We were on Liberty of the Seas a few months ago and the internet was fast enough to use Netflix. We didn't try any video calls.

I read somewhere recently that if you actually read all the terms and conditions junk that is listed every time you open an account or do anything online that it would take dozens of hours per week. I don't remember if that number included reading all the updated privacy policy stuff we all get emailed every week.

I opened a new container of protein powder today. The writing (that I know you can't read in this photo) contains info about the terms and conditions I am supposedly agreeing to by opening the powder. It directs me to their website for more information about the arbitration agreement. I shouldn't have to give up legal rights to eat a food!

I don't know how they could do it either. It seems that they decided to just ignore the issue entirely.

DS1 used AOPS for algebra 1, and I decided I'm not up to dragging another above-average but doesn't like math student through AOPS again. I found using Foerster to be less stressful with DS2.

I have to say, I like all the built-in review. For some reason writing equations in point-slope form gave DS2 trouble. The spaced repetition seems to have him do a review lesson about once a week now, and it seems like it's finally starting to stick. The system gives users five lessons to choose from, and some days, like today, all five are review, while other days some or all are new topics.

Their website says they specifically don't want to use videos because they think watching video lessons is too passive compared to reading lessons. DS2 won't read the lessons carefully consistently, so I have to help him several times per day. He's now 61% through geometry. I'm concerned about the lack of proofs, so after trying to avoid doing it again after DS1, today I dragged out Jacob's 2nd edition so he can do proofs. I don't know how much of the book we'll go through, but while we use it I'll have Math Academy be more of a supplement (at 9 XP per day). This will get him through both Math Academy and most of Jacob's by mid-September. (I'm hoping to find ways to speed it up so he's done with both by mid-August.)

After one month, I decided DS1 needed to go back to Derek Owens. It became obvious he wasn't really learning the material. He figured out some pattern in the answers that allowed him to eliminate 3 out of 5 choices, then do a problem partway and pick which remaining choice seemed more likely. I discovered this when the system showed he did several problems in 30-60 seconds, but when I wrote the problems on paper and told him to show me how to solve them, he couldn't even figure out how to get started. This also explains why he rarely had much work on his scratch paper. Now DS1 is a weasely kid, so now I can't recommend it for kids who hate school and will try to do the bare minimum. I still have DS2 using it for geometry because he actually does the problems, rather than guess at them. (Although he agrees with DS1 about the pattern in the answers.) But he has a different, more trustworthy personality, and I can see him writing down work. DS2 was starting to take too long to get his XP, so last week I switched it to doing three 20 minute "math sprints" with other subjects in between, rather than one long session, which was often taking him 1.5-2 hours because of general dawdling. It seems to be working better.

Maybe I misunderstood. I thought the not judging voices part had become more general, but perhaps the posters meant it more as "Men shouldn't judge women for NOT having the submissive voice." If that's what they meant, then I agree. People shouldn't be trying to make women put on these affectations.

That's true, but I think most people depend on their voice to earn their living, at least to some degree. Is it the same as a professional speaker? Of course not, but most people would struggle in their jobs if they completely lost their voices. Just like we advise people to wear cleans clothes that fit reasonably well and fit the culture of a place in order to be taken seriously, I think we should encourage people to drop the affectations. Note that I said affectation, which isn't the same as a stutter or having a high-pitched voice. For those of you who don't think we shouldn't actively encourage people to improve their voices, does this mean not trying to get our kids to stop mumbling? (Serious question...no snark intended.) DS14 tends to be a mumbler. It has been a multi-year battle to get him to cut down on it. Sometimes when tired or upset he reverts to being more mumbly, then he gets mad when we can't understand him. I was once in a Sunday School class with a teacher from the local high school. When he read anything out loud he became so monotone that it was almost impossible to pay attention. (He didn't speak like that.) While agree that the standards are different for anyone who regularly does public speaking for a living, I think the importance of a voice is underestimated. This Art of Manliness episode about The Fascinating Secrets of Your Voice is almost two years old, so I don't remember much of it, but I do remember it being interesting. He talks about vocal fry, uptalk, and airy voices vs voices with edge.

That is creepy. I wonder if there is a market for proctoring centers where you can go take paper and pencil tests? I also wonder if oral exams will become more popular.

I need to push back on the idea that only women are judged for their voices. I listen to probably 2+ hours of podcasts per day, and I can assure you that various voice affectations do distract from someone's message. Yesterday I was listening to a male professor who had good information, but his endless uptalk was annoying. Vocal fry is another trait that is a distraction, just like someone who uses endless filler words.

Do you have problems with your kids not understanding what cheating is? My kids are 18 and 14, and it seems like it takes sooooooo much work to try to get them to understand the line between cheating and not cheating. When we were kids, it was easy. If you were taking a quiz or test in school and used any resource, it was cheating, unless it was specifically allowed. The ability to google everything, plus these websites that solve math problems for you seems to muddle things up in their minds. DS18 (ADHD and ODD) in particular is weasely, and last week I had to lecture about how the default is supposed to be use NOTHING on a test or quiz UNLESS told it's allowed. He seems to think the default now for everybody is that resources are allowed unless specifically banned. I've heard that students seems to have a harder time now understanding plagiarism. When I was dealing with that a few months ago, I stumbled across a website talking about patchwriting, which is the term used to described when students think they aren't plagiarizing because they changed a few things here and there. I printed out info from multiple websites, and this was much more helpful in getting through to DS18 than my attempts to say that he had plagiarized when he thought he hadn't. Somehow it seems that reminders to not patchwrite didn't make him defensive. Anyway, I don't want this thread to be all about my kids. I just wanted to see if others are observing the same thing with students now.

They say the algorithm takes time to finish a problem into consideration. For example, a right answer done quickly shows more progress than taking a while. The goal is to get topics not just mastered, but automatic. We'll need to use it longer to be able to tell if their system is successful at it. One claim is that they break topics down into much smaller pieces. They specifically said that a typical calculus book will have everything broken down into something like 100 lessons, but they break it down into 600 lessons, so the difficulty is gradually increased one piece at a time. (I may be misremembering those numbers, but it's something along those lines.) I'll give an example of how this worked in my algebra 1 course today. (These may have been pre-algebra topics they thought I needed.) First I had to find the area of a triangle with easy numbers. I got the first two problems correct quickly, so it upped the difficulty. Then it started having me find the length of one side knowing the other side and the total area. Then it started giving me triangles with heights drawn to two different sides. I had to find the area of the triangle using one height, then use that area to find the height drawn to the other side when given the length of the other side. Finding the area of trapezoids was similar. It started with the most basic problems, then switched to having me calculate the height or the length of a base given the area, then finally had me calculate the area of a triangle that was part of the trapezoid.

Quizzes seem to be around every 120-150 XP, so about once a week.