Today I Learned

[iNow]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

I learned today that an American teenager can illegally arm himself with an AR-15, then go out in the streets and act out his cowboy fantasies by taunting, goading, and then killing two people and wounding another, with zero legal consequences.  

Only the white ones

[nasvayta]

I took the IQ test again. Now my score is 79, which seems to be below average. Although the other test was 92... How do you figure that?!

[StringJunky]

5 minutes ago, nasvayta said:

I took the IQ test again. Now my score is 79, which seems to be below average. Although the other test was 92... How do you figure that?!

You aren't so clever today!  Just kidding. Online tests are a toy without professional evaluation for the right reasons. I would give them a wide berth.

[nasvayta]

Just now, StringJunky said:

You aren't so clever today!  Just kidding. Online tests are a toy without professional evaluation for the right reasons. I would give them a wide berth.

I don't know anything about that. I took the most common test  . They say it's good, but I don't know for sure. The first test was given to me by the company I work for. The strange thing is that the results are different. I'll probably never understand how these tests work. I agree with you, they are useless and I never took them seriously, but it was interesting to see my alleged level of intelligence.🤪

[StringJunky]

17 minutes ago, nasvayta said:

I don't know anything about that. I took the most common test  . They say it's good, but I don't know for sure. The first test was given to me by the company I work for. The strange thing is that the results are different. I'll probably never understand how these tests work. I agree with you, they are useless and I never took them seriously, but it was interesting to see my alleged level of intelligence.🤪

Maybe you are not so hot on the skillset that's being measured, which is very narrow. Your strengths likely lie in other skills and abilities that are not covered in those tests..

Edited November 23, 2021 by StringJunky

[Intoscience]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Maybe you are not so hot on the skillset that's being measured, which is very narrow. Your strengths likely lie in other skills and abilities that are not covered in those tests..

Agreed, my partner struggles with such tests especially specific questions and tends to score low. She struggled academically, yet she is an amazing artist, very astute to detail, so for example she notices things in situations most other people would miss. She would probably make a good detective.

Some people are just good at these tests, others not so. Intelligence or as String Junky states "strengths, skills and abilities" may lie elsewhere.     

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, Intoscience said:

Agreed, my partner struggles with such tests especially specific questions and tends to score low. She struggled academically, yet she is an amazing artist, very astute to detail, so for example she notices things in situations most other people would miss. She would probably make a good detective.

Some people are just good at these tests, others not so. Intelligence or as String Junky states "strengths, skills and abilities" may lie elsewhere.     

They were originally  designed to measure those with severe cognitive issues and brain damage to see where their abilities lie and provide focussed assistance. It was meant for a limited set of disabled people, not to look at the full gamut of human abilities, which of course is vast.  A fish that can't climb trees is not 'unintelligent'. It annoys me greatly that millions of people likely erroneously  label themselves as thick, and others who attain high scores as 'better' overall than those with lower scores. MENSA is a vanity organisation imo.

Edited November 24, 2021 by StringJunky

[TheVat]

I recall somewhere around high school my son felt he was not much good at academics especially math.   A few years later he was getting A-pluses in calculus and everything else,  teaching himself programming languages,  composing music,  and trading emails with me on subjects like Bell's theorem or ionization bit flips. 

Sometimes it's just about finding a calm space to sit down and do the studying or the work without distractions.  And some people can jump from one task to another all day,  while others reveal their smarts when they focus on one thing for sixteen hours.   As others note,  there are such a variety of cognitive skills.   

 

[Phi for All]

14 hours ago, TheVat said:

I recall somewhere around high school my son felt he was not much good at academics especially math.   A few years later he was getting A-pluses in calculus and everything else,  teaching himself programming languages,  composing music,  and trading emails with me on subjects like Bell's theorem or ionization bit flips. 

Sometimes it's just about finding a calm space to sit down and do the studying or the work without distractions.  And some people can jump from one task to another all day,  while others reveal their smarts when they focus on one thing for sixteen hours.   As others note,  there are such a variety of cognitive skills.   

Don't forget the teacher! I had a horrible experience with calculus the first time I took it, mostly because the teacher's style didn't suit me at all. I dropped the class and took it the next semester with a different teacher and did fairly well. Sometimes it's just about the connection between teacher and student, and how one's enthusiasm (or lack thereof) can be channeled into effective learning.

[MigL]

Indeed.
I was lucky to have some excellent Math and Physics teachers in high school, who developed and supported my interest in those sciences. Which still interest me to this day.
Maybe if I had studied some Sociology with a good teacher, I wouldn't be so argumentative and confrontational in online forums.

[Intoscience]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

Indeed.
I was lucky to have some excellent Math and Physics teachers in high school, who developed and supported my interest in those sciences. Which still interest me to this day.
Maybe if I had studied some Sociology with a good teacher, I wouldn't be so argumentative and confrontational in online forums.

I think it depends on your arguments, style and the intent behind them. One thing I have learned in life is that some folk just love to argue because they enjoy the drama. Some folk argue because they think/believe they are always right or know more than others. Some folk argue just to be awkward and disruptive. On the other hand some folk argue because they are passionate or care, or actually genuinely know more... The trick is to discover the intent and argue (or not) back accordingly.

Ask yourself which category do you fit into?

18 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Don't forget the teacher! I had a horrible experience with calculus the first time I took it, mostly because the teacher's style didn't suit me at all. I dropped the class and took it the next semester with a different teacher and did fairly well. Sometimes it's just about the connection between teacher and student, and how one's enthusiasm (or lack thereof) can be channeled into effective learning.

+1

An excellent point!! 

I especially excelled in high school in the subjects where I had a connection, and mutual respect with the tutor. We do some coaching in sports and forming a connection with students, especially with young students, is paramount to success.  

Edited November 25, 2021 by Intoscience
spelling

[nasvayta]

On 11/23/2021 at 5:49 PM, Intoscience said:

Agreed, my partner struggles with such tests especially specific questions and tends to score low. She struggled academically, yet she is an amazing artist, very astute to detail, so for example she notices things in situations most other people would miss. She would probably make a good detective.

Some people are just good at these tests, others not so. Intelligence or as String Junky states "strengths, skills and abilities" may lie elsewhere.     

Maybe she's just too good for the tests?😂 Creative people are different in their thinking. Maybe this test really wasn't for her. I would advise your friend to take this test (link removed) This test is designed for different people. It has completely different questions that allow you to learn not only the level of technical proficiency, but also the level of creativity. After all, you should not compare mathematicians and artists - they are completely different worlds. 

[dagger]

new tips on english grammar

[Arthur Smith]

On 12/21/2021 at 8:53 PM, dagger said:

new tips on english grammar

They could definitely do with some.

[joigus]

Today I've learned about the phenomenon of chatoyance or chatoyancy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatoyancy

and a beautiful sea snail called Voluta musica that displays this effect. It is an optical effect consisting in certain 2D patterns being perceived as 3D --if I understood it correctly.

Thanks to @Genady and @StringJunky. 👍

[zapatos]

Today I learned that there is no blue pigment in the feathers of blue birds.

Quote

“Red and yellow feathers get their color from actual pigments, called carotenoids, that are in the foods birds eat,” Sillett explains. “Blue is different―no bird species can make blue from pigments. The color blue that we see on a bird is created by the way light waves interact with the feathers and their arrangement of protein molecules, called keratin. In other words, blue is a structural color. Different keratin structures reflect light in subtly different ways to produce different shades of what our eyes perceive as the color blue. A blue feather under ultraviolet light might look uniformly gray to human eyes.”

https://www.si.edu/stories/when-blue-bird-not-blue

[Genady]

5 minutes ago, zapatos said:

Today I learned that there is no blue pigment in the feathers of blue birds.

https://www.si.edu/stories/when-blue-bird-not-blue

I wonder how it is in fishes? E.g. in this Flying Gurnard I saw (in spite of being "Flying" it is a fish, not a bird )

[Genady]

Today I learned a new term: WEIRD societies = Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.

[Janus]

Today I learned, that if I chose to, I could move to Finland. 

If you want to stay in Finland longer than the 90 days allowed by a visa, you need to apply for a residence permit.  Here are a few reasons you could be granted one:  You've been hired for a job in Finland. You have immediate family( spouse, child under 18.) that already live there. You are going to school there...

But the one that would apply to me is "remigration"; If you have Finnish roots, or a close connection to Finland. So, for example, if a grandparent had been born in Finland.  This is me. All 4 of my grandparents were born in Finland( as were their parents, and so on) 

And while most of the other methods of getting a residence permit requires that you can show that you have sufficient funds/income to support yourself, remigration doesn't.

Not that I have any plans to do so, but it is nice to have it my back pocket in case things really go sour here in the US ( civil war breaks out, e.g.) 

[MigL]

kind of cold in Finland.
You might as well move to Canada.

[geordief]

Today I worked out how individual birds flying  in a flock  can appear to the eye as a unified organism. 

 

It has always seemed mysterious  to me even as it was explained that each individual  was just interacting  with its nearest neighbour. 

The explanation  I have decided on is that they all share this same movement algorithm  and so they all share in the dynamic group structure 

 

Mystery  solved for me.

[zapatos]

Or a more boring explanation might be the chorus-line hypothesis.

https://earthsky.org/earth/how-do-flocking-birds-move-in-unison/

[Janus]

2 hours ago, MigL said:

kind of cold in Finland.
You might as well move to Canada.

Ah, but here's the beauty of it: Everyone will be wanting to go to Canada, but only 0.2% of the US population has any claim to Finnish ancestry at all.  Having 4 Finland-born grandparents should put me at the front of the line!

(Besides, I was born and raised in Northern Mn, cold is nothing new to me.)

Edited January 19, 2022 by Janus

[TheVat]

I have two grandparents born in Scandinavia, but am not sufficiently fond of cold (live in South Dakota, so it's nothing new to me, either),  20 hour nights, or those countries.   In a civil war here, I would probably just hunker down.  (what's a bit ironic is that one of my relatives was a polar explorer)

[Janus]

4 hours ago, TheVat said:

I have two grandparents born in Scandinavia, but am not sufficiently fond of cold (live in South Dakota, so it's nothing new to me, either),  20 hour nights, or those countries.   In a civil war here, I would probably just hunker down.  (what's a bit ironic is that one of my relatives was a polar explorer)

So I assume either Norway or Sweden or possibly Denmark? (Finland is not actually a part of Scandinavia). My paternal grandfather was born about 100 miles south of the Arctic circle, and  some ancestors from further North.