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Paper_jam

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Posts posted by Paper_jam

  1. I'm a fiftysomething white male so it's ludicrous for me to even be suggesting a course of action to people affected by this shit--but if I was, for example, a promising young athlete of color being recruited to play in major college athletics (hell, even pro athletics) I'd make it a point to say fuck off to any schools or teams in states doing this shit.

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  2. Yesterday I saw a silver Mercedes with a completely smashed front end driving with no front or rear plates whatsoever (not even a paper tag). How does a car like that not get pulled over immediately? Do the police have to wait until they see a moving violation?

     

  3. I'd probably be OK with (or, at worst, apathetic about) Garza having a position on city council or as a state rep.  I agree with those above that the office of DA isn't really where I want policy to be made. The DA's job is to prosecute criminals.

    I doubt some of the sensational negative claims about Garza are true, and Austin's overall crime statistics still compare favorably with almost any other city of equal size. But I don't want the general public (including the criminal segment) even having a perception that Austin is "soft on crime."

    My tolerance level is lower now that recently me, and people close to me, have been victims of mail theft, hit and run, bank jugging, vehicle break-ins, cat converter theft,  etc.  It seems like those kinds of crimes are rarely investigated or prosecuted. I've been fortunate to live almost all of my 50+ years, without being a victim of crime. But the last few years have been different, and not in a good way.

     

  4. Who the fuck decided narrow lanes was the way to go? If anything, cars and trucks are bigger than they used to be, not smaller.

    I swear modern road/highway designers make me want to murder people. How about nice wide roads with good sightlines, an adequate hard shoulder, and well-placed signage and road markings? "Oh no, that's old thinking. We want to make driving as miserable and stressful as possible."

     

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  5. On 2/12/2024 at 8:38 AM, hornian said:

    Ok, humble brag time but I do have an issue with my kids I don't know how to handle, and would love some advice:

    Lots of folks are on here are posting things like "There's no way I could get into UT now" - but I'm in the opposite boat - I'd have no problem getting into UT these days with my grades/scores from 20+ years ago. I was 4th in my class (not 4%, 4th), and had a ~1500 SAT. And I didn't really work hard at it. Never took any prep courses for the SAT, didn't have to cram to study - it all just came pretty easy for me. I was that kid in high school who did all of his homework in the cafeteria right before the bell rang and got all the questions correct, or who could read the 350 page novel for English once and remember everything about it without a problem, or who finished their test first and aced it and then got in trouble for disrupting the class because I was bored since everyone was slower than me. There was this time in AP physics where I just "got" the concept (I don't remember what it was now), and the teacher asked me to come and explain it to the class, but I couldn't explain how it worked, it just made sense to me and I could work it out in my head but not explain what was going on to get to the correct answer. I was the only person who got an A on that test. I also lettered in more than one sport, was in UIL academics, and still had time to get drunk enough at a party to go the hospital for alcohol poisoning because, again, I just didn't need to study hard so I could do all of that stuff and keep my grades up. To some extent UT was a "wake up call" - but it's because I got some Bs my freshman year instead of all As. The only C I ever got in my life was crim law my 1L year of Law School, and even then it was because 1) crim law just didn't engage me, and 2) crim law was on Tuesday/Thursday afternoons in the Spring, and I would skip a lot of Tuesday classes to go watch baseball games at the Disch (it's not my fault they built the Law School so close to the baseball stadium).

    The problem is I don't think my kids will be like that - I love them, and they are smart kids who aren't struggling academically, but they aren't testing the way I was testing at their ages. My oldest is in 2nd grade and is doing fine - but I distinctly remember taking some standardized test in 1st grade and the school talking to my parents because I had gotten the highest score in the whole grade and they wanted to see about me skipping grades (to my parent's credit - they didn't make me skip grades, and I'm glad they didn't as I think that my social skills would have suffered if I did). She's in the top 85% of her class with her MAP scores, so she's smart and gets the concepts, but she's not the smartest kid in the school smart (which I'm fine with, or course). 

    I still have a lot of time, but I don't know what I need to do to help them be prepared because I didn't need the help myself - so I don't have anything to fall back on as "well, this worked for me." Is anyone else in this boat, and is there anything that has helped you give your kids the assistance they will need at times when you didn't need it yourself when you were their age?

    I don't have kids, so I can't offer anything from the perspective of a parent. But I do have the experience of being the child of highly educated, intelligent parents who put a lot of pressure on me to succeed academically. My dad was a literal genius. I was merely a good student, considerably above average in most subjects, but not a genius or 1600 SAT material. My recollections and suggestions follow. (A lot of this is Parenting 101, but as smart as they were, my parent's weren't always great at this.)

    1) While helping your kids study or do homework, try not to show impatience or anger if they are slow to catch on to something. My dad tried to be patient with me, but still there was enough of a gulf between us that it was apparent that he was frustrated that I wasn't getting it. It made me feel, well, dumb. Which, in comparison to him, I was. But he had at least 40 IQ points on me.

    2) Don't push your kids into advanced classes or grades that they aren't prepared for. In middle school my parents lobbied hard to get me into "GT"-level classes for English, math, science, etc. Which was OK in the case of English and science subjects, I did well at those. But I was not, and still am not, adept at math, especially abstract math. I was hopelessly lost in that math class, and it was frustrating and embarrassing, and led to further problems described in my point 3 below.

    3) If you put too much pressure on a kid to excel with grades, it can have counterproductive results. For example, I was failing the aforementioned math class. The right thing to do would have been to tell my parents/teacher that I couldn't do it, or that I needed extra help, or something along those lines. But I was much too afraid about my parent's reaction to handle it that way. Instead, I tried to cover up my poor grades as long as I could. (I altered my report card.) Giving my parents a report card with a D or F on it was just unthinkable. Of course I eventually got caught, and I even knew I was pretty likely to get caught--but at the time I didn't really feel like I had much to lose.

     

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  6. Roof estimates vary wildly depending on how gullible/rich the roofer thinks you are. In Austin, a home remodeling & roofing company with a name that rhymes with Tower gave me a fancy presentation followed by an initial estimate (for a very plain 1700 sq ft house) of--get this--fifty thousand dollars. Five zero, not 15. I was able to "talk them down" to a "special price just for you" of 28k, which was still double the other estimates I got.

     

  7. I've resigned myself to Dak fucking up a certain number of times so I was prepared for that. But the defense today, was something I will have nightmares about. Love had so, so much time to survey the field. And so many completely open receivers. And mostly perfect accuracy. And those GB receivers, did they even have any drops? It was like Dallas didn't even have a defense on the field.

    And I thought Love was supposed to be a confirmed bust of a pick, at least that's what everyone said earlier this year.

     

     

  8. Ever fucking year is the same and every fucking year I fall for it. I was able to break up with the Oilers after 35-3, why can't I break up with the Cowboys?

    And I know somehow, despite looking like an Unbeatable Future Brady 2.0 Hall of Fame Lock today, Love is going to play like complete shit next week. Just like Washington did against Michigan after their win over Texas.

     

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  9. I had a couple drinks (Forty Creek) before bed, but I still laid awake for a couple hours going over the game in my head. Especially UT's last two red zone possessions and play calls.

    We had a legendary comeback opportunity within our grasp and let it slip away.

     

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  10. 1 hour ago, Mileslong said:


    If you fumble it forwards and it goes out of bounds they bring it back to that spot and retain possession. Why should that change just because it’s at the goal line?

    Yeah, it doesn't make sense that the defense is given a massive, disproportionate gift if the fumble goes through the end zone and rolls OOB (rather than any other fumble that goes OOB). The defense should only get possession if they actually recover the fumble in the field of play.

    At worst, the offense/fumbling team should get the ball back at the 20, instead of fully losing possession.

     

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