Florida trip; links; federated social media

[kate_nepveu]

We visited my mom and her husband in Florida! It was a bit warmer than usual, mid-80s; their pool was about 70F, so the kids and Chad had a blast and I watched from the side, as usual. We took an airboat tour of the Everglades and saw little dolphins super-close; found shark teeth and shells and dogs on the beach; and generally had a nice unstressful vacation. (The air travel was not the greatest, but we didn't have to stay overnight in an airport hotel like we did coming back from our New Year's trip, so hey.)

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A couple links:

• jhameia said that this Atlantic article on college-admissions "rigging" angst was "an amazing, compassionate, and productive response to white people anxieties about missing out on what they think they're entitled to," and I agree.

• At Hyperallergic, The Clandestine Cultural Knowledge of Ancient Graffiti.

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Because G+ is shutting down, my community there is testing other social media platforms, and we've moved on to federated/distributed ones. I have a Hubzilla account on an experimental fannish instance, and also a Mastodon account that I haven't started using yet but will soon, probably. If you've got a compatible account, feel free to add me/let me know!

(I really like the idea of Hubzilla and I want someone to make a turnkey install so that I can host my own, a la WordPress, which seems vastly unlikely at the moment, alas.)

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Poll #21429

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

View Respondents

+1?

View Answers

+1
9 (100.0%)

Comments

[damerell]

A yearly occurrence here is the story about how this teenager predicted straight-As at A-levels can't get into Oxbridge because Oxbridge is rigged against - well, sometimes it's POC, sometimes poor people, sometimes it's posh white people - but the sad fact is that (while for all I know the Oxbridge admissions process does have its issues) there are now too many straight-As teenagers who would like to go to Oxbridge for them all to be admitted.

[rmc28]

Not just "too many", but approximately 5-6 times as many applicants to Cambridge than places, almost all of them are predicted straight-As etc, and the number of applicants rises every year while the number of places .... doesn't.

The current response to this is intensive in-person interviewing and then a sincere and thorough moderating process by subject across all the Colleges. The more I learn about unconscious bias, the more I think the place would do better to throw it all away and use a lottery approach. (And also only take people post-results, because predicted results are also a wobbly pile of bias both conscious and unconscious, but that would require an even bigger cultural shift.)

I do thoroughly agree with that Atlantic article, and I remain grateful to my parents for encouraging me to try (and sometimes fail at) a whole range of "non academic" activities, because when I finally stopped being top of the class I at least had an idea how to cope with it.

[kate_nepveu]

Lotteries can't fix disparities in application rates, though, yeah? Otherwise I can see the appeal.

[kate_nepveu]

TIL the portmanteau "Oxbridge"! Until I looked it up I thought it was some school I'd never heard of.

[chestnut_pod]

That's a great response at the Atlantic. Thanks for sharing!

[kate_nepveu]

Glad you found it useful!

[lavendertook]

I hadn't made the connection between belief in conspiracy theories and sense of entitlement--well, of course! Thank you for that.

[kate_nepveu]

Welcome!

[sovay]

At Hyperallergic, The Clandestine Cultural Knowledge of Ancient Graffiti.

Thank you for this! I studied ancient Roman graffiti, but not any other kind.

"The past year saw the publication of Scribbling through History, an edited volume (based on a 2013 workshop) with contributions on ancient and medieval graffiti; and Karen Stern's Writing on the Wall, the first general study of ancient Jewish graffiti."

*want*

[kate_nepveu]

Glad you found it interesting!

[jesse_the_k]

Oh that excellent Atlantic article belongs in every parent’s inbox.

[kate_nepveu]

Thanks!

[thistleingrey]

I've probably missed an earlier explanation--my apologies. For what are the polls meant?

[kate_nepveu]

I don't think you did! They're a kludge for G+'s "+1", which is something like "I see this and/or agree but don't have more to say," a lower-friction way of interacting.

[thistleingrey]

Makes sense! Thanks.

[autumnus]

in terms of mastodon side of things you might be interested in fandom.ink and wondering.shop as interesting instances. A lot of instances tends to be invite only to not grow out out of control scale and have a semblance of community but people are usually open about giving invites. (if all else fails I have contacted admins before)

[kate_nepveu]

thank you! I will check them out when we start testing Mastodon.

[feuervogel]

I'm looking forward to reading those links when I have a spare minute. Thank you!

[kate_nepveu]

welcome!