I don’t think any of this is actually a problem–meaning I don’t agree that it is true, not that it wouldn’t be a problem if it were true–except Microsoft’s criminal UI changes and perpetual rebranding of the same old garbage.

In this context I am drawing the line with wifi and personally issued Internet connected devices, particularly where the student isn’t really getting instruction from a live person.

No, I said I completely agree with this, this being that the state should not be providing wifi hotspots to school children. I was surprised that I actually agreed with Cruz on this because I pretty much never agree with him and consider him, in the words of John Boehner, Lucifer in the flesh. And I’m sorry if some of you thought I meant that I completely agreed with him on what he startes as his justification (morality police, censorship, etc.) which isn’t the case.

But instead all you trigger-ready comment warriors are ready to burn me at the stake for what’s really a pretty sensible position.

Wifi hotspots aren’t going to eliminate inequality. Students eith reliable Internet may have an unfair advantage, but teachers and administrators could minimize that by giving assignments that don’t really require Internet access to complete.

Should all assignments be hand written, of course not. But do they need to be completed in a web browser? Nope. Good old word processor and spreadsheets work great.

Holy moly, everybody is on edge. Understandable…

Me too, they didn’t require constant connectivity. I went to the library or computer lab. Lots of kids in my class didn’t have a home computer. And even though my family did, it didn’t give me an advantage on those assignments. We all had to manage doing them at school on a school computer. Thank God they didn’t have Facebook.

Are you even serious right now? God damn it. Who made these rules?

I am actually reading a paper book right now to learn about configuring advanced features of ZFS. Hard to believe but it’s much easier to understand than the fragments of information on Stack Exchange. The man pages are nice to reference but they don’t really teach the concepts or give good examples. And Perplexity gave me bad information. Even for very technical things, which you might think would be the first to be displaced, there’s still a place for paper books. Yeah I could figure it out eventually but reading this book has probably been faster, more thorough, and more approachable.

You completely missed my point, perhaps it is you who has the whoosh?

His rationale is ridiculous, but my comment is meant to question why wifi is even necessary to do homework, not about the dangers of censorship. Of course the censorship is outrageous.

It’s not wrong to question whether any actual learning is taking place on “devices” regardless of whether they’re ubiquitous. It’s easy to pick up how to use a device after you know how to read and do math, much harder to learn the former when you’re an expert at navigating menus on a device. Maybe this is why 4th grade math skills haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels…

Also don’t woosh me. Are you going to skibidy next?

I’m all for libraries. Cruz rationale is retarded, all I’m saying is that the government shouldn’t be providing wifi hotspots to kids.

Foolish comment. Wax tablets didn’t have social media, three million notifications, tracking and spying features, countless distractions, updates, power, and connectivity requirements.

Already did, that’s why I care.

Not only do I completely agree with this, I am blown away that schools aren’t actually using paper textbooks anymore. I only recently woke up to this lazy new way of teaching. I don’t want my children even using devices at all for any purpose, let alone being required to use them for schoolwork. What the fuck kind of society are we creating?

I have a fiduciary obligation to hire employees with integrity, who abide by the law. I don’t think a presidential pardon makes any difference to how I evaluate a candidate, regardless of type. Maybe the law treats the two differently, but I don’t think I need to. If anything, benefiting from a pardon makes me less likely to hire them: they haven’t repaid their debt to society, they just got lucky.

Someone download, quick! Definitely adding this to my company’s pre-hiring due diligence and background check procedures.

I think I acknowledged that. People also take calculated risk every day. It’s really hard to avoid nuts even when you’re not intending on taking that risk. Baklava is pretty obviously nutty, but these days product labeling pretty much always says may contain peanuts for liability reasons, even when it definitely doesn’t contain peanuts. You’re left not knowing what actually contains peanuts and what doesn’t. You become desensitized to taking a chance. I once ordered a dessert at a restaurant and asked the waiter to check if it had peanuts, he came back and said it did not. I got the dessert, started eating it, mouth started swelling up, asked the waiter to check again, he came back and said there are definitely no peanuts but the chocolate mousse what peanut butter whipped chocolate mousse. So people are also just fucking stupid, can’t trust anyone to have any common sense anymore.

If you’re talking about Epipen, they’re even more expensive than that, but I use epinephrine ampules that cost about $1 and draw it up myself if I need to use it. People will give you funny looks since you have syringes, but they do fine in the glasses case. The Epipen people will tell you that’s too complicated in an emergency but it’s actually really easy once you’re trained to do it. It also allows one to adjust the dose in an emergency–my dose is different than that of a child. My grandmother was a diabetic and had to inject herself with insulin all the time when I was growing up. If she could manage to do that anybody could.

Perhaps I could offer some perspective, since I do have a peanut and pistachio allergy. First of all, many people have allergies to specific nuts but not all nuts. Peanuts are actually legumes, and the allergy is to a specific protein. I eat almonds almost daily. I enjoy walnuts and pecans, macadamia nuts, etc. Some people are allergic to all of these nuts, but in my experience that’s actually fairly rare.

Baklava is traditionally made with walnuts. If you don’t have an allergy to walnuts and you’re sure it’s made just just walnuts and not some other nut you’re allergic to, then it’s not unreasonable to eat it.

Sadly, lots of nuts are labeled one nut but actually contain a mixture of nuts. One Christmas my aunt poisoned me with pecans in a salad. When I started having an anaphylactic reaction she checked the can which said in small print that it was 80% pecan 20% mixed nuts including peanut, pistachio, cashew, almond, and others. I spent Christmas in the ER.

Enjoying this delicious treat without an allergy kit is unwise. Some schools are crazy about kids having medication, but I think that’s ridiculous. I have all my allergy medication and syringes in a glasses case and I take it everywhere. I have one in my backpack, one in my car, one in my office, they’re everywhere. When you have a serious allergy like this, you should always know where to find it without having to think (every minute counts) and you should always have a bottle of water or know how to get water in an emergency to swallow meds. (When I board a plane, I always buy a bottle of water after I get through security.)

As for leaving school to get to a pharmacy if she didn’t have meds, I say smart. It’s criminal that the school doesn’t have an allergy kit. But sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands and be your own advocate. I’ve frequently made the call that I cannot wait for an ambulance to take me to a hospital, I need to drive myself to the closest ER because I can get there faster–even without lights and sirens–than waiting for an ambulance to drive essentially twice the distance. I know this is controversial but I’d rather die controlling my own destiny.

As for why she did not take this seriously, I can say that I’ve had lots of reactions with different levels of severity. Sometimes you spit the thing out right away without ingesting it. The reaction might be slower in this case, but can still be fatal. She probably thought she had more time. Once the allergin contacts a mucous membrane you’re toast. It’s not like you can wash your mouth out with soap and water–yes, I’ve actually tried that–doesn’t do shit. Once time I had peanut butter on my hands (unwittingly) and wiped my eyes. Full blown reaction just from touching my eye lids with peanut butter residue. That was a wild incident because I had no idea what was happening. Found out some kids had a birthday party at the location earlier in the day and they had PB&J sandwiches. Evidently they didn’t clean up too well.

It can be a tough thing to live with, but the person with the allergy often feels a lot of guilt for causing inconvenience for everybody around them. I hate being that guy with the peanut allergy. And nothing is worse than boarding a plane where people are already annoyed that they don’t serve peanuts and having to tell somebody in my row that I have a severe allergy and I’d really appreciate if they didn’t eat their Reeses cups and peanut bars. I do remind them that it probably beats the disruption of an emergency landing in a different city, though.

I feel for all involved. Anyway, hope that helps. Just my perspective.