Grrrr, this is such a bugbear for me. I was so excited to read "A Fire Upon The Deep" because hackers talked up the concept of "software archeology" that the book apparently introduced.
The concept is briefly alluded to in the prologue, and then...nada, not relevant to the rest of the plot at all (the _effects_ of the archeology are, but "software archeologists" are not meaningful characters in the narrative). I felt bait-and-switched.
How curious! (I feel that I've observed the Britishization of the word "curious" in my lifetime. As a child, it meant only interested, intrigued. Now it also means strange or bizarre.)
This might be my fault. I was in Charlottesville for a few months about 16 years ago doing some work for a startup, hanging out in my off hours with a group of sorority girls who had worked for me in London when I’d been an impresario.
I say (or rather, said, as this episode made me very conscious of it) “hmm, curious” almost reflexively when working on something. They aped me. They partied, they spread the meme. Within a week I was suddenly overhearing people in cafes and gas stations going “hmm, curious” and by the time I left town I felt like I was living in a poorly written Monty Python sketch (or perhaps a Lovecraft bit), as an epidemic of “mmm, curious” had taken over the townspeople and the UVA student body. The latter all then went home at the end of the year, towards the end of my stay there, and spread it to every corner of the U.S.
When I went back a year later, they were all still at it.
I guess this ties in with the whole “teenage girls introduce new language” piece a few weeks back.
My proplifting code is a bit simpler: I don't take cuttings, but I will pick up loose leaves or other plant parts from the floor, shelf, or wherever they have landed. Succulents in particular will often drop leaves, which can be quite easy to propagate.
For those in the Milwaukee or Chicagoland areas, I highly recommend checking out American Science and Surplus (https://sciplus.com/). Not props or movie industry related, but similarly fascinating. This store has catered to makers of all stripes since long before "makers" meant what it does today.
Am I missing something here? The figures quoted in the opening paragraph suggest to me that confidence is rising.
> Confidence in college has taken a nosedive, with one out of three poll responders claiming they have “little or no confidence” in higher education. This contrasts sharply with a 2015 poll, when 57% of those surveyed claimed to to be fairly or “very” confident in the old hallowed halls.
It is confusing because the author was really messy with her use of the figures to where that sentence reads nonsensically. The actual Gallup news article that is cited by the article posted is much clearer. The posted article reads as if it was just a re-arranged/scrambled word salad of the original article to the point where some parts no longer make sense.
The original article makes it clear that while the current figure is 36% for those who have quite a lot of confidence or more in higher education, in 2015, that figure was much higher at 57%. The little to no confidence now is 32%, while in 2015 it was only 10%.
The poll data itself helps to clarify. It went from 10% answering very little/none to now 32%, and 57% great deal/quite a lot down to 36%. That's a pretty big shift.
Looks like there is a "some" option. For some reason the author quotes one number from one year, a second from the other, and ignores the third option in both. Ignore "not sure" respondents in polls at your own peril.
I wrote a little Swaybar script that displays the current weather. When I hover over it, I can see the hourly forecast and a few other details. It's not perfect, but I prefer the simplicity over a fully-fledged application.
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