All posts tagged: Broken

My Wi-Fi had full bars and still felt broken, and I finally figured out why

My Wi-Fi had full bars and still felt broken, and I finally figured out why

Published by Miika Tikkanen

There’s this common misconception that a full Wi-Fi bar equates to optimal internet. While that can be true in some cases, the bars only show the signal strength between your device and your wireless router, basically the distance between you and your router. They don’t measure the performance of your actual internet connection. I didn’t really clock this early because I’m usually close to my router and everything works just fine — well, until it didn’t. No matter how close I was to my router, I got random disconnections and didn’t get anywhere near the speed I expected from my internet connection. I initially thought something was wrong with my router or my ISP was just bugging, but it turned out the problem was much closer to home. Related Network Congestion Is Slowing Down Your Wi-Fi, but There Are 2 Easy Fixes These two small changes can make a surprising amount of difference to your Wi-Fi speeds. Turns out I was fighting congestion and interference Distance from the router isn’t the only thing that matters …

Structure That Sustains but Then Constrains Must Be Broken

Structure That Sustains but Then Constrains Must Be Broken

Published by Jenni Sidey

When we create or build something, we often need temporary supports to help guide us and keep things in place. Sometimes those temporary structures become embedded within whatever we are building and just stay there in a support capacity, possibly forever. Sometimes those supports that at one time helped us set something up subsequently prevent us from growing. It’s not a shoo-in There’s a concept in traditional Japanese martial arts that explains the stages of development and maturation with ongoing training: shu (‘shoo’) ha (‘hah’) ri (‘ree’). Shu 守 is often functionally translated along the lines of “conserve/protect/follow.” This implies that in the early stages of training, we need to follow a model and use that semi-rigid structure to help support our development. Adherence to a set mold is a key idea to help guide our training. Ha 破 usually means to move away from, detach, or break away. This implies that we are at a stage of understanding where a rigid structure is no longer necessary to support our training. We can begin to …

Variations on Broken Eggs | Christopher Benfey

Variations on Broken Eggs | Christopher Benfey

Published by Jenni Sidey

In April 1951 Randall Jarrell sent a short poem titled “A War” to his friend Robert Lowell: There set out, slowly, for a Different World,At four, on winter mornings, different legs…You can’t break eggs without making an omelette—That’s what they tell the eggs. The poem is unnervingly odd, with its disjointed second line that evokes, for me, Bruegel’s ominous Hunters in the Snow, who bring no good tidings to the village they’re approaching. Jarrell’s only accompanying comment urged Lowell to read Hannah Arendt’s just-published book, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Jarrell was inviting an interpretation: in a totalitarian state, whether fascist or communist, foot soldiers who’ve been promised a better world follow their leaders to disaster blindy (with their legs, not their heads). “The fact that the totalitarian dictator rules his own country like a foreign conqueror,” Arendt wrote, “adds to ruthlessness an efficiency which is conspicuously lacking in tyrannies in alien surroundings.” Ruthless efficiency was the theme of Arendt’s essay “The Eggs Speak Up,” written around 1951 with Jarrell’s “A War” as epigraph.1 It seems …

Trust with £8m deficit to be broken up

Trust with £8m deficit to be broken up

Published by Miika Tikkanen

A troubled academy trust saddled with an over £8 million deficit is set to be carved up in one of the largest-ever MAT closures. Schools Week previously revealed how the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP) had racked up seven-figure losses after purchasing iPads as part of an initiative to provide 11,000 devices for all pupils and staff. Staff walkouts across 20 of its schools over planned redundancies and the resignation of the trust’s CEO later followed. But today, interim boss Lee Miller revealed education secretary Bridget Phillipson has decided all the trust’s academies “should transition to a small number of high-performing, regionally based” chains. “This is intended to ensure schools continue to benefit from strong regional expertise, local understanding and ongoing support,” he said. “While this decision ultimately rests with the secretary of state, we believe this approach provides the strongest opportunity to support ongoing school improvement, long-term stability and the very best educational outcomes.” iPad scheme changes In 2024, Arthur Terry was issued with a notice to improve by the Department for Education on …

Broken Dove by Dani Francis

Broken Dove by Dani Francis

Published by José Betancourt

Broken Dove by Dani Francis returns Wren Darlington to her own people and immediately complicates everything. The Silver Elite sequel doubles down on banter, brutal action, and a sharper love triangle, while peeling back uglier truths about both sides of the war. It is messy, propulsive, sometimes uneven, and ends on a cliffhanger that will absolutely work on you. The post Broken Dove by Dani Francis appeared first on The Bookish Elf. Source link

What Would Be Truly Bullish? Actually Fixing What’s Broken

What Would Be Truly Bullish? Actually Fixing What’s Broken

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via Of Two Minds, We’ve come to an interesting juncture in history, interesting because while we’re being assured that AI will solve all problems, including any it creates, back in the real world, AI is incapable of fixing what’s broken because too many people are getting rich off the status quo, and since the status quo is the problem, those who own / control AI will use it to maintain the status quo, guaranteeing that what’s broken spirals into irreversible breakdown. Richard Bonugli and I discuss what’s fatally broken in a new podcast on what it will take to become Bullish (32 min). Let’s start with what’s “obvious”: letting what’s broken fester until it implodes the status quo is not bullish, and neither is substituting delusion and denial for a realistic appraisal of what’s actually broken–the essential observe and orient steps in the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act). I’ve often described the two dynamics that are broken that AI can’t fix because those who own / control AI are …

How the Two-Hour Marathon Was Broken

How the Two-Hour Marathon Was Broken

Published by José Betancourt

To understand the significance of someone running a marathon in less than two hours, you also need to understand that, until recently, the notion of this actually happening was truly, utterly absurd. Sure, a physiologist named Michael Joyner had floated the idea that such a feat might be humanly possible in a journal paper way back in 1991. But his peers laughed off the idea, and not much changed over the succeeding decades. In Runner’s World in 2014, I predicted that it would happen in 2075. Frankly, even that forecast seemed overly optimistic to me, but I figured I’d be dead by then, so no one would be able to call me on it. Well, I was wrong. Yesterday morning, the two-hour marathon barrier finally went down. A relatively unheralded 31-year-old Kenyan named Sabastian Sawe won the London Marathon with a time of 1:59:30. That is, for reference, 26.2 miles run at an average of 4:34 a mile—or, put another way, a pace that most recreational runners would struggle to sustain for more than a …

Parrot uses his broken beak to become a dominant male

Parrot uses his broken beak to become a dominant male

Published by Miika Tikkanen

In 2013, things were looking bleak for a malnourished, undersized parrot who was missing half his beak and struggling to survive in the wilds of Arthur’s Pass in New Zealand’s South Island. Then, says Ximena Nelson at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, one of her students came across the struggling kea (Nestor notabilis). The bird had lost the upper part of its beak, probably due to trauma. Because the kea is classified as an endangered species, the student decided to bring him into captivity. Little did anyone know that this was a decision that would change the bird’s life and thrust greatness upon him. The carers at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch, New Zealand, named the bird Kati, assuming that such a small parrot must have been a female. That assumption also made sense because it was the top half of the beak that the bird lacked. The upper beak is huge in male kea, and used for digging. It looks “like it could bite your finger off”, says Nelson. But a DNA test …

Flooring professional explains how to repair cracked and broken tiles

Flooring professional explains how to repair cracked and broken tiles

Published by Daniella Wilson

A leading choice for its versatility, durability and timeless appeal, tile flooring is perfectly suited to high-traffic areas, kitchens and bathrooms. Whether they’re ceramic, stone or porcelain, they blend practicality with style and can elevate your scheme from lacklustre to luxe. But what happens when signs of wear and tear set in, cracks appear, or they feel loose underfoot…. and you haven’t budgeted for new flooring? Expensive, at the best of times, especially once labour and materials are included. As Adrian Cox, managing director of Fix-A-Floor, winner of Best Innovation award 2023 at The Tile Association, and exhibitor at the Homebuilding & Renovating Show, points out, tiles which feel loose or sound hollow don’t always need replacing. White kitchen chair with blue tiled kitchen floor (Alamy/PA) In most situations, he says the tile itself remains undamaged and the issue typically stems from movement in the subfloor expansion from underfloor heating; or from adhesive that has deteriorated over time, or was incorrectly applied in the first place. This results in gaps forming beneath the tile, he …

The Broken Promises of Ed Tech

The Broken Promises of Ed Tech

Published by Daniella Wilson

For more than a decade, Dylan Kane, a seventh-grade math teacher in Leadville, Colorado, leaned into technology as a way to improve his classes. Starting in 2014, he dragged Chromebook carts down hallways to make sure all of his students could use a device. He assessed the available apps, built his own math-instruction website, and embedded software to prevent kids from playing games or exploring inappropriate sites. He kept adapters around the room so everyone could charge up. Then, in January, he took the Chromebooks away. He had sensed that the technology was falling short of its promises. Within weeks of ditching the screens, he saw how they had been holding both him and his students back. Given my own research on children and education, I reached out to him when I learned from a colleague about his experiment. Laptops and tablets have become ubiquitous in classrooms across the country. About 90 percent of school districts provide every student with a school-issued laptop or tablet. A nationally representative survey from 2021 of ed-tech use by …