@terryb@babka.social avatar

terryb

@terryb@babka.social

I'm also on Ohai social. @TerryBtwo
Jewish Conspiracy Committee Member
Retired #literacy specialist teacher. #PhonicsIsntReading
Occasional techie. #UK. #Jewish.
Proud #sheltie owner.
Love #Dogs. People not so much.
I like a discussion, but "straw man" arguments and "sea lioning"= instant block. So does victim shaming.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

count_01, to random
@count_01@mastodon.social avatar

Had a (brief) discussion with a person who thought the NY trial was about doing "nothing wrong." I've been thinking about that.

Banging someone other than your wife: legal, but morally not great
Promising someone things you will not and cannot deliver so they will sleep with you: legal (usually) but morally damnably sleazy
Purchasing the rights to publish a story about sleeping with someone: completely okay
Having your buddy purchase the rights so no one else can publish: sleazy, but still okay

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@count_01 @shekinahcancook This, pretty universally, seems to be the theme music of the 21st C. Everywhere we look around the "developed" world there seems to be a culture of impunity at the top. Political/corporate/civil, it doesn't seem to matter, as if they were all being careful to protect each other's back. If they fail they fail upwards into a new cushy role. And so on.

shekinahcancook, to linguistics
@shekinahcancook@babka.social avatar

How the Brain Processes Different Components of Language - Moving beyond neural localization of language. Posted May 28, 2024

"...This is in line with recent ideas about a "cortical mosaic" architecture for linguistic structure within overlapping portions of posterior temporal and inferior frontal cortices for processing demands that bias syntactic and semantic computations, whereby, for example, effects of composition can be found within a narrow strip of tissue within the broader lexicality-sensitive cortical sites (a spatial mosaic), or where different demands of sentence-level inferential semantics can be detected over closely overlapping temporal windows within a small area of cortex (a spatiotemporal mosaic)..."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/language-and-its-place-in-nature/202405/how-the-brain-processes-different-components-of

Your brain is a big interconnected mosaic, not a nice neat clearly labeled filing cabinet, lol.

#Language #Linguistics #Brain #Psychology #Learning #Education

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook Which is one of the reasons why the Reading=Phonics "Science of Reading" is such bo***ks

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook Dr. Suess' phonics is not allowed in mandated schemes which have to be "Synthetic Phonics" strict sound by sound-no rhyme patterns allowed. Interestingly (to me anyway) almost every method of teaching reading works for almost every kid. Just none work 100%. I learnt in the 60s by Look and Say- now banned everywhere as Wrong. But most of my generation learnt to read that way.
The problems occur are 1) when the ideologically fixated believe there is One True Method and 2) when the method becomes more important than the outcome- i.e. the kids actually wanting to read. When in some places in the 80s phonics was an anathema as a specialist teacher I taught phonics where appropriate. And where Synthetic Phonics the current Shibboleth was taught I'd use the other (Dr. Suess compatible) type where appropriate. And a range of other techniques too, for kids having reading problems.

raf, to random
@raf@babka.social avatar

Average Yiddishist :cat_play:

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@raf Hmm. It's one of the things that makes Duolingo Yiddish more difficult than it needs to be. There are many others.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@raf Is that thing where all י (yuds) sound like ו (vav) and vice versa common to the pronunciation you know? That one really gets me in a spin.

lynn, to Palestine
@lynn@babka.social avatar

Progressive Democrats aren’t turning activism into election wins.
Despite intense focus on pro-Palestinian protests, many of were championed by the far-left wing of the Democratic Party, the self-proclaimed progressive bloc has struggled to churn out victories at the ballot box.
Oregon’s Democratic primary served up the latest example of this uphill fight, as the more traditional liberal wing won two contested primaries. State Rep. Janelle Bynum, with the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, crushed a progressive favorite, Jamie McLeod-Skinner, by about 40 percentage points.
#palestine #vote #israel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/25/progressives-liberals-democrats-primaries/

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@pixelartdragon @lynn This appears to be the perennial problem of political parties of the (relative) Left. Idealogical purity seems to trump pragmatic policies for improving people's lives. Some, of course, want that. They don't want improvements:They want suffering to nurture The Revolution™️. But mostly it's just self-righteousness.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@pixelartdragon @lynn https://youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4&feature=shared

shekinahcancook, to sustainability
@shekinahcancook@babka.social avatar

These U.S. Cities Have More Parking Lots Than Housing - They paved paradise again and again and again.
by Frank Jacobs, Big Think May 17, 2024

"...On average, about one-fifth of all land in city centers is dedicated to parking. But what’s the actual harm being done by all that parking space? For one, city centers that are more “parkable” become less walkable. In other words, fewer things are casually accessible.

...Americans’ attitude toward driving is changing. The share of high school seniors with a driving license has dropped from 85.3% in 1996 to 71.5% in 2015. The rise of shared, multi-modal, and (soon, they keep promising us) autonomous mobility will further reduce the need for driver’s licenses, individual cars, and massive parking facilities in city centers.

Perhaps it’s time for American cities to become denser, more lived-in, more walkable—and less “parkable.”

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/parking-lots-in-cities-usa

#Parking #Zoning #LandUse #Urbanism #Transportation #Sustainability

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @ai6yr Interestingly, in the UK churches tend mostly to be surrounded by green space. Shuls and mosques tend to be fairly compact. The new churches, Baptists etc. tend to repurpose older buildings. None of them seem to have solar panels, which I find shocking. Except the same could be said for all sorts of public buildings.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @ai6yr It's something I find quite strange. In the UK domestic solar panels are VAT (tax) free and the surplus electricity can be fed back to the grid for useful money-you can even get them from Costco*. Yet there are still very few around. And public/commercial buildings have acres of space doing nothing that could be used to replace expensive electricity. Surely some of them could afford the upfront investment.
*Ours being installed in a couple of weeks 😀.

dukepaaron, to random
@dukepaaron@babka.social avatar

Moroccanoil is the new Dancing Israelis.

The ability to turn anything into a nutty Jewish conspiracy is Europe's greatest gift to the world and modern society since the large hadron collider changed the timeline.

This jokes for you, Harambe!

<pours one out for him>

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@serge @dukepaaron God yes! It costs a fortune to stage. (Winner has to host next year!). But the guys on shift in The Top Secret Headquarters messed up. It was meant to be third but there was a fat finger moment. There Will Be An Investigation. Quite likely the best biscuits (aka cookies for the Americans) will be locked away until after Shavuot.

idan, to random
@idan@sfba.social avatar

The radical left has decided that they have the momentum to shove their racist agenda into the mainstream. And they're not wrong about that assessment, clearly. But it doesn't make it less racist.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@idan I'd argue that though less obvious there are clear elements of a wider racism among the far-Left. Not just AS. Just subtler. It's speaking and acting for brown people. Denying them agency. Patronising. Even infantilising. In the guise of being antiracist.

pixelartdragon, to random

(to continue a discussion with @serge )
Colonization at its core is to artificially force a power structure on a society from the outside. Historically, this would involve placing a foreign ruling entity at the top of a local one.
Decolonization, therefore, seems like it should be a removal of that foreign ruler.
In practice, though, there have been too many times when an attempt to undo this change has ended up creating a worse society than the colonial one. And that's a problem that I don't think a lot of people pushing for decolonialization have thought through enough.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@pixelartdragon @serge Interesting. I'd describe that as "conquest". "Colonisation" is imposing a new community into a land. Even if it's Antarctica it'd still be a colony. (Or the moon, even). Decolonisation would be leaving that settlement. And maybe taking the cultural influences away too. So Arabs would return to Arabia from Morocco. European Americans to Europe. And so on.

noharmpun, to random
@noharmpun@babka.social avatar

If someone claims to be Jewish, especially if they are "anti-zionist", it seems a good way to determining right away if they're a fraud is to ask them what was their bar/bat mitzvah parasha. If the can't remember the name, they should at least be able to tell you something about the content.

Even if they don't know it, how they react will probably tell you a lot.

If you're Jewish and didn't have a b'nai mitzvah, that's cool. We can still hang. I'm not trying to gatekeep Judaism.

I am however strongly gatekeeping using "but I'm Jewish so my opinion on XXX matters". If you can't converse about their Jewish upbringing, you probably didn't have one. And if you didn't have one, who are you to speak for other Jews?

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@noharmpun It's funny. I know mine was on Shabbat Nachamu- and remember the start of the Haftorah- even after 50+ years of going to shul only a handful of times a year.

currentbias, to random
@currentbias@open-source-eschaton.net avatar

"Zionism is often regarded as a Jewish movement. In fact, the vast majority of Zionists are Christian. Moreover, Christian Zionism is usually considered to be a subset of Zionism. In contrast to this popular misconception, we should understand that Christian Zionism is the majority expression of Zionism; Jewish Zionism is an outgrowth of Christian Zionism."

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctvbcd292.12.pdf

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @currentbias We say "Next year in Jerusalem" at the end of Yom Kippur and Seder night.

Streetsweeper, to random
@Streetsweeper@urbanists.social avatar

@shekinahcancook

interesting review to read.

https://www.theverge.com/23998244/ge-profile-smart-mixer-review

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @Streetsweeper Because when you are in the kitchen, up to your elbows in sticky goo the things you want to do most in the world is to fiddle with a small plastic electronic device. 🤔😲😠

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @hauntedhideaway @Streetsweeper I see your mixer and raise you a f***ing Bluetooth toothbrush. (But to be fair, it's not on the interwebs).

queencitynerd, to random
@queencitynerd@babka.social avatar

Okay linguists. I was just taking the spent coffee out of this device in my kitchen and it occurred to me that calling them coffee grounds might be an awkward English expression. How do we call the spent coffee from this device in other languages? Like, it's coffee or ground coffee until you use it and then they become coffee grounds at least in this part of New York State English speak.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @queencitynerd Same in UK.

serge, to Israel
@serge@babka.social avatar

This is such an important article. I hope people read it.

There is a ceasefire proposal in front of Hamas, one drafted by Arab nations, and Hamas is rejecting it. It would rather see the war continue and the Gazans hurt or killed, rather than provide a reprieve.

Maybe that's because Hamas leadership isn't in Gaza. They live elsewhere, in other countries far away from the fighting, and yet on the ground, Hamas runs Gaza.

What Israel should or should not do, or how it should conduct the war is absolutely a question on the table, but fundamentally a ceasefire must be two ways, a ceasefire from both sides, and if Hamas does not accept one for the sake of the Palestinian people, then it's they should should be attacked by the media.

Gaza must be freed from Hamas so the people there can live full lives, and for the possibility of peace.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-rejects-israels-ceasefire-response-sticks-main-demands-2024-04-13/

#Israel #Hamas #Gaza #ceasefire

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @funbaker @serge Well called. There is no point discussing with the types who want an end to a fight back because they hate the group (Jews of Israel in this case) defending themselves or support the original perpetrators (Russia attacking Ukraine). Their argument is essentially "You should let yourself be hit in the face". Bollocks to that.

asbestos, to random
@asbestos@toot.community avatar

You suppose all the anti vaxers, covid deniers, faith healers, and creationists are going to be all "How did they know there was going to be an eclipse?"

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @asbestos I'm more fascinated by the fact that something which happens every 18 months or so, with barely a mention, is being treated like an Earth shattering event just because this one is over the USA....

serge, to random
@serge@babka.social avatar

I'm seeing people online saying that McDonalds is too expensive, and blaming the rise of labor costs related to the increasing minimum wage.

I decided to dig in a little to see if that's true.

tl;dr It's not true. Efficiencies in production mean that prices of McDonalds are proportionally lower than they were 30 years ago, even with the wage issues.

In 1994, the average price of a Bic Mac in the US was ~$3.36, which is ~$7.04 in today's money.

The nationwide McDonalds price for a Big Mac today is 5.69.

In 1994, the Federal minimum wage was $4.25 an hour, or $8.90 adjusted for inflation.

That means a single meal at McDonalds would cost more than minimum wage for an hour, even before taxes.

Today, even though many states have higher minimum wage, the Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

And yet even then, a Big Mac is still proportionally lower than minimum wage.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@serge Even if it wasn't. No one has the right to demand that other people work for poverty wages so that they can get cheap luxury*. Even McD's.
*Having your food prepared and cooked for you is a luxury.

raf, to random
@raf@babka.social avatar

I've been married close to ten years. Question to other people in long-term domestic partnerships. Does there ever come a time where I will stop finding objects in rooms they don't belong?

Today, it was pencil shavings in the bathtub.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @raf It's a loaded question. Who says where things belong. To Mrs. B things belong where she put them "temporarily" 2 years ago.
To me things belong where I can find them when I need them.
These two objectives are sometimes compatible.

terryb, (edited )
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @raf We're kind of different. Herself is a tidier. I'm an organiser. She'll find a place to put stuff as soon as she can. Where that might be is secondary. Often we can't find stuff and maybe even buy it again if it's a small inexpensive item.
I will leave stuff lying around, untidily, for a while, where I am/was using it, but then eventually have a tidy up and sort things into a logical (to me at least) location where I know I can find it.
Which reminds me- must put the can of white gloss and paint brushes, currently sitting in the spare bedroom, into the shed. I did the glossing over a week ago. 😳

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @raf That's interesting. Especially for those of us who have little other choice. It also might explain why the previous tin was very slow to dry.

FluentInFinance, to random
@FluentInFinance@mastodon.social avatar

If you open a Roth IRA at 18 and invest $100/week into an S&P 500 index fund until you're 40, you should have $500,000 tax-free.

You'll only spend $100,000 of your own cash and the gains are due to compounding returns.

This is the power of time.

terryb,
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook @FluentInFinance It's also bullshit. The savings scheme is a stock market based fund, currently performing at just below 10% which is well above deposit savings (5%ish) but would fall dramatically if the stock market did. And: Even if you could afford 5000pa even at a continuous (improbable for 22years) 10% interest rate, according to an online calculator I just looked at, the principle over 20 years would only increase by 270,000. And inflation would cut into that.

shekinahcancook, to random
@shekinahcancook@babka.social avatar

Christianity does not have the right to decide for everyone else what is acceptable clothing, social or sexual relationships, culture, beliefs, or lifestyle.

Christianity only has the right to tell their own cult members what to do or not do.

Legislating religious beliefs is unconstitutional, period.

Legislating christian religious beliefs about abortion, lgbtq, women's rights, or anything else is a violation of my 1st amendment right to freedom of religious practice.

It is also a violation of the UN Charter of Human Rights - especially prohibitions against forced pregnancy.

No theocracy in America.

#Abortion #FreedomOfReligion #WomensRights #NoTheocracy #TheNewInquisition

terryb, (edited )
@terryb@babka.social avatar

@shekinahcancook It's worth pointing out that the "religious freedom" that America's "Pilgrim Fathers" were seeking when they left Europe was the freedom to be mean to other Christian groups.

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