Ask the grumpies: How do discourage kids from gambling

Lisa asks:

[I]nterested in your thoughts on how to educate kids about the dangers of sports betting, which seems to be exploding in popularity. I get that some people do it strictly for fun, but I’d prefer that my kids have other kinds of fun!

I have no idea!  I’m concerned anything we suggest could potentially backfire depending on the kid.

The big thing that I do in (stats) classes is make the point that the house always always wins.  So if you play the game enough, you will always be the loser, no matter how you bet.  But of course, some guys will argue about Poker etc. at which point I move on.  In my classes the kids who think they have a system are invariably the ones whose system does not work.  (We also talk about gambling for consumption value and how it’s a good idea to have a set amount that you are willing/expecting to lose and to stop when it’s gone– that’s usually suggested by someone in the class.)

If I google “dangers of sports betting” there are a lot of interesting pages on its dangers, from the direct money lost to the possibility of addiction.  Apparently it’s becoming more and more of a problem because states are making online gambling legal so you don’t have to go to a riverboat, Native American casinos, or Nevada to do it.

So… I don’t know.  If you have the kinds of kids you can have a serious talk with and give them facts and they listen to that instead of taking it as a challenge, then maybe just do that?  If you have kids who like to rebel, then I don’t know.  Maybe How to Talk so Your Teens Will Listen?  (Though a comment notes that one of the chapters is really homophobic, so maybe not?)

 

Grumpy Nation:  How would you discourage kids from gambling?

Video games and perfectionism?

This is a post started in 2013!  All the stuff in here about DC1 was also true about DC2.  Now they are both extremely good at both video games and at handling set-backs.

Original draft:

DC1 used to melt into a little puddle

now willing to try things, take chances etc.

still not perfect– my sister beat hir at wii boxing and ze cried, completely losing the head of the facepainted dinosaur from the day’s earlier street fair

Me trying to fill things in with perspective from 2024!

DC used to melt into a little puddle when playing a video game and dying.  Super Monkey Ball was the WORST — rolling off the track and having to start over … I cringe just thinking about it.

But eventually they persevered with video games because one does.  You get to try over and over again until you get it right.  And eventually they got used to dying in new video games and it wasn’t so bad anymore.  Just part of the game!  And I think that helped with other perfectionism problems– if they’re willing to play video games then they’re also willing to do hard math or drawing or anything that they’re not good at to begin with that takes a little longer to show success than a game that’s been designed with the perfect addictive flow in mind.

Neither kid cries about video games any more, even if my sister is being a jerk about it.  They also don’t tend to get face paint!  (Or care about dinosaurs… ah, nostalgia.)

Do you think video games help with the negative kind of perfectionism?

How to make an exam

Advice my mom gave me ages ago plus things I’ve picked over the years– YMMV:

The first question should always be one that like 80-90% or more of the class can get.  Make it an easy question that will decrease student anxiety as they ease into the exam.

The last question (or second to last– I often end on a “fun” question that’s just an opinion if it’s a take-home exam, though not if it is in-class) should be the type that separates A students from B students.  I try to do this, but I am really bad at calibrating what each year’s class of students will find difficult– generally when they ask me what previous classes have trouble with, they study that part hard and nail it.  (This year nearly everybody got the interactions problem on the midterm.)

I have colleagues who want people to be able to do the exam quickly.  I had massive test anxiety and having a short time limit, even if without the anxiety I’d be able to finish within it, would cause me to completely forget everything the second I turned the exam over.  I also don’t want to punish people who find a mistake they made if they don’t have time to fix it, since in that case sometimes not fixing it optimizes your points if it takes you away from other problems.  For a 3 hour exam, I expect the modal student to be done by an hour and a half, my TA to be able to complete the exam in 45 minutes, and me to take 20-25 min.  Some students take the full time and I’m ok with that.

I’m a big fan of cheat sheets.  I think the creation of them helps with learning and, as someone with test anxiety, having that crutch always helped me remember what the class was about.  And in the world, being able to apply the formulas is generally more important than having the formulas memorized.  (This, of course, also affects the kinds of questions asked– you can’t do fill in the definition questions if people have cheat sheets.)

My MIL (who has also taught pedagogy) says students should never learn things during tests, but I disagree with her.  I think that sometimes the exam is the last chance to learn something.  Especially when I give take-homes.  But even an in-person exam can sometimes allow small insights if you, for example, request students do two things that are related and then compare their outputs (huh– these are the same!)– some students will have known that would happen because they paid attention in class and took the homework seriously, but for some students they’ll get it this time.

In terms of what to put on the exam– I think it’s important to not to try to trip students up– no trick questions.  I also think that the exam should focus on what is important in the class.  What’s tested should mirror what you hope they will remember for the next class if not for the rest of their lives.  (If they should remember it for the rest of their lives, then yes, you should test it!)

Grumpy Teachers– what exam tips to you have for the Grumpetariat?

Link Love

The only summary of the Cass Report that I need

Cartoon: Hey did you hear? Biden is old!

Ask the grumpies: advice for new desktop/printer

Scientist on the Roof asks:

My second Dell desktop in a row has died after about 5 years of use.

Any recommendations for a desktop computer that’s not super expensive (I think $1200 is the max I’m willing to pay) but good quality (and will last more than 5 years)? It will be mostly used for storing and editing photos and videos, web stuff, writing, schoolwork, and video games.

Printer: we need a reliable color printer with a built-in scanner. Doesn’t have to be super-fast or super-quiet, but prefer good-quality printing for occasional artsy stuff. We probably print, on average, 5 pages a week. Inexpensive ink refills would be ideal. Any suggestions?

I do not actually have a great answer for either of these.  We haven’t bought a desktop since pre-pandemic so things have likely changed since then.  (DH does have laptop suggestions– he has a relatively new Lenovo and it has been working out just fine.)

We have never purchased a color printer, so have no suggestions there either.

Generally my first stop when I want to know if something hardcore electronic is good is Tom’s Hardware.  I don’t *think* they’ve been taken over by evil corporations (Better Homes and Gardens has– which is why their recommendations are completely garbage), but I’m not 100% sure.  Here’s Tom’s Guide to printers (Tom’s guide is the consumer-oriented portion and Tom’s Hardware is more technical– same company).  Here’s Tom’s Guide to all-in-one printers.  They recommend the Brother INKvestment MFC-J995DW for $325 used or $250 for the newer model (not sponsored because I was too lazy to log into amazon)?  It’s a bit confusing.  Here’s Tom’s Guide to desktop computers.  Of that group, it looks like ACER fits your wants/needs best, so you may want to do some more research into that company.  PCMag may be a good place to look next.  (Here’s their list.)

Grumpy Nation Do you have any desktop/printer suggestions?  Where do you look when you need new expensive electronics?

RBOCareer (and also Captcha and Candy)

• Why is captcha so obsessed with finding motorcycles?
• I had a flyout with a school that would be best described as a “fixer-upper.”
• There are a lot of reasons not to take that position if offered.  But the one thing that really stuck out isn’t the department’s fault at all.
• There’s a part of the country that votes Blue but isn’t actually Blue at all.  I thought I had a good handle on all the different regions of the US but turns out I was wrong!
• I learned the term “PWI” on a tour of the campus.  (“What is PWI?” I asked, after the tour guide mentioned they were one. “Primarily White Institution,” she said, adding, “most of the black students choose to go to the HBC in our system.”)
• The Uber driver on the way back also said that integration never works because minorities always choose to self-segregate.  I said maybe, but how much of it is choice and are they getting the same quality of education?  If it is a choice and the education quality is the same, then it isn’t.  But that’s a big if.
• I went to a talk on segregation academies the other week.  They still exist and they’re still… PWI.
• Also got asked to interview for the deanlet position.
• One of my friends (in another department) basically told me not to do a long list of unprofessional things when at the interview.  I was both amused an insulted.
• My department head has, in the past, told me I should interrupt older white men less.  (I don’t interrupt junior faculty or minority faculty or women or basically anybody who doesn’t do repetitive multi-minute monologues.)  I told said head that I’d done a cost-benefit analysis.  Nobody has brought it up since I became middle aged.
• Someone from the dean’s office has started putting a large bucket of monster sized candy bars and bags of chips in the break room every Friday morning, courtesy of the dean.  Including payday which I really like.  I HATE this.  I end up spending my entire morning thinking about them and losing willpower and if I do indulge then I keep thinking about going back and getting more.  I should not be eating candy at ALL (insulin problems) and I’m also at the age where I don’t need empty calories.  Other people do obviously eat the junk food because its gone by the end of the day.  I need to work from home on Fridays, I guess, but I can’t entirely because I have office hours.
• Nobody else really likes Payday because when I went in around lunch (3 hours after I’d eaten my own lunch trying to avoid getting junk food), there were still three Paydays and a small bag of spicy chips left.
• I took a Payday. I may have to start refilling my water elsewhere on Fridays.
• When I went back 3 hours after that, the bowl was empty.   So if I wait long enough someone will eat everything I like.

RBOChores and money

• Reminder:  if you haven’t in a while, now is a good time to clean out your dryer vents.  We just did and all of a sudden it’s only taking one cycle for things to get dry again.
• Second year of a big tax refund from me only getting half pay for half the year. It will be better to be making more money, but it is also nice not writing out a check to the IRS.
• Refund went straight to 529 plans.
• Do not put frozen pizza on a heated pizza stone.  (We recently bought a new pizza stone after shattering the old one.)
• DH recently bought a brush cleaning attachment for his drill.  It is AMAZING.
• DC1 has spent $0 on non-necessities.  No eating out.  No concerts.  No travel. No clothing (though we would pay for clothing).  No tchotchkies. The only things on the credit card bill so far are textbooks!  I spent about $1K a year on the above when I was in college, not adjusted for inflation (to be fair, plane tickets to see DH cost about the same then as they do now!).
• Update:  Hir friend took hir to a thrift store and zie bought a scarf and a jacket ($8).  Very exciting!  DC1 says zie needs to practice buying things and also it’s scary to use a credit card and zie doesn’t know how to buy stuff.  (When I was that age I was doing the family grocery shopping when I was home from school.)
• My friend with a kid at an Ivy spends a lot, though he’s also been making a ton of money.  And he’s got a really nice job lined up this coming summer as a rising junior.  (He applied to 250 places, got one interview and one offer.)
• We ran out of check registers for the first time ever.  I had to buy some(!). We write so few checks but I still have to record checking transactions.
• We don’t write zero checks because the music teachers both take check.  Occasionally we’ll have to write one for another reason though those are getting fewer and fewer.
• I would really like to move someplace nice for part of the summer but we’d need to be able to take the cats (or leave them with my sister but that’s a big ask and I’m not sure nice kitty could handle it since boy kitty is a bully).  And it would need to be somewhere cheap.  I’m guessing we could find a place that’s cheap in a college town up north, but the cats are kind of a non starter. It also sounds like effort.
• Maybe the weather won’t be as bad this summer.  SIGH.
• a lot still depends on what DC1 ends up doing.
• Prices for Spain over Christmas went way up once we got the kids’ winter schedules.  Then they went up even more.  So I suspect we will spend next Christmas in the midwest again.  It’s probably for the best.

Ask the grumpies: Favorite way you’ve helped with some big social goal?

Debbie M asks:

What is your favorite way you’ve helped with some big social goal (like equality, climate, or corruption)? “Favorite” could mean you enjoy doing it or that you feel it actually makes a difference or some other thing.

I’ve had a surprisingly hard time answering this question.  Neither of us enjoys doing any social goal stuff.  #2 became jaded after flying to DC for the march on science did nothing.  #1 knows it is a long game and dislikes that she has to do these things just to keep things from getting worse.  It’s really hard for me to enjoy these things when the need for them is always a reminder in the background.  Also I have a legitimate fear of crowds and even so I’m sad that people have stopped protesting, because protests are actually important, but a protest of one maybe isn’t as much.  That all sounds very demoralizing and I DO NOT WANT PEOPLE TO GIVE UP.  It’s just that you have to keep working for social justice even though it isn’t fun, even though it doesn’t make a difference right away… even if you can’t see the difference it makes.

Every fight for social justice keeps us from slipping further back into the mire.  We can’t see this– all we can see is if we’re not making forward progress.  So it seems like we’re not doing anything worthwhile, but we really are.  Every city counsel person we get elected, every state senator, every federal congressperson– these all matter.  Even if we don’t have the majorities needed to make the positive progress we need and deserve, every small thing we do is pushing in the right direction.  It may not feel like progress, but it really is.

So, I guess I want to say… if it were easy, we’d have already done it.  If it were easy, we wouldn’t be needed.  The bad guys have been pushing to overturn Roe since the 1970s… decades later they won the battle.  The Supreme Court has been taken over by horrific people and will not protect us.  We HAVE to keep fighting against fascism.  Even if it’s not enjoyable.  Even though we can’t see the difference right away.  We have to keep fighting for our future selves, for the nation’s children, for the world, for the future of humanity.

I give money to donors choose to buy books about trans kids every time I find out about something anti-trans happening.  Sometimes I’ll organize and make sure someone gets funded, only to find out two months later that the teacher had to abandon the funded project because her school principal was afraid that books about minorities of any kind violated state or local law.  But that doesn’t erase all the other teachers we’ve helped.  That doesn’t take away from the kids who WERE able to read books that humanize trans kids.  These tiny pushes might make trans people more human to Cis-kids so when they grow up they won’t understand why anyone would care about a person’s gender and they’ll oppose legislation that hurts trans people, even after we’ve stopped fighting.

I write postcards to voters and letters to voters.  Sometimes those elections don’t go the way we’d hoped.  Sometimes they do.  I don’t know how much my own 10 postcards per week or stack of letters mattered.  But the plurality of them, along with the phone calls and letters that other organizations are sending, maybe they did matter together.

I’ve gone to protests… I had a panic attack at the Women’s March because I am legit diagnosed ochlophobic, and I’ve stayed on the outer edges of other protests.  They matter but they don’t usually bring immediate change.  And now all the gains we made from Black Lives Matter are being eroded.  But it’s a long fight.  We have to keep pushing forward.

I help people register to vote.  I remind people of elections.  We’re so gerrymandered the outcome doesn’t change.  But maybe the habit of voting will stay strong and things will matter in the future.  Or maybe the people who vote keep our gerrymandering from only electing fascists– perhaps without them voting Republicans would take it as permission to go even worse.  If we give up, we lose our democracy entirely.

The one thing I do through work is teach people that they’re not actually bad at math.  I help them learn how to think critically.  I like to think that as they go into the world they take those skills and use them to make the world a better place.  But it’s not an immediate difference that I can see in terms of social goals, just one I have to hope and trust.  And maybe it’s worth it anyway.

Grumpy Nation:  How do you fight for social justice?  What do you do to help keep us from sliding backwards or to help move us forward?

Books!

What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama.  This is one of the best books I have read in a long while.  It is like a warm hug.  It’s in the Pippa Passes tradition (h/t Connie Willis introducing me to this poem via Bellweather, another excellent novel).  It’s five loosely connected short stories, each its own warm hug, where people just … get better after visiting a community center library and talking to the research librarian.  I read a chapter a day and savored each one.  DC2 devoured it.  DH isn’t quite as enamored of it as the two of us, but is fine with reading it.  If you’d like a book where not much happens, but there’s growth and love… this is the definition of cozy, and not a single murder.  I’m buying a copy in hardcover, because it’s that kind of book. (DC1 found my hard cover copy to be a pleasant Spring Break read.)

The ad copy says if you would like the above book if you liked Before the Coffee Gets Cold…but that’s not actually true.  I DNF Before the Coffee Gets Cold after checking it out in the hopes that it was also a sweet book.  Nope.  Really awful misogynist swill.  Also… just kind of dumb?  So if you hated Before the Coffee Gets Cold, you will probably like the feminist What you are looking for is in the library where the characters are understandable and believable instead of TSTL.

DNF The borrow a boyfriend club.  About halfway through I decided it was dragging and I didn’t like the second hero very much.  We much prefer Ouran High School Host Club (though Haruhi seems much more a-gender, and there’s some bad messages about consent and female fragility in part of it and I really think she should have ended up with one of the other guys) and Boys run the Riot (though so far there hasn’t been any romance).

Tried the Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron.  I am convinced from it that I’m a highly sensitive person.  But other than that I did not find it very helpful and also I think it’s pretty tone deaf for something supposedly for sensitive people given all the content warnings that were needed but not given.  Like, I don’t need to know the beyond awful upbringings that some of her (fictionalized) clients had, particularly not with details.

DNF A Strange and Stubborn Endurance.  DNF The Fake Mate and I don’t remember why but it was something very turnoffy.  DNF The wisteria society of lady scoundrels by india holton, though I got through more of it than I did the other two in the series.  I think she’s just not for me.

School Trip: A Graphic Novel by Jerry Craft was awesome!

A Matter of Secrets and Spies by Honor Raconteur (Henri Davenforth #10) was really disappointing.  It was like half a book.  A novella but without a satisfying conclusion.

The Worst Best Man by Lucy Score was a lot of fun.  If you like romances and don’t mind the f-word (most of the Amazon one star reviews complain about the heroine’s language) this is a fun one.  I do wish they did more talking than sex on screen, but they do have serious conversations … off screen.  We’re told they do anyway.  I very much liked the resolution of the brief third act breakup.

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske was better than the second book in the series.  I did skim bits, but not huge bits.

Got bored with Never Met a Duke Like You by Amalie Howard.  The heroine was kind of annoying.

Finally read the last Agatha Christie book I hadn’t reread during my last go-through of all her stuff.  I’m not sure why The Sittaford Mystery had gone out of print.  It’s fine.  It’s not amazing, and I figured it out right away, but it also wasn’t deadly dull like the second to last one (which I can’t even remember the name of) that had also been out of print.  I’m trying to figure out what to do with the paperback.  Maybe just give it to the library for their booksales.  It’s back in print again, though I’m glad my sister bought me a used copy as it’s really not worth $13 for the paperback, and certainly not $15 for the kindle version.

Emily Wilde’s Encylopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett was excellent.  I had actually checked it out before but by the time it came off the holds list, I thought it was for DC2 instead of for me, so didn’t read it the first time.  DC2 greatly enjoyed it.  I look forward to the second book!

Have you read anything good lately?

What can a college student do between Freshman and Sophomore year?

Grumpy Nation!

It is hard for a freshman to find a good quality summer job.

DC1 applied for and was rejected from two sets of jobs that would have allowed hir to stay at college over the summer (research positions don’t generally go to freshmen, and zie wasn’t selected for the summer camp positions).  Zie did not apply for a job that would require use of power tools.

My summer after freshman year, I took a chemistry class from the college where my mom worked (long story, but I didn’t get any chemistry in high school and then got a B in college and left still not feeling good about it, but finally got a basic understanding over the summer).  DC1 can’t do that because my university doesn’t allow any at-will students, even over the summer, even faculty brats.  They only allow high school students during the school year.  Carleton doesn’t offer summer courses.  That seems like a non-starter.  The community college here is not a good fit.

Zie is applying for some unpaid CS internships in big cities near us, but these also seem likely to go to people who have more experience.  Zie is still trying!

DH thinks his company (where DC1 interned over a summer in high school) is too busy to take on interns right now– they do have a college intern program, but it’s kind of on pause until after the next FDA submission.

One of hir friends suggested zie apply for positions at the summer camp where said friend works– problem– it’s a Jewish summer camp and DC1 is not Jewish.  (Zie is applying anyway.)

The default is coming home and working retail in humid 100+ degree weather, though even that may be difficult because our summer starts almost a month earlier than DC1’s, so zie would be applying late.  Jobs here don’t pay that great either, but at least room and board are free.

It’s too late to apply for any of the “spend your summer giving us money and learning music composition” opportunities that zie looked into over Spring break– most of those had January and February deadlines.

We briefly discussed study abroad in Japan over the summer, but there’s no obvious program and zie was planning on doing it as a first semester junior like everybody else.  (And they’re so expensive!)  Zie has zero interest in a Spanish study abroad program.

What did you do after your freshman year? What could DC1 be looking for?  Zie is willing to live elsewhere!  Especially someplace cooler and bluer!