Messages - IainB [ switch to compact view ]

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201
Interesting: China becomes first country to Germinate a Seed on the Moon
Apparently it's a beansprout, and is the first step in an ambitious and well-thought-out longer-term strategic plan for yet another "first" and moon-breaking record - the opening of the first Lunar Chinese take-away, reportedly to be named the Golden Mao Moon.
Initial reports say that, due to the moon's low gravity, all the items on the menu are to be designated "diet lite", though I personally consider that might be stretching the trade descriptions a bit much, even though Chinese food isn't generally considered to be fattening.
“That's one small step for a beansprout, one giant leap for mankind” - Chinese astronaut and lead chef/food advisor to the successful Chinese lunar mission.

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Android Apps / Re: android app keyboard - try SwiftKey?
« on: January 18, 2019, 08:55 AM »
Ultimately, which keyboard seems "most suitable" for a user will depend on the user's peculiar  requirements - which, from experience, are usually little understood and rarely defined.
There have been a few references in the DC Forum discussions to the Microsoft product  SwiftKey (MS apparently bought up the company several years ago.)
I only recently started using a smartphone for my own purposes (though I have set up smartphones for other people to use for at least a couple of years), as there is some functionality available that can't so easily be utilised via a laptop, though I do use an Android emulator on the laptop so that I can mirror the Android device's system on the laptop. I plumped for a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S7 with the Google keyboard. Very good. It was a no-brainer.

But it was whilst I was setting up a Japanese and a Thai keyboard for a couple of users that I started to research and experiment in earnest with other keyboard apps than the obvious ones mentioned in this thread (above) and which are otherwise very good.
That's when I stumbled upon SwiftKey. I was initially very skeptical (because it was a Microsoft product, after all!), but, on reading user reviews, I couldn't find a single real criticism - it was mostly all positives. So, rather than get the other users to be guinea-pigs and experiment with this unknown app, I tested it out pretty thoroughly on my own smartphone first.
Because I tend to be rather critical and see all the warts in things, I have rarely been blown away by any application's functionality and potential - sadlement, they are nearly all defective in some regard.
Not so SwiftKey, it seems. After trialling it, I subsequently installed it for the other users, and they too were blown away by it. The hardest part was getting them to actually try it out in the first place ("suck-it-and-see"). The built-in ergonomics and predictive and lots of other functionality in SwiftKey seem to leave most of the other keyboards standing in the dust.
Well worth a try, I'd suggest.

203
Post New Requests Here / Re: gpa calculator - do numbers matter?
« on: January 18, 2019, 07:52 AM »
@4wd: I was talking to a school head the other day who was saying that it has (apparently) been pointed out by many serious educationalists that PRE (Points Rating Evaluation) has been around in various guises in the schools/education system and in business HR personnel assessment/evaluation processes for donkeys' years, so most people are likely to have been subjected to it at some point in their lives - though they might not necessarily have been aware of it at the time. A classic example might be streaming in schools.

According to a senior retired officer and psychiatrist from the UK military with whom I had some dealings with a few years back, it's (PRE is) only half of the equation and that VA (Vocational Aptitude) testing/assessment/guidance is likely to be potentially of greater significance and use than (say) subject grades. For max productivity and happiness, you apparently have to try to fit people to those roles for which they have the relevant vocational aptitude and an appropriate and relevant minimum functional IQ. Apparently people with an IQ of less than 80 (I think it was) can't be trained - can't retain the learning - for anything. He also told me that the military (especially the Army) are the only organisations who seem to be able to get it right most of the time - and that's largely because they have such tremendous experience of doing it and such a tremendous vested interest in the outcome, because they absolutely have to get it right. I know from hiring training/experience that if a job applicant has had military training, then that's another useful tick in the box of desirable attributes that can positively differentiate a candidate.

The school head reckoned that a lot of problems can tend to occur in society when the touchy-feely brigade start to water down the PRE scheme or educational standards, or start to dumb things down, or break the measurement rules, to avoid potentially sensitive or even "disadvantaged" students (or their parents) getting their precious feelings hurt by them being assigned a low score, or something. Apparently, schools in NZ have moved away from the more traditional and tried-and-tested knowledge-based educational model. She pointed me to an interesting body of research on the subject. She thought this was perhaps one of the potentially adverse consequences to society of everybody having to be regarded as being equal, etc.,regardless, in what is becoming an increasingly prevalent politically correct post-truth environment.
Of course, that esteemed German leader and head of the progressive German National Socialist party might have had something to say about that.    :o

204
Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"
« on: January 14, 2019, 02:29 AM »
@Arizona Hot: I dunno. "Heads-up driving" would seem to be a bit passé if not a contradiction in terms, in this day and age of txting-whilst-U-drive.  :tellme:

205
DC Gamer Club / Re: Latest Steam Giveaway
« on: January 13, 2019, 09:20 AM »
A Story About My Uncle is free to keep if you claim it by the 14th.
Thanks! Looks interesting.   :Thmbsup:

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