This exactly. The recommendations are, at best, a win win for you and some 3rd party that paid to be part of the win (but sometimes tries very hard to not make it seem so). It can be different, but only for the tech-savy (open source) and rich people (pay the tech-savy).
I don't need to see a negotiated contract. I need to see a list of grievances the union wants to negotiate for. So far everything I have ever wanted but not had from an employer I was able to find by switching employers. What is something concrete that would make my life better that I can only get by joining a union?
Not omitting anything. Organizing is what discontinued the DoD contracts and several other unsavory problems in recent years. That's entirely my point: employees already have the power to effect change for important issues without involving all of the problems that plague official unions like teachers' unions and police unions.
I don't see what adding a body that allows you to vote on what get's done involves all of those problems.
Unions are structured in a way determined by the workers who are voting, there is no inevitable path for a union to take. A teacher union is very different from an actor's union, for instance, even if they are covered by the same basic laws.
FYI: AWU is a no-contract (minority/solidarity/members) union. Their strategy for the foreseeable future will be pursuing precisely what you are describing here (organizing workers for walk-outs, without locking in a CBA).
Yes, if they're willing to continue letting their organizers be fired afterwards for "unrelated reasons". As-is organizing each walkout has to start from scratch since the previous leadership structure no longer exists.
This has allowed the management to make promises to address concerns and fail to follow through on them. Or have HR take over employee-organized community groups discussing grievances and slowly let them die.
> The method for diagnosing dyslexia, known as the discrepancy model, was relatively straightforward: test a child’s IQ and their reading age, and if there was a discrepancy between the two – average-to-high IQ, low literacy – that child was dyslexic. Elliott felt unsure about these assessments. The children he tested for dyslexia all struggled to read and write – that much was clear – but their literacy difficulties manifested in different ways.
I'm a dyslexic, and I was given extra attention is school that significantly helped me. I have a pet theory, and this article seems to agree with it to some extent, that there are several or many different neurological conditions that are often put in the same label 'dyslexia'. I hope that one day more research is done to separate out the different underlying neurological states so we can better teach all children to read. The article's conclusion -- that because dyslexia is an inprecise term we should abandoned it to an even less precise term -- is flawed. We should instead work towards creating more precise language and understanding around the different ways low literacy manifests in children.
If I was an incredibly wealthy technocrat this would be a pet research field of mine. If we can improve childhood literacy education it will have massive returns on that person's lifetime contribution to society. Understanding how the brain processes language also has significant implications for other lines of research as well.
Another dyslexic here, I completely agree with your assessment of the situation and while the article mentions it I don't think it fully grasps it. The definition of dyslexia is basically any difficulty reading that isn't associated with intelligence, eyesight, or education. It is an umbrella definition for a wide variety of both named and unnamed conditions. Of course there isn't going to be a universal way to treat dyslexia because there is not one single cause. Spending extra effort focusing on teaching a dyslexic student is going to help because extra direct teaching to any student is going to help them learn.
Everyone learns slightly differently and that is even more true for students with learning disabilities. A one size fits all approach doesn't work whether we are talking about dyslexic students or the entire student population.
> Spending extra effort focusing on teaching a dyslexic student is going to help because extra direct teaching to any student is going to help them learn.
Nobody is disputing that. The issue is that predicating that extra direct teaching on a dyslexia diagnoses serves to further disadvantage the already disadvantaged. The argument is that extra direct teaching should be provided to anyone who has difficulty reading, regardless of diagnosis.
> I'm a dyslexic, and I was given extra attention is school that significantly helped me.
And I suspect that is probably true for most "dyslexics".
I have a pet suspicion that there is an actual dyslexia but that most diagnoses are simply a manifestation of 2 standard deviations of "everybody's brain is wired slightly differently and some things require more effort."
One of my relatives is really good at mathematical theoretical physics (probably better than I am, and I am no slouch), but doesn't read or write very well. I find it very difficult that someone who manipulates symbols that well has "dyslexia". More probably, he needed to devote more energy to reading but never did because he found it difficult.
Unfortunately, our current education system is not set up to handle any student who is outside one standard deviation of "normal" on any dimension.
I was diagnosed with Dyslexia as child but was also always very good with maths.
I remember actually really wanting to be able to read but just not being able to get it.
After being moved to a class which catered for this and with extra help I managed to eventually be able to start reading.
I generally read quiet a bit averaging at least a book a week. From your statement that should mean that the symptoms of dyslexia should be fixed but they aren’t.
I still struggle with writing and spelling. Yes, I have put effort in, but I still struggle.
The best way I can describe it that I'm blind to the errors. With the sentence structures once it's pointed out I can see them sometimes but not before.
My intelligence is on the higher end and I got through an engineer degree, which you don't do if you don't put the effort in.
Thankfully tools like Grammarly are helping. If not for my sake then at least for people who have to read what I write
We do have a term: slow to learn to read. We don't need dyslexia or some more specific term unless those terms can be used for better treatment. In this case dyslexia is too specific: kids who don't fit the definition are being actively harmed because the treatment would help them just as much as it fit those who it helps.
It may well be dyslexia (or a more specific term) may mean some other treatment can be helpful only for those who have it, and not for the general population of poor readers. This hasn't been suggested (to my knowledge), but it is possible.
Though I will note that the definition of Autism has gotten broader over time as treatments have been discovered to help kids who didn't fit the previous definition.
There are dozens of reasons a child can be slow to learn how to read. They could have not have access to education. They could has poor eye sight. They could be malnourished. They could have difficulties learning in general. Dyslexia means "Slow to learn how to read, despite no obvious influencing factors." It's a bit of a catch-all. There might be treatments for dyslexic children that also help other children learn how to read, but it's likely that non-dyslexic children will need treatments that will not apply to dyslexic children.
Dyslexia has more than 3 million cases in the US every year. It's common. When given the right treatments their quality of life can be improved greatly. I do not want to remove the classification of dyslexic, because it might jeopardize the way those children receive treatment.
EDIT: "Dyslexia has more than 3 million cases in the US every year." You can see the dyslexia in my writing style right there....
The point is not that dyslexia treatments don't help dyslexic kids; it's that those treatments help all kids that struggle with literacy, regardless of cause.
Some kids struggling to read because they "don't have access to education" or are malnourished is as much (or more) of a problem than wealthy kids struggling to read because of a neurological condition.
The article says it all: Dyslexia is a label that is being used to divert special needs funding from disadvanted struggling kids to wealthy struggling kids. No-one denies that all these kids are struggling, and that the special attention does help them with that struggle.
“Dyslexia has more than 3 million cases in the US every year.”
If interpreted as “3 million _new_ cases every year, and dyslexia being incurable, with a life expectancy of 70 years, that would mean way over half the population of the USA would be dyslexic.
I seriously doubt that. So, what do you mean by “every year”?
> Dyslexia also has an IQ component which means those with low IQ are not dyslexic even if they otherwise have the same symptoms.
A person with IQ 100 (or whatever the mean IQ is) learning to read slower than average is different than a person with IQ 60 learning to read slower than average. You cannot completely remove the IQ component.
Their point might be that the ability to read, has a non-zero influence on how intelligence as well knowledge; both of which are what IQ tests try to measure. The two signal values are related to an unknown degree.
And it shouldn't really. Assuming dyslexia is the result of structural differences in how the brain operates and not simply that a person is behind the curve on reading ability.
If say dyslexia behind the scenes looked something like the difference between being left handed or right handed, a persons natural athletic skill (IQ) might improve their odds of throwing a good right handed pass yet regardless of athletic skill their outcomes would be better throwing left handed.
Personally getting diagnosed with dyslexia was a huge help to me. Like the article mentions it allows a mindset change when you can put a name to why you can't do something despite a tremendous amount of effort that other people can seemingly do easily. It also becomes a valuable tool to help protect yourself when needed. There were multiple times in my elementary and middle school years in which the ADA needed to be evocated on my behalf in defense against two specific bad teachers I had over those years. I wouldn't have gotten the accommodations and help I needed if the initial diagnose was just "slow to learn to read".
Side note, this was only possible because my parents knew the system, my mom was a teacher, and they had the resources and wherewithal to fight on my behalf. I can certainly see how not having that helps contribute to the inequality talked about in the article. I can also see how parents looking for any advantage for their child might abuse that system. However I don't think the potential for abuse warrants throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Instead of throwing out the benefits that you got from a dyslexia diagnosis, couldn't those benefits be also given to all students with with reading troubles? That's what the article is saying. I bet those bad teachers were also harmful to many other students with reading troubles.
Yes and no. As both I and others have said elsewhere in this tread, with the broad definition of dyslexia "students with reading troubles" who will most benefit from extra instruction have dyslexia whether they are diagnosed or not. Getting those kids properly diagnosed is therefore a better strategy because that comes with added benefits that aren't directly related to teaching like the legal protections and the internal psychological benefits I mentioned and that were mentioned in the article. Without that diagnosis, it is easy for the child and the child's peers to view it as a problem with intelligence which can be damaging mentally.
I've always had great difficulty with remembering things that are not associated with any sort of understanding I could acquire.
Remembering things like names of countries, capitals, seas, rivers for geography class required tremendous effort from me to achieve barely passable result (and to pass I also had to exploit an error that teacher made). All despite me having IQ in top 1% of population.
I'm sure if I was diagnosed with dysrememberia or something this would have been tremendous help to me. But nobody invented such condition. So I just had to accept that I'm just at low end of ability to remember data unconnected to any sense-making.
The system is rigged though and to pass maturity exam I had to ensure dysortography diagnosis for myself so my spelling (which I suck at as well) was ignored while grading.
I was diagnosed, with dyslexia, dyscalculia and disgraphia, although for better or worse I also tested as profoundly gifted.
I think it boils down to, is there a structural difference in the brain that if studied can give insights into learning differences and optimal approaches to addressing learning differences and potential areas where a person with dyslexia or some underlying structural difference might have natural advantages. Such as the theory that dyslexics tend to think visual-spatially rather than lexically which could be advantageous for various engineering and business disciplines where being able to easily think about complex structures from different angles is beneficial.
Although the remedial approaches to addressing difficulties in reading may work equally well for individuals who experience difficulties for disparate causes, if there is in fact an opportunity to glean information on these types of fundamental difference in how the mind works that would likely pay dividends as the students progress into higher education and their careers.
Bi-lingual kids can be in similar cases, especially when character sets are different. Some are fluent reader in one of the language, but have a hard time in the other, skipping or misreading characters as the parsing is completely different.
I talked to a school teacher trying to have a kid labeled as dyslexic because it would make everything easier to ask for extra time to follow the kid, get out of class hours with a specialist etc.
They are all playing the same game, but the niches they found success force them to play differently. Google tried to take over fb.com with g+. FB tried to attack android with fb phones. They both are fighting over direct direct messaging with Hangouts/messenger/whatsapp. There is just as much politics in Youtube as there is in Facebook.
I significantly prefer blister packs over pill bottles. Blister packs are easier to travel with. They take up less space in my medical cabinet. I can see how many pills I have left without looking inside of an opaque container. I actually would feel safer if my pills were packaged in a factory by a machine than at a pharmacy by a human.
I much prefer pill bottles, i find blisters to be fiddly, especially when they add the paper on top that needs to be peeled off before i can push the pill through the foil (i mean why would they do this)
> especially when they add the paper on top that needs to be peeled off before I can push the pill through the foil
Oh this drives me _nuts_. I ended up keeping a small Leatherman knife in the bathroom to slice through the paper/foil in the middle of the pack and peel the covering to each side.
Here is some declassified test footage of Project Orion. I don't believe any of the test crafts used nuclear explosions, but you'll get the idea from this footage (on why it's a terrible idea that could only exist in the 40s or 50s)
Orion is an impractical idea but the risks do seem manageable.
In "peacetime" it could never launch from the ground, but assembled in space it could be fruitful. It's probably the only possible way to get a city of people off the planet.
Over long periods of time the approximation that a day takes 86400 SI seconds will become less and less accurate as the rotational period of the Earth changes. I wish calendars would be either purely astronomical in nature or purely SI in nature. Hybrid systems like UTC become more and more messy over time as the amount of adjustment needed increases. We've had ~25 leap seconds in UTC already, and it's a relatively young calendar system.
EDIT: I also wish we would change the name of the SI measurement "second". An SI second and an astronomical second are two different things, and deserve two different names.
How long would it take a nuclear powered EmDrive to push a fully loaded semitrailer from 0m/s to the speed of the interntional space station?
The maximum mass for a semi-truck fully loaded is 36000kg. The EmDrive generates 12millinewtons per kw. 1n = 1kg*(1m/s^2). Leo ~=7.66km/s^. A nuclear reactor produces ~1gw. We would need 275760000N to accelerate a semi truck to leo speeds. A nuclear powered EmDrive would take ~265 days to push a semi truck to low earth orbit speeds.
The escape velocity of Earth's orbit is 11.19 km/s, and if you were going to take humans on the trip you'd need much more cargo than 36000kg. Granted, you wouldn't have to move the craft from 11.19km/s to 0km/s and then 0km/s to 11.19 km/s every time you entered and left orbit, but it would be a slow ride regardless.
I think we can't ignore the weight of the nuclear reactor though - we are not lifting just the truck, the reactor has to carry it's own weight. And a 1GW reactor will dwarf the 36t payload I think.
We live in an attention economy. If you read a story, or watch a video, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the content; you're still traffic.
Just viewing content on most of the internet boosts it's signal, and creates value for someone; much less engaging further by commenting, up/down voting, or sharing it. It's a pretty ugly system.
The most surefire way to acquire massive wealth in the 21st century is to get convince people to pay as much attention to your app's notifications as they would an incoming phone call.
Since nothing has been proven or disproven yet, we’re really in no different position that before all the experiments began. Might as well spend that money now to end it.
It fits so far out of our theoretical models that it's unfair to say it isn't proven or disproven. There are virtually infinite hypothesis that are neither proven nor disproven experimentally, but because theory states it's impossible we don't consider them worth testing.
It seems cheap relative to pretty much anything these days. People pay that much for rare cars, a rich person could snap their fingers and make it happen. I hate to tell people how to spend their money but I wish someone pitched it as an experiment to Elon Musk or Bezos. Just like you said - put it in space, switch it on. Either it works or it doesn't, should be obvious straight away, no?
