Not to be conspiratorial, but about an hour ago I saw this in The Economist: "Russia’s grey-zone attacks on Europe are growing more brazen"
[QUOTE:]
Russia has been staging covert operations and deniable provocations against European countries for many years. Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022 they have increased. These have included incursions by reconnaissance drones, hacking, arson, parcel bombs targeting cargo flights and plots to kill executives of leading European arms firms. In recent months the pace of such shadowy attacks appears to have risen again. The Russian operations have three main goals, according to analysts and security officials: trying to coerce European countries into halting their support for Ukraine; raising the costs of providing that support; and attempting to make NATO look powerless.
[/QUOTE]
And of course there've been "suspicious" cable cuts in the Baltic Sea and other European waters ....
You'd hope Putin is not so stupid as to start committing acts of war on US territory. Helping the Iranians against the US seems to have gone mostly unnoticed but I'm pretty sure that if such an act was traced back to russia there would be a different tune played soon after.
It’s being gong on for years in Europe. Nobody’s starting a war because they cut a fibre. Or burn down a telephone exchange. Or blow up a plane. Or kill a policeman, even if it can be attributed.
Trump floated that trial balloon a few months back, though currently the administration is proceeding with the much more American plan of widespread voter suppression, intimidation, and bribery, if in the most ham-fisted and unconstitutional way possible.
> Cleaning the bathroom, on the other hand, would leave my mind largely free to think whatever I feel like.
I haven't calculated a cube root by hand since, what, sixth grade? (It's been so long I don't remember.) I'd hate to spend the mental cycles having to do that kind of task.
From what I know of the Khan approach, it's akin to "flipping the classroom" [0], which has gained pretty wide acceptance. It was pioneered by Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur.
(I use the flipped classroom approach extensively. But the legal profession being the eager embracers of novelty that we are </sarcasm>, I refer to the approach as "enhanced Socratic method," given that Socratic method was something we all endured in law school.)
For math and engineering courses, the basic flipped-classroom approach was used at West Point for over 150 years: In the so-called Thayer method, students study textbooks in advance, then in class, they work on problems on chalkboards. The instructor moves from chalkboard to chalkboard, coaching the students in real time. [1]
(I do much the same thing in my contract-drafting classes: In small groups, students do drafting exercises using online whiteboards. I lurk on my laptop, quietly coaching in person as needed.)
"Verbing": For some reason, to me the use of "impact" as a verb has always been fingernails on a chalkboard. But it's hard to see the distinction between that and using "access" as a verb (as in the linked C & H strip), which seems unremarkable.
> "And if you really care about your health you should do them every 3 months to catch problems early!"
When I moved to Houston just after law school, I found a doctor and made an appointment to get a routine physical exam; I hadn't had one since getting out of the Navy three years earlier.
Doctor: So what brings you here?
Me: A triennial physical exam.
Doctor (incredulously): You get a physical exam three times a year?
Phrases I've heard:
- This isn't my favorite
- Um, not really my cup of tea
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