to include Dietes, cultural/mythological figures, and or real historical people. Maybe you have dietes in your religion that represent justice, and have correspondences. Maybe there’s a mythological figure in your culture that you relate to justice (it’s not a culture, but dragons represent justice and protection to me). Maybe you’re a fan of one of the many amazing historical figures that fought against racism, and have something that represents them. Add it!

Next I included two snake teeth, to represent a dragon. One tooth for Justice one tooth for protection.

Next I added two bullets. One for protection. One for Justice.

Next I added my wisdom tooth. Teeth represent protection and strength. I like to think the “wisdom” part represents the righteousness of the protestors. The blood that stained my tooth represented the lives lost.

To me it was important to recognize the lives lost. As a substitute for blood, I recommend dropping (3) drops of red candle wax.

Now, I realize very few of you have bullets and teeth laying around. I’m not saying these are the best choices, I’m saying these are what I had. Like I said, you seriously need to get creative. You have to literally look around and use what you can. Think of animals and elements that represent justice.

If you want to hex the police, I’d recommend adding broken pig bones.

Step Six: cover it with a protective essential oil

I chose frankincense and myrrh. These were brought to Jesus at his birth, so I relate them strongly to what Jesus represents, including justice.

Step Seven: seal

I strongly recommend sealing with black candle wax for protection.

#witches against white supremacy #hex racists #black lives matter #christian witch #christian witchcraft #witchblr #witch tips #witchy advice #witch #witches #witchcraft #spell jar #anti racism

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weirdcanucks · 4 years

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For our final film of the series, we look at the subject of Indigenous hockey. Based on Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese’s novel, Indian Horse uses the hook of hockey to grapple with Canada’s darkest policy: the Indian residential school system.

We'll look at the criticism towards this film: failure to keep the novel's indigenous storytelling methods, narrative colonialism (adapted entirely by white key creatives), and more importantly, the industry problem of the lacking opportunities for Indigenous filmmakers. Circling back to the Holtby mask and Canucks logo cases, I think it's very well worth a read!

Synopsis

Torn from his Ojibwe family as a child in the 1950s, Saul Indian Horse is left to languish in an Ontario residential school, where he's forbidden to speak his own language and faces corporal punishment for the slightest transgression. Undaunted, Saul finds salvation on a sheet of ice, where he demonstrates a hockey sense that allows him to slip bodychecks with a dancer's grace and constantly leaves him three moves ahead of opponents. However, even when his talent allows him to escape the school and places him on the precipice of stardom, he can't evade the ramifications of past abuses.

Keep Reading for:

Why wasn’t an Indigenous director hired to make Indian Horse?

Indian Horse and the limits of allyship in adaptation

Rethinking Canada through Indigenous hockey

Witnessing painful past: Understanding the images of sports at Canadian Residential School

📄 Why wasn’t an Indigenous director hired to make Indian Horse?

Director Stephen S. Campanelli explains his reaction to reading the late Richard Wagamese’s novel and Dennis Foon’s adapted screenplay. “I was shocked and angered and embarrassed to be a Canadian and not know about this. And I wrote an impassioned six-page email saying why I needed to direct it.”

The uncomfortable question that I’m certainly not the first to ask is why Campanelli’s need to direct a story he previously knew nothing about is prioritized over the ambition of numerous Indigenous filmmakers who have been waiting for the opportunity to tell their stories.

Indigenous audiences at screenings across the country have expressed how much the film has touched them. There are others who, like me, were left a bit horrified. We are talking about a film reckoning with colonialism that has been adapted entirely by white key creatives (the main producers, director and writer), a set-up we could argue is narrative colonialism.

“It felt like extractive filmmaking at its finest,” says filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, a member of the Kainai First Nation and Sámi from Norway. “I felt like I was watching a spectacle of Indigenous trauma,” says Tailfeathers. “It was very apparent that there were no Indigenous key creatives. There’s an outsider/insider perspective. As outsiders, they are inevitably going to tell the story wrong because they don’t get it. They haven’t lived it. They don’t understand it from the perspective of lived experience. And it’s reflected so clearly onscreen. It’s yet another film about Indigenous people by non-Indigenous people for non-Indigenous people. It was made for settler audiences to have this emotional catharsis and walk away and feel like they did something.”

“It’s being paraded as an Indigenous film. But it’s not. It’s taking up space. And that’s what settlers do. It’s about them taking up space. It’s about them choosing which stories have value. It’s about them choosing whose voices should be heard.”

The persistent challenge for Indigenous filmmakers is that no matter how much talent they show in their short films and micro features, it barely translates to bigger opportunities at making features. Instead they often find themselves working on projects for settler storytellers, populating consulting roles on features or acting as the sole First Nations representative in the writers’ room on a television series. It’s tokenism easing the way for narrative colonialism.

“Tokenism comes from this inherent understanding that [the settler storytellers] are not really coming from a place of truth,” says Tailfeathers. “They haven’t properly collaborated. They haven’t properly worked with the community whose story they’re extracting. We’re an afterthought. And that’s very apparent in their process."

That process also often trumpets good intentions and well-meaning decisions.

“There’s been a long history of good intentions,” says Jesse Wente of the newly formed Indigenous Screen Office. “Remember, the residential schools were well intentioned in theory. There are many instances where you have non-Indigenous storytellers who are very well intentioned. But the reality is that when it comes to movies made about First Nations people, roughly 99.9 percent of them have been made by non-Indigenous peoples. That sort of overwhelming history suggests that maybe those good intentions are getting in the way of better results. Even if you come with the best of intentions, at what point will it be okay with the over-culture that Indigenous people get to tell their own stories? We are long overdue.”

📄 Indian Horse and the limits of allyship in adaptation

While the filmmakers get that the content of the story isn’t theirs to tell, the way the story is told on screen significantly alters the tone. Wagamese’s novel immerses the reader in Saul’s personal subjectivity, an essential component of indigenous knowledge and storytelling. The novel is framed as Saul writing his story down to share only with a counsellor he trusts. By extension, this forms a personal relationship with the reader as someone to be trusted. Saul writes his narrative relationally, with brief asides about culture and memory to contextualize his story.

In attempting to faithfully adapt the novel’s plot, the filmmakers abandon one of Indian Horse’s most affecting aspects, its storytelling methods. While readers serve as Saul’s trusted audience, film viewers are independent observers of Saul and his surroundings. The film even gives viewers access to scenes where Saul was not present, such as school staff meetings and incidents of abuse. Had the filmmaking team involved indigenous members, they could have been in a better position to find a creative solution to adaptation that actually reflects an indigenous storytelling perspective. Instead, the result is a film that brings a vital story to a potentially wider audience, but feels like a story told second-hand.

⏪ Our previous post on Rethinking Canada through Indigenous hockey

⏪ Our previous post on Understanding the images of sports at Canadian Residential School

#change hockey culture #film #indigenous hockey

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.

DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.

He argues that every word of it is a lie. American education isn't getting worse by absolute standards: students match or outperform their peers from 20 or 50 years ago. It's not getting worse by international standards: America's PISA rankings are mediocre, but the country has always scored near the bottom of international rankings, even back in the 50s and 60s when we were kicking Soviet ass and landing men on the moon. Race and gender gaps are stable or decreasing. American education is doing much as it's always done - about as well as possible, given the crushing poverty, single parent-families, violence, and racism holding back the kids it's charged with shepherding to adulthood.

…

For decades, politicians of both parties have thought of education as "the great leveller" and the key to solving poverty. If people are stuck in boring McJobs, it's because they're not well-educated enough to be surgeons and rocket scientists. Give them the education they need, and they can join the knowledge economy and rise into the upper-middle class. For lack of any better politically-palatable way to solve poverty, this has kind of become a totem: get better schools, and all those unemployed Appalachian coal miners can move to Silicon Valley and start tech companies. But you can't do that. Not everyone is intellectually capable of doing a high-paying knowledge economy job. Schools can change your intellectual potential a limited amount. Ending child hunger, removing lead from the environment, and similar humanitarian programs can do a little more, but only a little. In the end, a lot of people aren't going to make it.

So what can you do? DeBoer doesn't think there's an answer within the existing system. Instead, we need to dismantle meritocracy.

DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent. DeBoer agrees conservatives can be satisfied with this, but thinks leftists shouldn't be. Natural talent is just as unearned as class, race, or any other unfair advantage.

One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough education can solve any problem. But more fundamentally it's also the troubling belief that after we jettison unfair theories of superiority based on skin color, sex, and whatever else, we're finally left with what really determines your value as a human being - how smart you are. DeBoer recalls hearing an immigrant mother proudly describe her older kid's achievements in math, science, etc, "and then her younger son ran by, and she said, offhand, 'This one, he is maybe not so smart.'" DeBoer was originally shocked to hear someone describe her own son that way, then realized that he wouldn't have thought twice if she'd dismissed him as unathletic, or bad at music. Intelligence is considered such a basic measure of human worth that to dismiss someone as unintelligent seems like consigning them into the outer darkness. So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized by the insistence on genetic differences in intelligence - isn't this denying the equality of Man, declaring some people inherently superior to others? Only if you conflate intelligence with worth, which DeBoer argues our society does constantly. It starts with parents buying Baby Einstein tapes and trying to send their kids to the best preschool, continues through the "meat grinder" of the college admissions process when everyone knows that whoever gets into Harvard is better than whoever gets into State U, and continues when the meritocracy rewards the straight-A Harvard student with a high-paying powerful job and the high school dropout with drudgery or unemployment. Even the phrase "high school dropout" has an aura of personal failure about it, in a way totally absent from "kid who always lost at Little League".

DeBoer isn't convinced this is an honest mistake. He draws attention to a sort of meta-class-war - a war among class warriors over whether the true enemy is the top 1% (this is the majority position) or the top 20% (this is DeBoer's position; if you've read Staying Classy, you'll immediately recognize this disagreement as the same one that divided the Church and UR models of class). The 1% are the Buffetts and Bezoses of the world; the 20% are the "managerial" class of well-off urban professionals, bureaucrats, creative types, and other mandarins. Opposition to the 20% is usually right-coded; describe them as "woke coastal elites who dominate academia and the media", and the Trump campaign ad almost writes itself. But some Marxists flirt with it too; the book references Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's Theory Of The Aspirational Class, and you can hear echoes of this every time Twitter socialists criticize "Vox liberals" or something. Access to the 20% is gated by college degree, and their legitimizing myth is that their education makes them more qualified and humane than the rest of us. DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good serves their class interest; "equality of opportunity" means we should ignore all other human distinctions in favor of the one that our ruling class happens to excel at.

So maybe equality of opportunity is a stupid goal. DeBoer argues for equality of results. This is a pretty extreme demand, but he's a Marxist and he means what he says. He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth.

…

I'm Freddie's ideological enemy, which means I have to respect him. And there's a lot to like about this book. I think its two major theses - that intelligence is mostly innate, and that this is incompatible with equating it to human value - are true, important, and poorly appreciated by the general population. I tried to make a somewhat similar argument in my Parable Of The Talents, which DeBoer graciously quotes in his introduction. Some of the book's peripheral theses - that a lot of education science is based on fraud, that US schools are not declining in quality, etc - are also true, fascinating, and worth spreading. Overall, I think this book does more good than harm.

It's also rambling, self-contradictory in places, and contains a lot of arguments I think are misguided or bizarre.

…

At the time, I noted that meritocracy has nothing to do with this. The intuition behind meritocracy is: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The above does away with any notions of "desert", but I worry it's still accepting too many of DeBoer's assumptions. A better description might be: Your life depends on a difficult surgery. You can hire whatever surgeon you want to perform it. You are willing to pay more money for a surgeon who aced medical school than for a surgeon who failed it. So higher intelligence leads to more money.

This not only does away with "desert", but also with reified Society deciding who should prosper. More meritorious surgeons get richer not because "Society" has selected them to get rich as a reward for virtue, but because individuals pursuing their incentives prefer, all else equal, not to die of botched surgeries. Meritocracy isn't an -ocracy like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen.

…

I think DeBoer would argue he's not against improving schools. He just thinks all attempts to do it so far have been crooks and liars pillaging the commons, so much so that we need a moratorium on this kind of thing until we can figure out what's going on. But I'm worried that his arguments against existing school reform are in some cases kind of weak.

DeBoer does make things hard for himself by focusing on two of the most successful charter school experiments. If he'd been a little less honest, he could have passed over these and instead mentioned the many charter schools that fail, or just sort of plod onward doing about as well as public schools do. I think the closest thing to a consensus right now is that most charter schools do about the same as public schools for white/advantaged students, and slightly better than public schools for minority/disadvantaged students. But DeBoer very virtuously thinks it's important to confront his opponents' strongest cases, so these are the ones I'll focus on here.

…

These are good points, and I would accept them from anyone other than DeBoer, who will go on to say in a few chapters that the solution to our education issues is a Marxist revolution that overthrows capitalism and dispenses with the very concept of economic value. If he's willing to accept a massive overhaul of everything, that's failed every time it's tried, why not accept a much smaller overhaul-of-everything, that's succeeded at least once? There are plenty of billionaires willing to pour fortunes into reforming various cities - DeBoer will go on to criticize them as deluded do-gooders a few chapters later. If billions of dollars plus a serious commitment to ground-up reform are what we need, let's just spend billions of dollars and have a serious commitment to ground-up reform! If more hurricanes is what it takes to fix education, I'm willing to do my part by leaving my air conditioner on 'high' all the time.

…

DeBoer spends several impassioned sections explaining how opposed he is to scientific racism, and arguing that the belief that individual-level IQ differences are partly genetic doesn't imply a belief that group-level IQ differences are partly genetic. Some reviewers of this book are still suspicious, wondering if he might be hiding his real position. I can assure you he is not. Seriously, he talks about how much he hates belief in genetic group-level IQ differences about thirty times per page. Also, sometimes when I write posts about race, he sends me angry emails ranting about how much he hates that some people believe in genetic group-level IQ differences - totally private emails nobody else will ever see. I have no reason to doubt that his hatred of this is as deep as he claims.

But I understand why some reviewers aren't convinced. This book can't stop tripping over itself when it tries to discuss these topics. DeBoer grants X, he grants X -> Y, then goes on ten-page rants about how absolutely loathsome and abominable anyone who believes Y is.

Remember, one of the theses of this book is that individual differences in intelligence are mostly genetic. But DeBoer spends only a little time citing the studies that prove this is true. He (correctly) decides that most of his readers will object not on the scientific ground that they haven't seen enough studies, but on the moral ground that this seems to challenge the basic equality of humankind. He (correctly) points out that this is balderdash, that innate differences in intelligence don't imply differences in moral value, any more than innate differences in height or athletic ability or anything like that imply differences in moral value. His goal is not just to convince you about the science, but to convince you that you can believe the science and still be an okay person who respects everyone and wants them to be happy.

He could have written a chapter about race that reinforced this message. He could have reviewed studies about whether racial differences in intelligence are genetic or environmental, come to some conclusion or not, but emphasized that it doesn't matter, and even if it's 100% genetic it has no bearing at all on the need for racial equality and racial justice, that one race having a slightly higher IQ than another doesn't make them "superior" any more than Pygmies' genetic short stature makes them "inferior".

Instead he - well, I'm not really sure what he's doing. He starts by says racial differences must be environmental. Then he says that studies have shown that racial IQ gaps are not due to differences in income/poverty, because the gaps remain even after controlling for these. But, he says, there could be other environmental factors aside from poverty that cause racial IQ gaps. After tossing out some possibilities, he concludes that he doesn't really need to be able to identify a plausible mechanism, because "white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it's irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it", no matter how many studies we do or how many confounders we eliminate. His argument, as far as I can tell, is that it's always possible that racial IQ differences are environmental, therefore they must be environmental. Then he goes on to, at great length, denounce as loathsome and villainous anyone who might suspect these gaps of being genetic. Such people are "noxious", "bigoted", "ugly", "pseudoscientific" "bad people" who peddle "propaganda" to "advance their racist and sexist agenda". (But tell us what you really think!)

…

This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray's thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can't find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I'd be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I'm misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn't be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I've vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is "I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away". And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolveable biases on this question: one, I'm a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I'm far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.

…

That last sentence about the basic principle is the thesis of The Cult Of Smart, so it would have been a reasonable position for DeBoer to take too. DeBoer doesn't take it. He acknowledges the existence of expert scientists who believe the differences are genetic (he names Linda Gottfredson in particular), but only to condemn them as morally flawed for asserting this.

But this is exactly the worldview he is, at this very moment, trying to write a book arguing against! His thesis is that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among individuals, because that would make some people fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - but those voices are wrong, because differences in intelligence don't affect moral equality. Then he adds that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, because that would make some groups fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - and those voices are right; we must deny the differences lest we accept the morally repugnant thing.

Normally I would cut DeBoer some slack and assume this was some kind of Straussian manuever he needed to do to get the book published, or to prevent giving ammunition to bad people. But no, he has definitely believed this for years, consistently, even while being willing to offend basically anybody about basically anything else at any time. So I'm convinced this is his true belief. I'm just not sure how he squares it with the rest of his book.

…

"Smart" equivocates over two concepts - high-IQ and successful-at-formal-education. These concepts are related; in general, high-IQ people get better grades, graduate from better colleges, etc. But they're not exactly the same.

There is a cult of successful-at-formal-education. Society obsesses over how important formal education is, how it can do anything, how it's going to save the world. If you get gold stars on your homework, become the teacher's pet, earn good grades in high school, and get into an Ivy League, the world will love you for it.

But the opposite is true of high-IQ. Society obsessively denies that IQ can possibly matter. Admit to being a member of Mensa, and you'll get a fusillade of "IQ is just a number!" and "people who care about their IQ are just overcompensating for never succeeding at anything real!" and "IQ doesn't matter, what about emotional IQ or grit or whatever else, huh? Bet you didn't think of that!" Science writers and Psychology Today columnists vomit out a steady stream of bizarre attempts to deny the statistical validity of IQ.

These are two sides of the same phenomenon. Some people are smarter than others as adults, and the more you deny innate ability, the more weight you have to put on education. Society wants to put a lot of weight on formal education, and compensates by denying innate ability a lot. DeBoer is aware of this and his book argues against it adeptly.

Still, I worry that the title - The Cult Of Smart - might lead people to think there is a cult surrounding intelligence, when exactly the opposite is true. But I guess The Cult Of Successful At Formal Education sounds less snappy, so whatever.

…

I try to review books in an unbiased way, without letting myself succumb to fits of emotion. So be warned: I'm going to fail with this one. I am going to get angry and write whole sentences in capital letters. This is one of the most enraging passages I've ever read.

School is child prison. It's forcing kids to spend their childhood - a happy time! a time of natural curiosity and exploration and wonder - sitting in un-air-conditioned blocky buildings, cramped into identical desks, listening to someone drone on about the difference between alliteration and assonance, desperate to even be able to fidget but knowing that if they do their teacher will yell at them, and maybe they'll get a detention that extends their sentence even longer without parole. The anti-psychiatric-abuse community has invented the "Burrito Test" - if a place won't let you microwave a burrito without asking permission, it's an institution. Doesn't matter if the name is "Center For Flourishing" or whatever and the aides are social workers in street clothes instead of nurses in scrubs - if it doesn't pass the Burrito Test, it's an institution. There is no way school will let you microwave a burrito without permission. THEY WILL NOT EVEN LET YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR SOMETHING CALLED "THE BATHROOM PASS" IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE CLASS, AND IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, SHE CAN JUST SAY NO.

I don't like actual prisons, the ones for criminals, but I will say this for them - people keep them around because they honestly believe they prevent crime. If someone found proof-positive that prisons didn't prevent any crimes at all, but still suggested that we should keep sending people there, because it means we'd have "fewer middle-aged people on the streets" and "fewer adults forced to go home to empty apartments and houses", then MAYBE YOU WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT SENDING PEOPLE TO SCHOOL FOR THE SAME REASON.

I sometimes sit in on child psychiatrists' case conferences, and I want to scream at them. There's the kid who locks herself in the bathroom every morning so her parents can't drag her to child prison, and her parents stand outside the bathroom door to yell at her for hours until she finally gives in and goes, and everyone is trying to medicate her or figure out how to remove the bathroom locks, and THEY ARE SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM. There are all the kids who had bedwetting or awful depression or constant panic attacks, and then as soon as the coronavirus caused the child prisons to shut down the kids mysteriously became instantly better. I have heard stories of kids bullied to the point where it would be unfair not to call it torture, and the child prisons respond according to Procedures which look very good on paper and hit all the right We-Are-Taking-This-Seriously buzzwords but somehow never result in the kids not being tortured every day, and if the kids' parents were to stop bringing them to child prison every day to get tortured anew the cops would haul those parents to jail, and sometimes the only solution is the parents to switch them to the charter schools THAT FREDDIE DEBOER WANTS TO SHUT DOWN.

I see people on Twitter and Reddit post their stories from child prison, all of which they treat like it's perfectly normal. The district that wanted to save money, so it banned teachers from turning the heat above 50 degrees in the depths of winter. The district that decided running was an unsafe activity, and so any child who ran or jumped or played other-than-sedately during recess would get sent to detention - yeah, that's fine, let's just make all our children spent the first 18 years of their life somewhere they're not allowed to run, that'll be totally normal child development. You might object that they can run at home, but of course teachers assign three hours of homework a day despite ample evidence that homework does not help learning. Preventing children from having any free time, or the ability to do any of the things they want to do seems to just be an end in itself. Every single doctor and psychologist in the world has pointed out that children and teens naturally follow a different sleep pattern than adults, probably closer to 12 PM to 9 AM than the average adult's 10 - 7. Child prisons usually start around 7 or 8 AM, meaning any child who shows up on time is necessarily sleep-deprived in ways that probably harm their health and development.

School forces children to be confined in an uninhabitable environment, restrained from moving, and psychologically tortured in a state of profound sleep deprivation, under pain of imprisoning their parents if they refuse. The only possible justification for this is that it achieves some kind of vital social benefit like eliminating poverty. If it doesn't, you might as well replace it with something less traumatizing, like child labor. The kid will still have to spend eight hours of their day toiling in a terrible environment, but at least they’ll get some pocket money! At least their boss can't tell them to keep working off the clock under the guise of "homework"! I have worked as a medical resident, widely considered one of the most horrifying and abusive jobs it is possible to take in a First World country. I can say with absolute confidence that I would gladly do another four years of residency if the only alternative was another four years of high school.

If I have children, I hope to be able to homeschool them. But if I can't homeschool them, I am incredibly grateful that the option exists to send them to a charter school that might not have all of these problems. I'm not as impressed with Montessori schools as some of my friends are, but at least as far as I can tell they let kids wander around free-range, and don't make them use bathroom passes. DeBoer not only wants to keep the whole prison-cum-meat-grinder alive and running, even after having proven it has no utility, he also wants to shut the only possible escape my future children will ever get unless I'm rich enough to quit work and care for them full time.

When I try to keep a cooler head about all of this, I understand that Freddie DeBoer doesn't want this. He is not a fan of freezing-cold classrooms or sleep deprivation or bullying or bathroom passes. In fact, he will probably blame all of these on the "neoliberal reformers" (although I went to school before most of the neoliberal reforms started, and I saw it all). He will say that his own utopian schooling system has none of this stuff. In fact, he does say that. He sketches what a future Marxist school system might look like, and it looks pretty much like a Montessori school looks now. That just makes it really weird that he wants to shut down all the schools that resemble his ideal today (or make them only available to the wealthy) in favor of forcing kids into schools about as different from it as it's possible for anything to be.

I am so, so tired of socialists who admit that the current system is a helltopian torturescape, then argue that we must prevent anyone from ever being able to escape it. Who promise that once the last alternative is closed off, once the last nice green place where a few people manage to hold off the miseries of the world is crushed, why then the helltopian torturescape will become a lovely utopia full of rainbows and unicorns. If you can make your system less miserable, make your system less miserable! Do it before forcing everyone else to participate in it under pain of imprisonment if they refuse! Forcing everyone to participate in your system and then making your system something other than a meat-grinder that takes in happy children and spits out dead-eyed traumatized eighteen-year-olds who have written 10,000 pages on symbolism in To Kill A Mockingbird and had zero normal happy experiences - is doing things super, super backwards!

#scott alexander #substack #book review #fredrik deboer #public schooling #long #read the whole thing

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revlyncox · 4 years

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Stone Soup 2020

This reflection was written for the Washington Ethical Society by Lyn Cox, November 22, 2020.

In the story of Stone Soup, we learn we are more powerful and resilient together than we are alone, and that however small we think our gifts are, they are a beautiful and necessary ingredient in the larger whole. Liz James makes a good point that we often miss opportunities because we haven’t noticed the beauty of our own gifts. It is also true that sometimes we hold back out of a feeling of scarcity, or because we’re not sure what else will be asked of us once we open up. We can tell by how many different versions of this folk tale are in existence that the legend of Stone Soup is rich with meaning. Just like a soup with many ingredients, a tale with many tellers has subtle notes and surprising flavors that we can keep discovering year after year. Today, I’d like to talk about appreciation and abundance.

Felix Adler knew that recognizing human worth is part of the project of moral uplift. He said, "May the humanity that is within every human being be held precious. The vice that underlies all vices is that we are held cheap by others, and far worse, that in our innermost soul we think cheaply of ourselves."

Adler exhorts us to appreciate each other and ourselves.

The Washington Ethical Society Community Relations Pact includes a commitment to “express gratitude readily and accept appreciation graciously.” You already know that appreciating one another and the staff is an act that lifts everyone up, and helps us to bring out the best in each other by reinforcing what is joyful, beautiful, and supportive of our shared mission. In a community as large as WES, especially when we’re mainly a virtual community, it can be hard to figure out how to participate, how to be part of the interactions and responses that help shape this poetry in motion. Positive feedback is an extremely effective way to do that. Appreciation increases energy and resilience. You know that. You voted on it.

What might be less obvious is the part about accepting appreciation graciously. When someone offers positive feedback, or even a simple greeting, take a moment and allow yourself to be known. We can’t always see each other face to face, even when we’re on video it’s tricky to figure out eye contact. An email, a chat message, an emoji, these small acts of kindness are worth noticing and celebrating. And when messages go out to the whole community, it may not feel personal, but the appreciation expressed for your dedication, your care, your simply being -- those sentiments are sincere. Thank you for being part of WES. Yes, I mean you.

Even less obvious is appreciating yourself. Please know that you are a precious creature of worth. Even before we get into what different people bring to this community or the world, you don’t have to earn your designation as a human being. I think it is easier to be part of something larger than ourselves when we start with the knowledge that we reach out from a place of inherent worth.

We’ve just been through Transgender Day of Remembrance, and I am reminded all over again that there are beloveds who don’t know that they are valued, who are shown by state-sanctioned violence and discrimination that they don’t matter, and the results are deadly. We have to do better at protecting our most marginalized beloveds, particularly Trans women of color, and we have to do better at building a world where every person knows that they are beautiful, valued, and loved. Here, we do our best to create a community where every person can be their whole selves, with all of who they are in terms of culture, race, gender, family shape, language, and ability.

People do not have to “contribute” to have inherent worth, and it’s still lovely to notice when people do offer gifts to the community. It is not mutually exclusive to appreciate people for simply being and to appreciate the time, talent, creativity, and resources that someone has intentionally made available to benefit others. In some retellings of Stone Soup, people bring things to the table that are unusual, things their neighbors would not have thought to add to soup. Maybe it’s some tart fruit that ends up adding tantalizing acidity to the soup, or something briny like capers that gives a surprise spark of salt, or some chickpeas to add body to the broth. Sometimes, but not often, Stone Soup retellings take place in a community where different families have different food traditions, and the resulting fusion creates a soup that is an entirely new culinary snapshot of that community in that place and time. Each person’s presence makes a difference.

Appreciation of others requires a certain amount of humility, recognizing that none of us can do and be all of the things that our communities need at the same time. We are each of us always learning, there are things we have not experienced and do not know. Humility does not necessarily mean self-deprecation. We can know that we are people of worth, and that the things we are in the process of learning are valuable talents to offer, while still admiring and appreciating others. You being your whole self, making mistakes so that you can keep learning to draw out your best talents, combines with your neighbor being their whole selves and being allowed to learn and grow in their talents, until we have a learning and growing community where works-in-progress are appreciated and encouraged.

Felix Adler spoke about how ethics is a cooperative endeavor, that we need each other in our uniqueness. He said, "People may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture."

Let’s go on appreciating the unique shapes of our neighbors, and the bit of the puzzle that we each bring, remembering that this puzzle is a living thing with constantly shifting pictures and shapes. Let’s find ways to affirm the shapes and pictures and flavors that are present in each fleeting moment.

Another value that Stone Soup reminds us of is abundance. In a scarcity mentality, we anticipate dividing up the resources that are apparently before us, with the expectation that it will not be enough. In an abundance mentality, we imagine what could be, and open our minds to the possibility that there may be resources we have not yet noticed. In an abundance framework, we use our time and our resources creatively, we find new applications for items and knowledge available among us, we remember what we are here to do.

Something I wonder about the village in the Stone Soup story is about their purpose for being a village. Why are their homes gathered together? Is it for convenience? Safety in numbers? Is it because political forces have pushed them together? Have they gathered to share a resource like fresh water or good soil? Are they in that area as stewards, caring for a sacred place? It is possible that part of the reason the villagers have stopped valuing their gifts and channeling them together is because they don’t know what their shared purpose might be.

The Stone Soup experience suggests that, whatever brought them together originally, the villagers might find new purpose as a result of this shift in perspective. Having a “why” can unleash energy, creativity, and unity. As the soup begins to cook, the villagers find a temporary purpose in curiosity. This is enough of a goal to help them to see their individual carrots and solitary noodles with new eyes. It is enough of a purpose to inspire action.

Abundance, coupled with purpose, helps us to overcome feelings of helplessness or despair. The people of the village didn’t seem happy at the beginning, or very active. Maybe hunger had made it more difficult to think, or maybe fear of scarcity was driving them apart. Coming together for a common goal reminds us that, even when we are individually limited, collectively we have power.

As we retell Stone Soup in these socially distant times, it is natural to long for the days when we can again safely gather in person. In a moment, we’ll see a video montage that includes photos of past celebrations. It’s OK to be happy about the memories and also sad that we can’t celebrate the same way today. But let’s also appreciate the gifts we have now, and those we have discovered as we have been forced to come up with new solutions. WES is more accessible than ever to those who live at a distance, or who have trouble with mobility. There are people who have never before been able to be part of a vibrant, humanistic congregation, and who now are just as much a part of the Platform experience as someone who lives in Shepherd Park. Let’s not lose our renewed purpose of inclusivity as we re-imagine a post-COVID future.

Given the challenges of planning a virtual Stone Soup, I wonder if one of the reasons the villagers fell into scarcity is because the world changed around them, and they weren’t sure how to adapt. They would have needed a new source of motivation when they couldn’t keep doing things the way they had always been done. They would have needed a new way to apply the talents they had developed under an old paradigm. They would have needed a way to encourage each other to try new things for this new world, to learn and grow imperfectly, with appreciation and acceptance.

Our experience of the last eight months tells us that none of that is easy. I know many of us are tired. Some of us have had economic and health challenges that need not have affected us as deeply in a society with a stronger safety net. Learning how to navigate a new world, even a temporary world when we don’t know how long it will last, is exhausting.

Yet here you are, seeking ways to practice abundance. You sent pictures of food and stones. You sent recipes, over 30 last I heard, which will be emailed to members in a PDF recipe book later today. Some of our Middle School families offered their talent for the story. Maybe there are days when you can’t focus on creating something, but you can begin with appreciating someone; that makes room for abundance, too. This community, collectively, has resources and skills and curiosity and creativity that can carry you into the future. There is abundance here, ready to be coupled with purpose.

The Washington Ethical Society is a precious and valuable community, comprised of beloved people. You are worthy just as you are. If you have gifts you want to share, skills you want to develop, a heart for caring, WES and the world will be made better by your generosity of spirit. We make room by appreciating each other as well as honoring our own gifts. We make way for the future with abundance and purpose. May it be so.

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adrianodiprato · 4 years

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+ "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Game Changers | Series Two Reflection

Over the past five months we have experienced unmatched disruption to education and to our daily lives. For some learning communities it has understandably brought about much fear, anxiety and uncertainty. However, amid all the panic and unknowns, new channels of innovation, creativity and systemic transformation are also accelerating at unparalleled levels. We have appreciated the unprecedented collaboration in our industry as educators globally have searched for solutions to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

During this global pandemic l have been personally inspired and encouraged by the actions of many individual educators and learning communities to rethink what education can be and should be in the future. In our Continuous Learning Toolkit | Volume II – Leading Through Crisis we highlighted a number of learning communities that decided that it simply is not enough to manage a response; they recognise the importance of leading through the crisis.

All over the world, there's growing consensus that our education systems are broken. In Series Two of the Game Changers podcast we encountered educators and social entrepreneurs that shared big ideas on how we might create learning today, for tomorrow’s world.

The true mark of a leader is the willingness to stick with a bold course of action. Much like the Emerson quote, each of our Serie Two Game Changers are not followers, but innovators, that for some, may be unconventional or even controversial, yet led a path by constantly stand for something special. That specialness I speak of is their deep understanding that all people matter and that each young person is home to a unique life. And that our collective goal is to, at stated by Sir Ken Robinson “…enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens.”

Episode One | Pernille Ripp

We started Series Two with Oregon Middle School, Wisconsin, USA English teacher and prolific education author Pernille Ripp.

Key learnings – For mine, at the very heart of Pernille’s motivation it was about prioritising children's voices, choice and ownership to give them the tools to help build a harmonious and sustainable world. This quote from Pernille best articulates her motivation, “With ownership comes a deeper engagement because the learning environment is more theirs. Students should not feel like visitors in our rooms, it should feel like a safe environment that they can create, experiment, and perhaps even fail in.”

Episode Two | Pasi Sahlberg

Key learnings – What impresses me about Pasi is that when he talks, he is intentional. He is intentional in his advocacy for schools to be human places that create safe spaces where each young person can develop a lifelong, joyful passion for learning, through play, through wonder and infinite possibly. A safe space that is this poetic balance between academic mastery, creative thinking, movement and self and social intelligence and awareness.

Episode Three | Nikki Kirkup

Key learnings – Nikki highlighted the importance of learning communities developing a delivery model that is congruent with the value proposition of the school. And she reminded us that it is not merely a response to a crisis; an opportunity to redesign our future. Nikki and the amazing team at The Knox School have been, in her words “…designing and facilitating learning experiences that go beyond the transmission of traditional academic content; placing value on the significance of character outcomes and individual student competencies, our educators have delivered learning that fosters the development of a range of critical skills which would empower our students to not only survive through times of disruption, but moreover to thrive within any environment in which they find themselves.”

Episode Four | Greg Miller

Key learnings – Grit and perseverance: iteration, iteration, iteration. Again, infinite possibilities of what each young people is capable of unlocking. At the centre of Greg’s mission in this kind of notion of limitlessness, when the expectation is that by reshaping our environments, opportunities and thinking, we can change the world for self, place and the other. Inspiring.

Episode Five | Jan Owen AM

Key learnings – We were very fortunate to have Jan on Series Two. Her work has been inspiring me for many years and much of her research when she was at the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) is the formation of Polaris. I particularly like how Jan challenged our thinking around the word resilience and moved the focus toward developing a resourcefulnessthat better supports the fostering of adaptability and self-efficacy of young people, to thrive in their ever-evolving world.

Episode Six | Conrad Wolfram

Key learnings – Quantification measures like NAPLAN and the ATAR have assumed an importance beyond their ability to truly judge and paint the whole picture of each individual. We utilise simplistic metrics and that we need far more agile metrics, not just for Maths learning, but for education in general, as we enter the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Age. Basically, a new age of enlightenment and a fundamental shift in Mathematics curriculum. I also loved that Conrad mentioned that Maths could learn from The Arts about crafting more open-ended assessment.

Episode Seven | Deborah Netolicky

Key learnings – Deborah had a clear focus on the profoundness of listening, deep authentic listening, to understand, not simply respond. It was about knowing your context. It was about thinking around the kinds of collaboration that you can encourage. It was about dedicating time and resources and asking how you are truly catering for the different career stages of each staff member, all centred around cultures of trust. And ultimately it was about how can you honour permission for the individual to discover their inherent possibility and that of the community in which they serve.

Episode Eight | Stephen Harris

Key learnings – Every time I encounter a conversation with Stephen I think of the absolute freedom of art and the notion of being able to bend things most people see as a straight line. He remains committed to be a learning community, that always attempts to spiral upwards the innovation and learning curves, with its central focus – relationships, via personal learning pathways and individual permission. That learning communities are about more than just buildings, and the people in them, on a set campus. We need to curate and create high-quality spaces that are inspiring encounters as well as safe, accessible and sustainable – within and beyond the boundaries of the school campus. All designed to enhance the interdependence of the collective and individual learning and wellness growth. All supporting my notion of anytime, anywhere learning – on campus, online, in context and in country.

Special Series | Julie Andrews & Leann Wilson

These six “In conversation with Phil Cummins…” were some of my favourite episodes, featuring two proud Indigenous women, Julie Andrews and Leann Wilson.

Key learnings – Leann mentioned in one of her episodes and our Global Gathering live event her father’s 4 R’s – Respect, Responsibility, Relationships and… “Remember what’s gone before you and remember those three fellas’ above you”. This typified the essence of Julie and Leann and their proud history and that of Indigenous peoples – a deep sense of truth, story, family, culture community and individual and collective responsibility. This Special Series also highlighted that it is time we start talking about Indigenous people using language that celebrates the rich history and culture, not deficit language that only serves to cultivate stereotypes that are harmful, oppressive and divisive. 65,000 years to draw upon, and a rich culture that never stands still, always evolving.

Recently Jon Yeo, the licensee of TEDxMelbourne sent me Matt Goldman’s “The search for a-ha moments” TED Salon talk. In this talk Goldman shares his schooling experience and stated, “…if these environments didn't know what to do with people who didn't fit a standard mould, why weren't we reshaping the environments to take advantage of people's strengths?”

I’ll leave you with this statement from Matt Goldman, “What I've come to believe is that we need to cultivate safe and conducive conditions for new and innovative ideas to evolve and thrive.” This new and innovative environment, for school communities to evolve, and the people within them to thrive, need to hero Wellness by Design® at the heart their remarkable learning story. Why? Because all people matter.

Thank you to Pernille, Pasi, Nikki, Greg, Jan, Conrad, Deborah, Stephen, Julie and Leann for sharing your story and passion. And thank for reminding us all that each person in our learning communities is home to a life. It is as simple and complex as that. Born from the construct of love – of self, for place and the other.

Listen to our Series Two: Epilogue via streaming platforms - SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Play.

#permissionistriumph #game changers #Wellness By Design

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peachdoxie · 6 years

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My official opinion of Ralph Breaks the Internet, with spoilers:

Ralph Breaks the Internet was an uninspired and predictable film whose attempts at originality failed to live up to the standards set by its predecessor and Disney's reputation. In short, I very much disliked it.

Before I begin, I will say that I did not expect much from this movie. Its trailers did not encourage me. And yet, somehow, Ralph Breaks the Internet was even less than I expected.

I will not say that Ralph Breaks the Internet was a bad movie. It had fairly decent animation, editing, cinematography, etc. Nothing spectacular, but nothing particularly horrible either, as I've come to expect from Walt Disney Animation Studios.

What made me dislike Ralph 2 was the fact that it was a conglomeration of cliches and stereotypes, none of which were handled well. Many of the jokes and plot elements relied on classism, ageism, cynicism, emotional immaturity, and/or unimaginative attempts at meta-analytical humor that ultimately fell flat. It attempted to be original and clever but instead felt like a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon by recycling the same jokes and plot devices instead of coming up with fresher and more creative ones.

Here are some of the many examples I am talking about and why I had an issue with them, in approximately chronological order:

After Sugar Rush is shut down, Felix and Calhoun take in the fifteen child racers. As soon as the racers are "adopted" by them, the racers instantly start wreaking havoc and breaking things, which is played for laughs. Instead of being grateful that they have a home after their game was unplugged, the racers were instead rude and destructive.

Later, in Tapper's bar, Felix comes across Ralph, who offers him Vanellope's root beer since she didn't show up. Felix claims that he has never drank root beer before, but decides to start because being a parent is too stressful. It's played for laughs, but the root beer is obviously a stand-in for actual alcohol. Normalizing alcohol and getting drunk as a solution to stressful parenting, anyone?

Any time a joke was made about Ralph's size could be taken as a metaphor for the world not being open to people whose bodies and accessibility issues fall outside the norm. However, since practically every instance of this was played for laughs, the movie instead presents Ralph's struggles with everything being too small as a thing to laugh at, instead of something to take as a serious issue.

The character of JP Spammly was subtly classist in presenting a lower class persona as inherently distrustworthy because they run a sketchy website.

During Vanellope and Shank's race, one of them brushes past a homeless man and knock his cup of coins out of his hand. This is, again, played for laughs, showing that we're supposed to find it funny that a(nother) misfortune fell a homeless person.

Practically all of the jokes about Ralph's lack of understanding regarding the internet were stereotypes of adults who don't understand the internet. This isn't really an issue like some of my other bullet points, but I'm just really sick of this stereotype, since there are many adults out there who understand the internet fine, of not better than young adults and teenagers currently.

The interaction between the male player of Slaughter Race and his offscreen grandmother is an ageist cliche. Two, actually: that the parent figure in the situation doesn't respect the teen's hobbies, and that the teen doesn't respect the parental figure's desires for family time.

Knowsmore was rude and condescending and unnecessarily so. Yes, I know he essentially works a customer service job, and it is canonically thankless. That does not give him the right to rudely badmouth customers after they are whisked away because they didn't thank him (they're computer avatars with limited communicability, so it seems) and it most certainly does NOT give him the right to condescendingly comment on a woman's weight. The customer in question was searching for size small tights and Knowsmore made a rude comment implying that she shouldn't be looking at small tights.

The scene with the princesses bothered me. Yes, it has been on the internet already and discussed at length. But it really frustrated me how it reduced all of the characters to basic stereotypes of themselves. I also figured out why the "does everyone assume that all your problems can be solved by a big, strong man?" comment has bothered me so much. It's inherently hypocritical: the way that it's presented is as a feminist statement that the princesses don't actually need a big strong man to save them, and yet that's what they're defined by, as everyone exclaims "she is a princess!" when Vanellope agrees with them.

Ralph finds the Buzztube comments, which are all extremely negative. I know it's a joke to not go on the comments on anything because they're always awful, but that's also not actually true. Most of the comments are just inane or showing support of something. It was obvious what was going to happen as soon as Ralph walked into the comments area. Yes, yes, the lesson of "don't get bogged down by the few bad things people say" could be relevant, but it wasn't presented that way because Yessss didn't point out any other comments or strongly try to encourage Ralph of the opposite. She just accepted that as fact.

There are more examples of this type of thing, these little moments that were ageist, classist, or just plain rude that made watching Ralph Breaks the Internet unenjoyable overall. The issue that I have with things like these are that they present small but harmful stereotypes as things to laugh at. People learn by example. That's basic human development stuff. And so if they see jokes in media that show harmful things as funny, they're going to replicate them and contribute to the same kinds of biases and hurtful behavior. The sheer number of these together make up one reason why I didn't like Ralph Breaks the Internet.

The second major reason why I didn't like Ralph 2 is that the entire emotional conflict between Ralph and Vanellope comes from a series of miscommunications that could have VERY EASILY been avoided if they had just TALKED TO EACH OTHER AND LISTENED. This is repeated multiple times in the movie. Ralph is afraid Vanellope will leave him for Slaughter Race and won't be his best friend anymore. Vanellope wants to find something new and exciting in her life but is afraid that Ralph will be upset. We also see the cliched trope of character A (Ralph) overhears character B (Vanellope) say something out of context that hurts character A's feelings. And here is the thing - instead of talking it out, both Ralph and Vanellope make assumptions about what the other wants and get upset and yell about it.

I. AM. SICK. AND. TIRED. OF. THIS. TROPE. All it does is show two emotionally immature people without good introspection skills hash out their problems in an unproductive and hurtful way. Yes, I am aware that Ralph in particular has insecurity issues, since they made an elaborate metaphor out of that as part of the film's climax. I'm not saying that's bad, necessarily. BUT. This type of thing happens over and over in media and it is, quite frankly, a lazy and unoriginal source of interpersonal conflict. Also, recall what I said earlier about humans mimicking behavior they see. Instead of showing problem solving after conflict based on miscommunication, why not just skip all the unnecessary drama and show the characters talking out their problems ahead of all that? It will save me the frustration and eye-rolling, that's for sure.

And my last major problem with the film is the ending. Vanellope abandons Sugar Rush for Slaughter Race. In what world is that a reasonable ending? Yes, there's the message about following your dreams and whatnot. But it is a very immature and selfish decision on Vanellope's part to abandon the game she came from, especially right after the game broke. It was expressed early on in the film that the players' favorite racer is Vanellope. What do you think they'll do when she's just suddenly not there? Do you think they'll play the game as much? Is pursuing your "dream" really worth risking your game being unplugged again, Vanellope? Is it worth it after all the pain and hardships Ralph went through to buy that replacement Sugar Rush steering wheel so that your game isn't unplugged? It was a lame ending that made an already frustrating movie thoroughly dislikeable.

I'm disappointed. I expect better from Disney, given their history of recent films. Frozen was better than Ralph Breaks the Internet. Heck, I like Moana better, and I was very critical of it. Honestly, Ralph Breaks the Internet suffered from the worst sequelitis I've ever seen and is not a worthy successor to Wreck-it Ralph in any way.

Also, if any of you come at me and say "it's just a movie calm down" I will block you because obviously you lack the critical thinking skills necessary to understand this post and I don't feel like being the one to educate you on something as basic as "media affects reality and human behavior".

#anecdotes by peachdoxie #ralph breaks the internet

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blogdotmappers-blog · 5 years

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Web Development Reviews & Tips

After the website is up and running to run the danger of misleading the folks, when you change things. The fact that it is unique and special assistance. Motion UI Matters An internet site ought to be simple, simple to navigate and most of all intuitive. Web designing requires proficiency in English language because the majority of the internet site contents are made in English. The web is continuously changing and evolving. A number of the web designing services like Google Site facilitates the growth of simple website totally free of costs.

Web growth services should provide exceptional and exclusive elements to create the internet site stick out in the crowd. Make sure you have chosen the perfect web development services for your site. There are several web growth companies are providing excellent web-based services at inexpensive prices. Hire Fubit that is an e-Commerce web development business in Delhi. Maybe you locate a company with problems you'll be able to solve for them using your internet development abilities. You will definitely have to find a knowledgeable and skilled company with an established history of creating web-enabled solutions such as apps, websites and portals etc..

Your website is just one of the most visible, most accessible facets of your company. In the same way, the website needs to be designed as per SEO standards so that superior visibility remains an issue of fact. Further, the web site is going to be a link between your company and its prospects as it conveys information and draws attention. So if you prefer your site to incorporate all probable functions that are possible with PHP, you will need to hire PHP programmers to organize your development undertaking. Whether it be web apps, e-commerce sites, or only responsive design websites, specialization is the reason behind quality and passion.

The Do's and Don'ts of Web Development

The plan ought to be in sync with the changing norms of the internet market whilst mobile-friendliness must be considered. When an internet site design is completed, it is then going to be uploaded to the web in order for it to be observed by the deliberate customers or spectator. Not everything is web design, there's a terrific preliminary analysis that's required, and along with the study of your market and training you will need if you would like to acquire new visitors. Many people believe that a customized web design is all that is necessary.

Design is just the development of the wireframes, not a reinvention of those. Web design is part of internet development. In that instance, the internet design needs to be such that each product or service or both should be highlighted individually. Naturally, you'll need an internet design and development company which may execute the maintenance work for your website. The internet design and development company should provide technical support to assist you. The internet designer has to make certain the internet page he's designed is unique in its own way and can draw more viewers.

The important thing to think about in regards to web development is that you're happy and confident in the abilities of the development business you are using to produce your applications. Full-stack web development is among the fastest growing development careers today. Since mid-nineties Web development has emerged among the fastest growing industry on earth. High-ticket items are more expensive during a development project because of the greater effort in selling them.

Website development is an issue of inherent creativity and superior experience. It has become essential for each company to enhance their productivity and efficiency. Before designing and developing content for a specific web site, the web developers should understand the prerequisites of the customers. Some freelance web developers are probably enjoy The Wolf, but the majority of them aren't.

A group of skilled developers of an internet development company handle easy and complicated projects without difficulty. The aim of internet development needs to be more than getting customers to go to your site. The last step to SEO friendly site development success is to incorporate your social networking links. People must inspect the experience and expertise of specific web development organizations to pick the most renowned and established firm. Following that, you have to have the experience of working with various UX design for virtually any site development or web development approach. In-house professionals of internet growth businesses should optimize the present content of sites, elevate the traffic and enhance the webpage ranking of sites in search engine benefits.

Web growth tools enables the developer to check and debug the web websites. Web growth tools also helps inspect the resources that are loaded and on the internet page. There are various software employed for developing an e-commerce site. Should it, you've set up your internet server correctly and PHP is working. With a well-designed site, with excellent navigation, you are able to keep web users hooked by giving them exactly what they are looking for.

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lrdesigntsu-blog · 6 years

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Design Thinking

What is design thinking? According to the Interaction Design Foundation; design thinking is “an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. Design thinking has five overall “steps”; empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. It is important to note that the five phases, (stages, or modes) are not always sequential. They do not have to follow any specific order and can often occur in parallel and repeat iteratively. Given that, you should not understand the phases as a hierarchal or step-by-step process. Instead, you should look at it as an overview of the modes or phases that contribute to an innovative project, rather than sequential steps.”(Dam) I personally like this process since it allows me to jump from stage to stage and follow ideas as they come, and helps to break out of patterned thinking, by taking something and running with it. With each iteration we can always learn something, building on the base of the previous version.

However, design thinking isn’t just a theory that applies to only work, but possibly our daily lives. “What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way – in our designs, in our businesses, in our nations (and eventually, if things go really well, beyond), in our lives.” (Dam) I agree that it could be very beneficial, teaching more people to think outside of themselves and consider the needs of others on a wider scale, while encouraging innovation beyond typical patterned thinking.

As Tim Brown says; “Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a ‘third way.’ “(Brown, Change by Design, Introduction) I agree that there needs to be a “third way” of thinking; very rarely are problems completely solved by a singular method. Often there are design flaws that either don’t address additional problems, or don’t address them effectively.

“Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are modeled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge we surround ourselves with.”(Dam) Design thinking is all about exploring possibilities and testing them, which inherently means that there will be failure; however that failure should been seen as a stepping stone to new innovation. Prototyping our ideas allow us to test our different approaches and improve on them, hence why design thinking is an iterative process. “These patterns of thinking are often referred to as schemas, which are organized sets of information and relationships between things, actions and thoughts that are stimulated and initiated in the human mind when we encounter some environmental stimuli.”(Dam) Being aware of your personal schemas is essential to personal growth in my opinion, acknowledging our bias is the first stage in examining them and growing above them.

I agree with this article, I believe it could be very beneficial in other areas outside of just work. It promotes “thinking outside of the box” and disrupting our patterned behavior that can stifle innovation. Design thinking allows us to examine problems in any category from multiple angles, and encourages creative thinking that can be applied to many facets of life.

Dam, Rikke, and Teo Siang. “What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?” The Interaction Design Foundation, www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular.

#1302comdes

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meterhunter889 · 3 years

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Mdsolids

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Mdsolids tutorial mdsolids registration code mdsolids answers mdsolids 4.0 download Provide assistance for the introductory mechanics of materials course. (Serial Download) Those of a certain age may remember Mom frying up poultry about an early Sunday morning and exiting it in the MDSolids Software electrical skillet for after services. MDSolids Software. MDSolids is educational software designed to assist engineering students in the introductory mechanics of materials course. MDSolids explains and solves a wide variety of. MDSolids is conceived as a tool to help students solve and understand homework problems typically used in the mechanics of materials course. The software is versatile, graphic, informative,. MDSolids is software for topics taught in the Mechanics of Materials course (also commonly called Strength of Materials or Mechanics of Deformable Solids). This course is typically a part of civil, mechanical, and aerospace engineering programs and a number of related programs. 1 Answer to Use the MDSolids modules Section Properties, Determinate Beams, and Mohr’s Circle Analysis to solve the following problem. A W24 × 94 wide-flange steel cantilever beam supports a distributed load of 1.5 kips/ft and concentrated load of 20 kips, as shown in Fig.

The tool civil and mechanical engineering specialists need.

With the name MDSolids you'll find a practical program for those who are responsible for the teaching and study of the mechanics of deformable materials, also called mechanics of deformable solids.

As you will have no doubt already worked out just from the name, MDSolids is a handy tool that is offered as a course for the specialties of civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering. In addition, the program also has a number of modules that focus on the full course of Statistics.

MDSolids has the experience of over ten years, solving the needs of engineering students and professionals, making available routines on beams, columns, pressure vessels, assemblies of torque, and transformations and deformations of many materials. After studying the analysis, MDSolids offers graphics options for graphically showing the results.

It may be that, at first glance, the program seems a complex program to manage, but after downloading and installing MDSolids on your computer, you will see that it is very simple and easy to use with an intuitive graphic user interface. You will very quickly learn the management and control of this great program. If you want to see everything you can do with it, don't miss the opportunity to download a free trial version MDSolids. It's absolutely free, so what are you waiting for to download it? Do it now!

Download the Technology Interface / Spring 1998

Best macbook pro for video editing. Bridging the Gap between Mechanics of Materials Lectures and Homework with MDSolids

by Timothy A. Philpot [email protected] Department of Industrial and Engineering Technology Murray State University

Abstract

Current educational software for the mechanics of materials course is typically presented as either tutorials, worksheets, or basic analysis packages. A new software package, called MDSolids, presents an alternative to these types of products. MDSolids was conceived as a tool to help students solve and understand homework problems typically used in the mechanics of materials course. The software is versatile, graphic, informative, and very easy-to-use. MDSolids is being used at a number of schools around the world, and feedback from users has been uniformly positive and enthusiastic.

Introduction

For many years, computers and particularly personal computers have offered the promise of a revolution in the way that traditional engineering topics are taught. In some regards, this revolution has occurred. Computer-aided drafting and design (CADD) and sophisticated analysis packages have changed the engineering curriculum, making it possible for students to analyze and design at a level of precision impossible to accomplish with hand-calculations alone. However, much of this improvement occurs at the upper-end of the engineering curriculum. At the introductory level, in courses such as mechanics of materials, the impact of computer software on the teaching of fundamental concepts has been less successful. Although educational software has been packaged with textbooks for a number of years, book company editors know that, in general, book adoption decisions are not strongly influenced by the accompanying software. Therefore, if computers and computer software hold such promise as educational tools, why isn't educational software more effective at teaching engineering fundamentals?

How Do Students Learn Mechanics of Materials

In the field of education, Benjamin S. Bloom proposed a developmental sequence for learning, commonly called the Bloom Taxonomy (1). This taxonomy is comprised of six levels, starting with the least level of sophistication. Typical examples pertaining to the mechanics of materials course are given for each level.

Level 1 - KNOWLEDGE. The student is able to remember either by recognition or recall information, terminology, phenomena, etc. Example: Define the term proportional limit.

Level 2 - COMPREHENSION. The student is able to know an abstraction well enough so that he or she is can correctly demonstrate its use when specifically asked to do so. Example: Compute the normal stress in a rod given the load and cross-sectional area.

Level 3 - APPLICATION. The student is able to apply the appropriate abstraction without having to be prompted as to which abstraction is correct or to be shown how to use it in that situation. Example: Determine the elastic modulus given load-deflection data.

Level 4 - ANALYSIS. The student is able to break down the problem into its constituent parts and to detect relationships among the parts and the way they are organized. Example: Determine the maximum load that a structure can support given limits on both stress and deformation.

Level 5 - SYNTHESIS. The student is able to put together elements and parts to form a complete solution. Relates concepts and processes. Able to adapt knowledge from various sources to solve problems. Creative expression with ideas being learned and with ideas already known. Example: Design a beam, incorporating statics, shear/moment/deflections diagrams, normal and shear stresses, and combined stress analysis to determine principal stresses.

Level 6 - EVALUATION. The student is able to apply standards and determine levels of quality. Example: Design concrete beams to best satisfy several considerations.

As professors, we seek to guide students from Level 1 up to Level 5 in the introductory mechanics of materials class. While more fundamental levels of learning (knowledge, comprehension, and application) may be addressed in lectures, time constraints dictate that in-class examples and problems focus on developing analysis and synthesis skills. Each student learns at his or her own rate, and unfortunately, the pace of lecture topics is sometimes faster than the student finds comfortable. Concepts and problem solving skills that should be firmly in place before proceeding to analysis topics are sometimes absent or underdeveloped.

Homework assignments are the primary device used to develop the student's understanding of the mechanics of materials topics. The typical assignment can be somewhat lengthy; therefore, only selected problems can be assigned. Professors may expect (or hope) that their students will work enough extra problems so that the fundamentals are firmly grasped, but students sometimes struggle just to keep up with the homework and exam schedule. To supplement the student's educational development, the self-study potential offered by software would seem to be the ideal means of filling the gap between the material presented in lectures and the understanding and skills expected in homework and exams.

Educational Benefits Unique to Software

Software can help students study mechanics of materials and develop the necessary problem solving skills in several ways that are not inherent in lectures or customary homework assignments.

Correct Solution and Intermediate Results: When learning a new concept, it's very helpful to use the correct solution as a benchmark. Knowing that the problem has been solved correctly gives the student confidence in their problem solving skills and thereby provides a foundation for more challenging problems. Every textbook provides answers to selected problems for this reason. Software can provide the student with the correct solution for a particular problem, but in addition to the final answer, software can provide intermediate solutions that can be used to confirm the calculations along the way. These intermediate results can be helpful in tracking down faults in the problem solving approach.

What-If Analyses: Observing a cause-and-effect relationship can be quite helpful to students. For example, a single concentrated load placed on a simply supported beam produces a shear and moment diagram. The student can add a second concentrated load and observe the changes in these diagrams. As another example, the student can readily change the end support conditions or add intermediate supports to a column and then observe the effects on the buckled shape. Without calculating a single number, the student can learn something about the nature of structures by simply observing these changes. This can help students to develop engineering intuition that will help them know what the correct solution should be before they calculate a single number.

Availability: In the evening hours, during weekends, or when working at home (which may be distant from the classroom), students don't have access to professors, graduate assistants, or others who can help them understand the course material. Having a versatile software tool at hand to supplement the textbook and lecture notes can be a big asset.

Repetition: Some people must see or perform more repetitions involving a concept before they begin to fully understand it. Time limits the number of examples that can be presented in lectures, and textbooks can only present a few examples. With software, students can drill themselves, trying various numeric combinations for a particular problem type until they feel confident in their understanding of the concepts.

Visualization: Software can depict deformations or show stress distributions produced in the problem being considered. Visualization of the material's behavior in response to the loads acting on it can help the student to understand the relevant theory and to develop engineering intuition.

Current Mechanics of Materials Educational Software

Most of the current educational software developed for the mechanics of materials course can be grouped into three categories: tutorials, worksheets, and basic analysis packages.

Tutorials direct the student through a series of prepared screens, each focused on a specific concept or skill. In this manner, tutorials are like lectures delivered in a different format. Recent tutorials such as the Multimedia Engineering series (2, 3) feature an impressive presentation, complete with animation, video clips, and audio files. Despite excellent presentation, however, tutorial products are limited in applicability. The student must follow the sequence of the tutorial presentation in the same way that they would follow along in a lecture. The student must master the concept presented by the tutorial and then apply that concept to the particular problems that they are asked to solve in their homework assignments.

Worksheets for equation-solving software such as Mathcad, MatLab, and TKSolver have also been developed to supplement the mechanics of materials course (4, 5). One drawback of worksheets is that the student must be somewhat familiar with the host software package in order to use the worksheet. In a sense, this disadvantage can also be viewed as an advantage since worksheets encourage the student to develop some command of the equation-solving software, and familiarity with the equation-solving software is a skill that is useful in later engineering courses. However, to the student whose immediate goal is learning the mechanics of materials concepts, the added burden of gaining proficiency with the equation-solving software can be daunting.

Basic analysis packages have been included in several widely available mechanics of materials textbooks such as Lardner/Archer (6) and Craig (7). These programs are useful as tools for assisting students in fundamental skills such as plotting shear and bending moment diagrams or performing Mohr's circle calculations. Basic analysis programs may require students to define nodes and elements and to assign section properties and material constants to the elements. While this is the way that the calculations must be organized for the computer, this approach is not user-friendly for the novice engineer. Furthermore, basic analysis programs have typically lacked a well-developed graphical user interface. Input for these programs has typically been very text-based, often requiring a user's manual to ensure that the proper data and the proper sign conventions are used and to help in interpreting the program output.

Mdsolids Runtime Error

In all three categories, the software is generally developed from the professor's point of view, emphasizing lecture topics or permitting the student to perform more advanced calculations. To be successful, educational software should be developed from the student's point of view. Rather than forcing the student to solve a problem posed by the software, the software should solve the problem of interest to the student. To do this, educational software must be:

versatile in the types of problems that can be solved,

strongly visual to illustrate the behavior of materials,

informative in explaining how and why the calculations are performed, and

intuitive and easy-to-use so that the student is presented with just the right amount of information and analytical power.

The MDSolids Concept

MDSolids is an educational software package devoted to the introductory mechanics of materials course. The hypothesis of the MDSolids concept is that students are most interested in understanding the specific homework problems assigned by their professors, and that students will use educational software that helps them with their immediate course concerns. In the process, the software can help to develop problem solving skills by giving students an intuitive interface that guides them to the important factors affecting various problem types, helps them visualize the nature of internal stresses and deformations, and provides an easy-to-use means of investigating a greater number of problems and variations. Based on this premise, MDSolids was developed with several objectives in mind:

Versatility: MDSolids has routines pertaining to all of the topics taught in a typical mechanics of materials course. These routines are grouped in modules, similar to typical textbook chapters, and the modules can be individually accessed in any sequence. Eleven modules are presently available to handle a wide range of common textbook problems: basic stress and strain, beam-and-strut axial problems, trusses, statically indeterminate axial structures, torsion, determinate beams, section properties, general analysis (of axial, torsion, and beam members), column buckling, and Mohr's circle transformations. Within the modules, each routine solves types of problems typically found in all mechanics of materials textbooks. Some routines are fairly general (e.g., Mohr's circle analysis) while some routines are specific (e.g., plotting a stress-strain curve). The scope of MDSolids offers routines to help students at all levels of understanding, from the most fundamental knowledge-, comprehension-, and application-type problems to more complex problems requiring analysis and synthesis.

Ease-of-Input: Ease-of-input is an essential aspect in the MDSolids concept. Solving the mechanics of materials problems is confusing enough for students. To be effective, educational software must not add to the confusion. Ideally, the student should be able to define a problem intuitively and directly from a textbook without the need for a user's manual. Throughout MDSolids, graphic cues are provided to guide users in entering data. The illustrations can be easily adjusted so that the MDSolids input screen looks very similar to the textbook illustration. Various units (e.g., stress units, length units) are available and internal conversion factors are present to ensure dimensional consistency.

Visual Communication:Each MDSolids routine features a picture, sketch, or plot that graphically depicts important aspects of the problem. Sketches are used to show the direction of internal stresses, applied loads, and reaction forces. Plots are given for a number of topics including critical buckling stress, beam deflections, and shaft shearing stress. As the cliché goes, 'one picture is worth a thousand words.'

Correct Solution and Intermediate Results: MDSolids is an 'electronic solutions manual,' giving not only the correct solution for a particular problem but also providing intermediate solutions that can be used to confirm the problem solving approach step-by-step.

Text-based Explanations:Many of the MDSolids modules provide extra explanations to describe in words how the calculation is performed. These explanations can help students develop the thought processes used in solving mechanics of materials problems. The text explanations are dynamic and context-sensitive. The message is tailored specifically to the particular problem being considered, in terms of the values and units entered for the problem. Common mistakes in equilibrium equations, unit inconsistencies, and equation manipulations become obvious when a student compares his or her hand calculations with the MDSolids explanations.

Ease-of-Modeling: MDSolids takes advantage of mouse input to facilitate the creation of models. For example, defining a truss with 13 members and various loads can be accomplished graphically with a mouse in about 30 seconds. Various cross-sectional shapes can be defined just as rapidly. This simplicity encourages students to test out their problem solving skills on alternative configurations.

Help Files: The MDSolids help files contain instructions for using the software, but more importantly, the help files contain theoretical background and practical suggestions for solving various types of problems. The help files also contain a number of worked example problems. These example problems describe how to solve the solid mechanics problem by hand, not through the use of MDSolids. Therefore, MDSolids users can take advantage of the software to solve a problem as well as getting a detailed step-by-step description of the solution process.

MDSolids has been used by students at Murray State University for three semesters. The software was made available free-of-charge to the engineering educational community in January, 1998 at the MDSolids website http://msumusik.mursuky.edu/mdsolids. In the first two months of its availability, over 1500 professors and students from around the world downloaded the software. The response of MDSolids users has been uniformly positive and enthusiastic.

MDSolids Exhibits

Text-based Explanations: MDSolids includes a wide range of routines pertaining to problems typically used in teaching the mechanics of materials course. The Stress-Strain module focuses on introductory problems used to develop an understanding of basic concepts and problem solving skills. All problems in this module have a consistent style, as illustrated by the bolted connections routine.

The user is presented with questions typically asked for this type of problem. Depending on the choice of question, the user is directed to supply the necessary input data. Upon clicking the Compute button, the numeric results are displayed, a simple free body diagram is shown, and a text description of the process used to solve the problem is printed.

One of the most important skills developed in the mechanics of materials course is creation of shear force and bending moment diagrams. In the Determinate Beam module, the student can quickly create a shear force and bending moment diagram, such as shown below.

While the diagrams are useful in themselves, MDSolids also provides tips on constructing the shear force and bending moment diagrams. For example, the student can put the mouse cursor on the beam supports in the load diagram to see the equilibrium equations applicable to the beam:

The student can position the mouse cursor over a region of the shear diagram to get tips on constructing the moment diagram. Clicking the mouse on this region produces further explanation on how to find the area under the shear diagram and how this area dictates the change in the moment diagram.

Calculation of cross-sectional properties is essential in many typical mechanics of materials problems. MDSolids provides a number of typical shapes that the student can select. After defining the appropriate dimensions,

After clicking the Compute button, the student is given a report of the section properties, but additionally, the student can see details of the calculation procedure. These details, shown below for the centroid and moment of inertia calculation, are presented in tabular format referring to the numbered shapes shown in the figure above.

Visual Communication: MDSolids relies on graphical depictions to help students develop an understanding of the behavior of materials in response to applied loads. For example, bending stresses in a beam (either normal stress or shear stresses) are depicted for a specified beam cross-sectional shape and at any specified point along the beam:

For torsion, the deformations occurring in a circular shaft in response to an applied torque and the shear stresses acting at a typical point are illustrated in addition to the numeric solution:

In Mohr's circle transformations, the Mohr's circle is constructed from the specified normal and shear stresses:

Elements showing the magnitude and orientation of the principal stresses and of the maximum shear stresses are also shown:

MDSolids is also useful in helping students visualize the behavior of structures. For example, the Euler buckling shape of a column braced at midheight is shown below. While the column buckling theory used to prepare this illustration is beyond the scope of the introductory mechanics of materials course, this type of active sketch can help students to develop intuition about column behavior.

Help Files: MDSolids also contains a number of help files. While these help files contain instructions for using the software, they also include general discussions describing skills needed to solve mechanics of materials problems. There are also a number of worked example that explain in detail the calculation procedure needed for a hand solution of typical problems.

Mdsolids Centroids Game

Conclusions

Mdsolids Registration

MDSolids has proven to be a valuable addition to the mechanics of materials courses at Murray State University, and it is becoming known and being used by professors and students around the world. The software is conceived as a tool to help students bridge the gap between topics presented in lectures and the application of that theory in solving problems commonly used in mechanics of materials homework assignments. Using MDSolids, students get numerical, visual, and textual results and details pertinent to a wide range of problems. Since MDSolids is so easy-to-use and because it provides ample feedback, students are encouraged to attempt more mechanics problems and to explore what-if variations. Through this extra repetition, students develop engineering intuition and greater confidence in their problem-solving skills. MDSolids has been successful in helping students attain mastery of the knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis levels of the learning process.

Mdsolids Registration Code

References

Mdsolids Software

Bloom, B.S., ed. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain, David McKay, New York, N.Y.

Gramoll, K., Abbanat, R., and Slater, K. (1996). Multimedia Engineering Statics. Addison Wesley Interactive, Reading, Mass.

Gramoll, K., Abbanat, R., and Slater, K. (1996). Multimedia Engineering Dynamics. Addison Wesley Interactive, Reading, Mass.

Evensen, T.C. (1997). Mathcad Supplement in Gere, J.M. and Timoshenko, S.P. (1997). Mechanics of Materials, 4th ed., PWS Publishing Co., Boston, Mass.

Turcotte, L.H. and Wilson, H.B. (1998). Computer Applications in Mechanics of Materials using MATLAB. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, N.J.

Lardner, T.J. and Archer, R.R. (1994). MECHMAT in Mechanics of Solids: An Introduction, McGraw Hill, New York, N.Y.

Craig, R.R. (1996). MechSolid in Mechanics of Materials, John Wiley & Sons, New York, N.Y.

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figureinthedistance · 6 years

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feel like equality is an inherently flawed barometer for measuring progress/justice bc it by default defines u in relation to those w power over u + doesnt allow u to envision the future/ur happiness beyond the entitlements they have + ur potential access to them, which causes particular problems when u try to address an issue where there is no analogous experience of the powerful for u to base ur solution on.

sorta dipped my toes in2 this criticism wrt how some women's vision of feminism is jst allowing themselves to be as exploitative as the men in their lives but ive been radicalized in my skepticism by looking @ the rights of atypical workers in the EU (fixed term, part time, agency or zero hour workers) + how their entitlements are not defined as stand alone protections but instead conditional case specific measures to put them on the same footing as typical employees doing the same job (also given tht most atypical workers are women this is very much another issue of defining women in relation 2 men). like the law isnt 'give them a safe + supportive workplace' its 'give them a workplace of the same quality as what a typical employee would have in their job' so an agency worker is only able 2 claim tht they're being treated unfairly in the workplace if there is a full time employee doing the same work receiving better treatment. but the issue is tht full time employees almost never do the same work as zero hr contract workers etc so all these atypical workers are having their rights n welfare defined in relation 2 a model entirely alien 2 their experiences. it jst struck me as like a microcosm of how ineffective equality models are.

+ im not dismissing equality as an end goal. ive never had an argument w a capitalist where i didnt reference relative deprivation + i do believe humans inevitably define themselves in relation to those around them, + from this i kno the health n happiness of a society is not measured by the supports + resources available to the worst off, but by the gap btwn the supports + resources available 2 the worst off + the supports and resources available to the best off. i guess im gonna try + distinguish btwn an idealist + practical equality, the former being 'in my ideal society, everyone would be equal' + the latter being 'the path to the ideal society lies in making us more like the best off people in current society'. + i can understand idealist but not practical... it just seems a bit limiting. wheres the creativity wheres the ambition!

even linguistically im like, is it healthy for women 2 be saying 'we want the same pay as men!' instead of like. 'we want the pay we need 2 live on!'

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Deathloop Proves Incredibly Flawed Games Can Still Be Masterpieces

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Deathloop‘s initial reviews have everyone buzzing about this timed PS5 exclusive from developer Arkane Studios (the team behind modern classics such as Dishonored 2 and Prey), but I’m a little worried that the positive buzz surrounding this game is going to give people the wrong impression about what kind of experience it actually is.

When a game starts getting perfect scores, it’s tempting to start telling yourself it must be perfect. Well, no game is perfect, and Deathloop is one of the most imperfect major games I’ve played in quite some time. It’s loaded with obvious shortcomings that will surely chase people away from its inherently divisive core gameplay.

Yet, I too am convinced that Deathloop is a masterpiece not just in spite of its flaws but, in some strange ways, because of them. Because a score can give you the wrong impression about why Deathloop is great, let’s take a slightly deeper look at this game’s problems, greatest qualities, and the strange relationship between the two that shows you just how rare a game like this really is.

Deathloop’s A.I. Is Shockingly Bad

The core of any immersive sim’s gameplay is the thrill you get from finding different solutions to complex problems. Do you go in guns blazing to show off your arsenal and abilities, or do you use stealth, hacking, and subversion to find a more subtle solution? That thrill of finding the perfect path forward (or even just your preferred one) is what makes games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and BioShock the classics they are.

Sadly, Deathloop’s terrible A.I. limits the moment-to-moment appeal of its immersive sim gameplay. Enemies will regularly walk straight into their death, ignore bodies dropped inches behind them from great heights, and generally refuse to use even basic combat techniques to try to slow your progress.

Deathloop’s woeful A.I. rarely inspires you to find those creative solutions that should define these types of games. You can still approach a situation however you’d like, but you’re rarely left with the feeling you’ve just found and executed the perfect plan since you’re pretty sure just about any plan would have been good enough to topple this game’s hapless goons.

Deathloop Tries Too Hard to Hold Your Hand

Deathloop is a pretty complicated game built around a fairly unique premise. As such, I can certainly sympathize with developer Arkane’s decision to frontload the game with quite a few tutorial screens designed to explain the basics.

Still, it feels like there was a better way to explain this game’s core concepts without relying on a series of screens filled with tiny text. For a game that does such a great job of subtly relaying nearly every other bit of information while letting you figure things out on your own (more on that later), it’s odd that Arkane chose to rely on such a conventual, straightforward, and often frustrating method of delivery.

In fact, the somewhat sudden way this game pivots from guided gameplay to encouraging you to find organic solutions to complex problems might be too much for some and ultimately negate the good intentions of the title’s opening hours.

Deathloop Doesn’t Feel Like a Next-Gen Game

Most people knew that the Covid-19 pandemic and global supply shortages were going to slow down an already slow next-gen transition process. We probably won’t start seeing a steady stream of “true” next-gen games until later in 2022, and I understand why that’s the case.

That being said, I’m not sure Deathloop is entirely “worthy” of its current PS5 console exclusivity (the game is also available for PC). Aside from a few Dualsense features and quicker loading times, Deathloop feels like a game that probably could have been ported to the PS4 without sacrificing its best qualities.

Considering how hard it is to find a next-gen console, I feel like this game probably should have been developed for PS4 and PS5. Microsoft may eventually offer some kind of backward compatibility once Deathloop comes to Xbox, but this title’s few obvious next-gen features aren’t a good enough reason to limit its initial reach.

Deathloop’s Time Loop Is One of the Best In Video Game History

You probably know that Deathloop is a time loop game, and, thanks to a surprising number of new entries into that formerly niche genre, you probably know that means Deathloop is designed to make you repeat the same time period over and over again until you break the loop.

However, you’ve got to play Deathloop to appreciate just how great its time loop really is. In fact, the way that Deathloop uses the time loop concept to slowly unravel its initially bewildering plot and enhance your understanding of what is possible in this game may just make it the best example of time loop design in video game history.

I’ve already heard some say that having to repeat Deathloop’s basic structure over and over again starts to feel “grindy,” but in my experience, but there was honestly never a time when I felt too disappointed to start the loop over as doing so usually opened up exciting new opportunities or at least allowed me to learn from whatever mistake I just made that triggered the most recent reset.

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Deathloop’s Assassinations Are Some of the Most Satisfying Logic Puzzles Since Portal

While Deathloop’s poor A.I. makes battles against its basic enemies feel…basic, the battles against the game’s Visionaries (your “boss” targets) combine the best elements of Portal and recent Hitman games to form the most satisfying logic puzzles you’ll ever experience.

Identifying your target and finding not just the perfect way to kill them but the perfect way to kill them that then allows you to seamlessly move on to the next target with enough time to spare is quite simply one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in a video game in the last 15 years. The number of possible ways to kill an individual target is bested only by the number of possible ways to kill every target in one perfect run.

It’s an approach that leads to a nearly infinite series of “aha” moments that never fail to provide the motivation you need to work your way through one more loop.

Deathloop Brilliantly Repurposes the Best Qualities of the Roguelike Genre

At first, I was a little worried about Deathloop’s item rarity, skill finding, and progression/regression mechanics. During those early stages when the game is trying to explain so much to you in a short amount of time, the combination of all those roguelike systems started to feel like a bit much.

However, you eventually discover that the reason those mechanics work so well together is that Deathloop brilliantly limits how many skills, weapons, and items you’re able to readily access during each loop. The result is a kind of roguelike experience where you (eventually) get to have some say in what your reset looks like and how close to “zero” you really have to start from.

I love a traditional roguelike experience, but between games like this, Returnal, and Hades that challenge the idea of “starting over,” it’s been fascinating to watch developers play with the boundaries of the roguelike genre and blend that genre with other concepts.

Deathloop’s Multiplayer is a Brilliant Idea You May Choose to Ignore

In case you haven’t heard, Deathloop features a fascinating multiplayer component that allows other players to “invade” your game by controlling Julianna: a rival who will stop at nothing to kill the player and preserve the time loop. Julianna’s unique set of abilities allows invading players to easily disguise themselves and generally make your life hell.

That’s the great and annoying thing about this feature. See, if you choose to disable player-controlled Julianna invasions, the character will still “invade” your game but will instead be controlled by the A.I. Considering this game’s A.I. problems (see above), you don’t really get to experience how brilliant this concept is until you enabled the multiplayer component.

At the same time, the “griefing” nature of this invasion system means that many people are going to find it to be quite annoying and even detrimental to the overall experience. I feel like this problem could have been solved by a stronger A.I. version of Julianna who comes closer to representing the challenge offered by human players without being quite as frustrating.

Deathloop’s Incredible Environmental Storytelling Enhances a Sometimes Weak Narrative

Most of Deathloop’s storytelling is done through audio files, environmental clues, computer exchanges, and…well just about everything other than cutscenes and character-to-player dialog exchanges. Anyone who is familiar with Arkane’s previous works (most notably Prey) will be familiar with this basic approach.

Arkane’s familiarity with this complicated form of storytelling generally results in some of the cleverest and most unexpected bits of narrative design I’ve ever seen, even by this studio’s lofty standards. It’s amazing that Arkane left it up to the player to discover so many vital plot points and character development moments, but that approach ultimately enhances the thrill of finding that one bit of information that puts every other piece of the puzzle in place.

However, the game’s brilliant approach to storytelling doesn’t entirely disguise the weakness of the overall narrative. I won’t get into spoilers here, but once you realize that Deathloop’s plot is more about the little moments and the journey rather the destination, you start to get the feeling that there was a more interesting overall story here that the developers just didn’t quite deliver.

Deathloop Isn’t For Everyone, and That’s What’s Great About It

Developer Arkane Studios has been criticized in the past for making a specific kind of game that rarely meets sales expectations. Some have wondered whether or not Arkane would be better off making at least a few concessions to the preferences of wider audiences just so they could help ensure that they’re able to continue making at least some kind of version of the games they make so well.

Between Deathloop’s PS5 console exclusivity, Arkane-style design, and the fact it’s hard to even offer a basic description of the experience without getting into spoilers, I highly doubt that this is going to end up being a long-term best-seller or even just the studio’s best-selling game to date.

However, that’s kind of what makes Deathloop so great. Nearly all of the problems in Deathloop can be attributed to Arkane’s desire to focus on the things they do so well and not worry so much about whether or not someone who doesn’t really enjoy what this title is fundamentally going for is going to take a chance on it.

I can’t speak to what would have happened if Arkane tried to make a few more changes for wider audiences or even just worked harder to break free of their bad habits, but what I do know is that they came up with a brilliant idea for a game and made that brilliant idea work despite the fact that it could have so easily fallen apart at any time.

In a world where nothing is perfect, it’s hard to withhold the masterpiece label for something that somehow manages to get everything right. Like many of the most innovative and greatest games before it, Deathloop was made by a team of people committed to getting their biggest and best ideas right above all else.

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It’s easy enough to see how Deathloop could have been a better game, but I’d rather be left with a series of nitpicks acquired in the pursuit of something original than another perfectly fine Triple-A game that ultimately justifies its existence through sales figures alone.

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