@aeveltstra@mastodon.social
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aeveltstra

@aeveltstra@mastodon.social

Hi, this is Andre. I'll be writing about software architecture and development, cyber security, UX/UI topics, politics, and queer experiences. I'm a classically trained musician and music composer, band director, and music instructor. I'm handfasted, have kids, and play and create (video) games. Sometimes I don't recognize social cues.

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aeveltstra, to random
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In case you need music instruction, I can provide. I'm affordable:
https://www.patreon.com/aev_music/shop

aeveltstra, to music
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I made a thing.

video/mp4

aeveltstra, to random
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

Freedom to protest should be protected by the constitution.

Oh, wait… it is.

Who didn’t get the memo?

johl, to random
@johl@mastodon.xyz avatar

Microsoft releases MS-DOS as Open Source:

“This repo contains the original source-code and compiled binaries for MS-DOS v1.25 and MS-DOS v2.0, plus the source-code for MS-DOS v4.00 jointly developed by IBM and Microsoft. (…) All files within this repo are released under the MIT License as per the LICENSE file stored in the root of this repo.”

https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS

aeveltstra,
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@johl Holy cow. I guess pigs do fly in this universe.

aeveltstra, to random
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In my bus, in the seats in front of me, sit what appears 2 new students from Rutgers U, very much infatuated with each other. Both look like masc girls. One looks goth with safety pins in her ears and purple nailpolish. Neither wears any other make up.

Craigp, to random
@Craigp@mastodon.social avatar

My adventures in trying to eat healthy have exposed me to a lot of things advertised to women and branded as healthy that... really don't seem any healthier than my manly-man-diet.

Oh, look, yogurt is healthy, right? It's lower in fat than cheese!

... Except you don't fuckin' eat a cup of cheese. You eat WAY more yoghurt, I can't imagine this is actually any healthier than cheese.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@Craigp As long as those fats are unsaturated, and the sugars are raw, you should be good. The human body needs both. Be careful with saturated fats and processed sugars, as they damage blood vessels and brain tissue. And match your caloric intake to your activity level and food absorption level. Personally, I need high-caloric foods because I have a malabsorption issue.

RonsCompVids, to apple
@RonsCompVids@bitbang.social avatar

Most enthusiasts have heard of the "MacTable" by the Danish company Scanco, but did you know they released a platform a platform agnostic version?

image/png

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@RonsCompVids when was that? 1970s?

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

On which note it's worth reminding Americans that Brits do NOT say:
— elevator
— sidewalk
— railroad
— faucet
— crosswalk
— automobile
— 18-wheeler
— bellhop
— drugstore
— freeway/highway/turnpike/interstate
— parking lot
— attorney

(There are synonyms/equivalents but these are specifically AMERICAN things that flag you up as a foreign devil.)
https://mastodon.social/@tomhannen/112332893629022705

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@ukscone @cstross Gotta love cultural differences between language that ought to be mutually intelligible.

aeveltstra, to random
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

I support clients who believe things happen as if by magic. We may agree that magic merely is something sufficiently complex as to defy understanding. For my clients, that magic is me.

Thus you have to communicate with me if you want things to happen, and preferably ahead of time, rather than expecting them and then complain if they don’t happen.

It’s like praying to God, except that the mover and shaker is me. And I refuse to read your mind.

aeveltstra, to random
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

If anyone knows of, or can come up with a projected input device that feels like a typewriter, please, share!

brianbilston, to random
@brianbilston@mastodon.online avatar

I’m fed up with people pointing out all the mistakes in my poetry so I’ve written them this poem; it’s called ‘Pedant’s’.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@brianbilston Braveaux!

APBBlue, to random
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I was having a bad dream and woke up in a panic, which seems highly unnecessary.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@APBBlue I’ve done that. I found it highly disturbing.

aeveltstra, to math
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

The other day my kid asks me to present math problems about area. Early middle school: simple multiplications and divisions. He got taught a formula for areas of trapezoids: A = 1/2h * (b1 + b2).

I decided to show him how to his solution, by giving him a different approach: A = a + 2b, where a = area of the square, and b = area of each triangle on the sides of that square.

He threw a fit and refused to accept my approach, because it wasn’t the same as he had learned.

smh

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

There’s 2 morals to this story:

  1. Educators should avoid making belief that the approach they teach is the only possible one.
  2. You cannot verify your approach by repeating it. That only tests whether it leads to the same outcome, but doesn’t verify. Instead, you need to find a different way to get to the same conclusion, and then compare.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@SmartmanApps I recognize learning materials are malleable. The choice you present assumes they aren’t. Maybe you had hoped readers wouldn’t recognize that? I would teach both your simplest formula, which itself is a derivative, and the formula I presented. The fact that your learning materials don’t include that is caused by the prior choice to teach your simplest formula. It shouldn’t be used in turn to teach only that formula: that is circular reasoning.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@SmartmanApps a) Then some of you do a bad job conveying that to their pupils, as my kid’s response proves. Maybe you want to encourage each other to do better.

b) We aren’t unit-testing the formula itself - we are unit-testing the pupil’s application of it to the problem. If they can approach the same problem with a different formula that should result in the same outcome, they can compare outcomes and either affirm or reject their own work.

aeveltstra,
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@gooba42 Teachers are as much constrained by their learning materials as the people they teach. They got taught by the same educational machine which probably has taught people in mostly the same way for decades, making change really hard. Any variety brought by pupils and from the outside (like me, a parent), is met with great resistance as a result, for allowing it means a teacher has to expend more labor than they deem acceptable.

aeveltstra,
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@SmartmanApps You yourself said teachers choose to teach the simplest formula. Do you wish you retract that statement?

I also am not trying to teach 3 things at once. We are in agreement on that.

The fact that something currently is a high-school topic, shouldn’t stop us from reviewing whether it SHOULD be. Breaking apart a complex shape into simpler ones and adding them should be a middle if not a primary school topic. As soon as you learn addition and multiplication.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@SmartmanApps You’re the one who claimed the trapezoid function is the simplest. You’re the one who claimed that’s why it’s being taught. I used that as a reference. Then you say it isn’t. So, you are contradicting yourself. Do better.

aeveltstra,
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@SmartmanApps Ah. But I didn’t try to teach 3 things. The kid already knows the middle-school, grade 7 way of calculating the area of a trapezoid. What I’m teaching, is just 1 thing: how to check whether the calculation was performed correctly. Wouldn’t teachers want pupils who can double-check their work? Out here in my line of work, that ability is very valuable.

aeveltstra,
@aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

@SmartmanApps Yes, one thing at a time. And instead of teaching a formula to memorize, without any understanding of how it came to be, what should be taught is that understanding. This is as easy as teaching kids addition: here’s a shape, there’s a shape, oh, and look, a third shape that is the exact same size as the first. And each of those shapes have an area calculated by multiplication, which they already know. Build upon prior knowledge.

jpmens, to random
@jpmens@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    aeveltstra,
    @aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

    @jpmens Clearly, Katie wants us to know they’re using Microsoft Word to create and send email. They might be browsing your website using Microsoft Spyglass.

    aeveltstra, to random
    @aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

    Woah: turned 25 years old. One of my old blogs is still around and still providing tech support for a product that doesn’t exist anymore…

    samwho, to random
    @samwho@hachyderm.io avatar

    Made a dumb website so I wouldn't ever have to Google "tm symbol" again.

    https://symbol.wtf

    aeveltstra,
    @aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

    @samwho Yay! Now I can write half my name!

    Raffzahn, to random German
    @Raffzahn@mastodon.bayern avatar

    Wissing hilflos: Fahrverbote sind zwingend.

    aeveltstra,
    @aeveltstra@mastodon.social avatar

    @Raffzahn Na klar: die wollen uns nur zum Arbeit fahren lassen.

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