#Alternative Assessments

[thisisgraeme]

Effective Strategies for Supporting Neurodiverse Adult Learners: A Conversation with Annette Tofaeono

Unlock the power of inclusive education with effective neurodiversity strategies for educators. Learn how to create an inclusive classroom, implement learning techniques, and communicate effectively.

Working with Neurodiverse Learners – What Are Some Strategies You Can Use? Part 1 Welcome back to our ongoing series on neurodiversity and learning differences. In this third instalment, my colleague and friend Annette and I explore the essential strategies for working with adult students who may have learning differences. Inclusive Classroom Culture Annette starts by emphasising the…

[white-weasel]

If the Saw XI delay rumors (postponed to 2026) are true, I’ll start pitching spin offs to Twisted Pictures myself idec

[icewindandboringhorror]

It's always interesting to hear about people's weird/unexpected "alternate life paths". Like, something that you could have done with your life, a job you almost took, a school you almost went to, etc - that was still actually realistic enough that it could have happened, but NOW it seems to not suit your current personality.

Like for example, I currently hate advertising (how manipulative it is, brands trying to be 'relatable', social media amplifying it to an obnoxious extreme, etc.) so much that even seeing a little ad before a youtube video is grating to even witness, but there was a point in time where I was genuinely seriously considering going into marketing/making commercials as a career lol. Or like, I have a relative who was very inclined to be a pastor when they were younger, even though today they're a super strong atheist, etc. etc.

[flimsy-roost]

now that I know I'm audhd I'm pretty gentle with myself, like I can just go meh whatever and shrug off most of the weird shit I do, but one thing that still makes me want to sink into the floor every time is when I get so excited to see a visibly queer person in a mundane environment that I forget you're not supposed to stare and bc I'm not super expressive by the time I snap back to reality this poor person has been stonefaced stared down by a random schlub (me) for long enough that they're now worried about getting hatecrimed in the Lowes parking lot. Why Am I Like This

[theoakleafpancake]

The Ties of Fate

[Image ID: A drawing of two emblems, one a leopard’s eye and the other a snake’s eye. The leopard is red and the snake is yellow, and both of them have a sort of lightning strike reaching towards each other. /End ID]

::: ::: :::

The bells were ringing again. It was a sound they all dreaded, a sound that dampened the usual cheer of the dawn of a new day.

It was the sound of war.

Will Barret lowered the bow—the bow he’d made from a tree branch—and turned to watch as the single rider made his way along the road. A coil of unease slithered inside him, and without a second thought, he leaped through the little woods, towards the farmhouse in the field.

Daniel was already outside, carrying the shovel back into the barn. “Dad!” Will shouted. His father looked up and waved a hand, stopping as he waited.

“Is everything alright?”

He slowed down, panting. “Rider,” he said, letting out a slow breath. “There’s a rider coming.”

::: ::: :::

This is my AU submission for the Ranger assessment! (More info under the cut)

It’s kinda of a reversal AU, but also not really because about half of it remains the same. It’s also still very rough so I haven’t figured out all the logistics yet.

Morgarath was never defeated. In fact, the original war continued on much longer, with each group taking heavy losses. So much so that it came to a point where a tense truce was offered.

Unfortunately, Morgarath’s advances reached from Gorlan to a shaky line across Araluen. Thus Araluen was split into Duncan’s land and Morgarath’s land (now known as Tenebris).

The erasure of the Ranger Corps did happen. And Crowley did end up uniting the Originals to help Duncan. Unlike in the main timeline, he did it alone.

Halt O’Carrick, once heir to the throne of Dun Kilty, faced the same assassination attempts from his brother Ferris. It was around the third attempt that their father grew extremely ill.

Instead of allowing Ferris to take the throne, Halt was determined to keep his brother’s corruption from spreading. So he stayed. Caitlyn was the first to know. Halt had his own ensemble that was loyal to him, and managed to keep Ferris compliant for the time being. And so when the King died, Halt took the throne.

In this AU, he still met Pritchard and trained with him. His main weapon is still a bow and arrow. He has his own guards practice the weapon as well. For a while, everything went relatively smoothly.

There was no Ranger to save, and Daniel survived. The other two who ransacked his home in the original story (I can’t remember their names) still tried to pull their stunt but were unsuccessful. His wife lived and so did Will. For fifteen years, all was still.

(For reference, I gave them the last name of Barret. Vira is his wife and Will’s mother)

When the war commences once more, Will is forced back into it as well as his father. Will proves to be not so competent in most weaponry and finds himself with the archers.

The rest of the Wards are still in their respective places. As Morgarath plans, Battleschool students, Diplomats, and Scribes are all doing their own part.

Horace is a natural when it comes to swordsmanship, but not when it comes to fitting in. His mother lives alone, and he worries about her every day. Alda, Bryn, and Jerome make his life a living hell every day and he almost wishes he never joined.

Alyss strives to be everything Lady Pauline is. Her family is still gone, and so she did grow up in the Ward with George and a few others. Coincidentally, a popular baker in town frequents Castle Redmont to help with any major events. Her daughter, Jenny, often tags along and spends time with Alyss and George.

Never given the opportunity to choose another path, Gilan is a respected knight in Caraway. He still looks to the Rangers with longing and envy, but he knows it’s far too late to join. And besides, this is what everyone expected of him, right? As the Battlemaster’s son, it’s only natural.

At the start of the AU, Cassandra is placed in Celtica. Which geographically speaking is still weird because I have no idea how she would have made it even with a truce, but I’ll figure it out. The war did start again some time after she had arrived, so there’s that. Madelydd and her get into all sorts of antics and enjoy spending time with one another.

As the war starts, Crowley and Duncan are noticeably concerned about the growing size of Morgarath’s army. They will need more support if they have any hope of winning, but international relationships are not so well off. Fortunately, though small, an army from Hibernia decides to cut in on the decision of one of the six Kings - Halt O’Carrick

And of course, Ferris sees this as the perfect moment to strike. His brother leaves Caitlyn and Ferris in charge, not without sparing a few of his men to keep an eye on his brother. Unfortunately, Ferris has his own loyal followers. If the King were to leave to fight a war and never return, no one would bat an eye, after all.

No one except Caitlyn.

Anyways, that’s all I have for now! Everything will tie together eventually, I just have to figure out how to get there, lol.

[faggling]

I love taking care of people omggg 😍😍😍

[bitchking-of-angmar]

I learned yesterday that since six months have passed since I fell ill and I haven't recovered yet/I am still unable to participate in normal day to day life, I now officially fall into the medical definition of disabled 🙃

[speedwagons-glorious-mane]

The person who signed me up for my online course misspelled my last name even though I always spell it out to people because for some reason literally NOBODY knows how to fucking spell it so student services sent me an email and called me to tell me I need to send over some valid ID because they can't just... trust that I know how to spell my own fucking last name idk I can't believe I'm paying actual money for this what a fucking waste

[roaringroa]

i am devastated, i read a book today and didn’t realize it was part of an ongoing series until like halfway through this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me

[koa-z]

ok so i KNOW that when you decide to look alternative, you should expect for some people to react negatively bc like. It's sth they can see, and it's not accepted as normal.

but like I did not expect the sheer number of fragile heterosexual men who would be moved to screaming by the trauma of seeing my pink hair

[emjaydoubleyou]

this post is fearmongering. the results of this study are concerning and should definitely be a matter of public discussion, but this is certainly not the conclusion the researchers came to.

the point of the study was to assess the risks of exposure to toxic metals- something one of the co-authors notes are “ubiquitous” fwiw- via menstrual products. Their research confirmed that these metals are indeed present in tampons, but no further conclusions are drawn. it is possible the metal entered into the cotton from the soil, which is a well-known phenomenon; cotton is so good at lifting heavy metals that it has actually been suggested as a part of the solution for revitalizing polluted ground.

the authors conclude with an acknowledgement that the study should be repeated- their sample size was 60 tampons- and a suggestion that further testing ought to be done to indicate whether or not these metals can even leech out of the tampon in the first place, let alone whether or not such leeching could occur at levels deleterious to human health.

there is, in fact, a body of research- too small, for sure, but much larger than this single study- indicating that long-term proper tampon use has no observable negative impact on health. i am grateful and thrilled that more research is being done and i hope that this study is the first of many on this line of questioning, but i am really frustrated at this post and the response it got.

obviously, if this study alters your approach to menstrual health, more power to you. consumers should be informed-risk-takers, and menstrual health is double-obviously a very personal choice. but it definitely wasn't the researchers concluding that you ought to “avoid using tampons at all cost," only this tumblr user did. the lead author of the paper, in fact, specifically says that she hopes people do NOT panic about the results.

(the notes of the post were disappointing. people affirming that they knew they were right to be suspicious of tampons all along, or even recommending alternatives that actually have very little to no research regarding the safety of long-term use, etc. it’s a different conversation, but categorical distrust of tampons is old-school misogyny. you certainly shouldn't wear them if you don’t want to, but there is nothing inherently scary or wrong about them, and people who prefer them are not being reckless or crass.)

((if you're really worried about exposure to heavy metals, you may want to turn a critical eye to fast fashion, as an aside))

[crystaltoa]

I’m going to go the second one because I believe there’s a difference between ‘a robot could do this job’ and ‘a robot SHOULD do this job’. Even in a world where robots can emulate almost any human behaviour or skill.

(Content warning: I discuss some pretty heavy hypotheticals relating to medical abuse, eugenics, racism and ableism)

You know the rule that “a computer can never be held accountable. Therefore a robot should never make a management decision” Well, these days, people do delegate management decisions to robots. But the robot lacks human values and understanding of nuance. It is still impacted by biases, sometimes to an even greater extent than a human. And our understanding of bias, equality and equity is constantly evolving and is driven by human values. If you take humans out of the equation, who is checking the AI for biases and reasonable behaviour? Another AI?

Look at politics. Like it or not, a sufficiently powerful politician is going to have to make difficult decisions that will ultimately impact who lives and who dies (decisions on health, war, crime and the justice system, etc.) And a robot politician is going to face the same problems. An AI politician programmed with the objective of letting nobody die is going to fail horribly, since such a thing is likely impossible, even for the most advanced AI of the distant future. So, it will always have to act on the logic that a certain number of humans may die as a consequence of its actions, but that it should keep that number as low as possible using the information that it is given.

An AI is going to boil this down to a system of logic. If the goal is to use the available resources to minimise the number of lives lost, and no human life is inherently more valuable than any other, then it is going to spend the bulk of its resources on areas where it will have the greatest impact and save the greatest number of lives.

Now that sounds good on paper, doesn’t it? But there is a problem: if you reduce the issues down to a multiple choice game, it allows no space for inspiration, creativity, and nuanced discussion of ethics.

if you gave our robo-politician the trolley problem, it would quickly tell you that pulling the lever was the correct option as it minimises the number of lives lost. Okay, you might think. Sounds reasonable. Lots of humans who engage with the problem reach the same conclusion.

But the thing is, the robo-politician will pull that lever again and again and again without ever considering that perhaps it’s possible to change the system so that there aren’t so many people stuck on the tracks in the path of an oncoming train in the first place. If the robo-politician already thinks it has enough information to solve the problem, it won’t seek new information. It won’t try to come up with a better system. It will always be a two-choice logic problem that it already has an adequate solution to.

It’s theoretically possible that a robot politician might actually do an adequate job (at least compared to some human politicians) simply by playing this numbers game and emulating actions of past politicians that have produced good results before.

BUT

If you want meaningful systemic change driven by new ideas, you need human involvement. AI’s ability to at least simulate creativity probably will improve in the coming years, but balancing the new AI-generated solutions with a respect for human values and quality of life is a very complex thing.

Furthermore, there’s a need for nuance that AI may not ever be able to fully grasp. If the goal is only to minimise number of lives lost, in the most economically viable way, you could wind up with dystopian scenarios like the following:

“We want to reduce the number of people who die when receiving medical treatment. Therefore, euthanasia/medically assisted dying is now illegal, because that results in human deaths” (ignoring human bodily autonomy and quality of life needs)

Or conversely, “Keeping some disabled and chronically ill people alive takes resources that could be used for other purposes. Therefore, it makes economic sense to euthanise some of the higher-care needs patients so that those resources can be used to save other lives at a more cost-effective rate.” (Horrendously ableist)

“We want medical resources and funding to go where they will help the most people. No human life is inherently worth more or less than any other. This country has a lot more white people than black people. Therefore, it makes economic sense to focus funding, research, and training of future medical practitioners primarily on the care and treatment of white patients” (Perpetuating or even amplifying existing societal inequalities, dismissing helping minorities as not economically viable)

“We want to reduce the number of people affected by serious health conditions, which puts a drain on medical resources and reduces the number of lives we can save. Therefore, people who carry genes for certain conditions will be deterred or outright prevented from reproducing” (again, horrendously ableist and robs people of bodily autonomy)

“We want to reduce deaths from vehicle and other types of accidents that occur primarily outside the home. Therefore, there are now stricter regulations regarding when humans should be allowed to leave their homes.” (Authoritarian police state).

(Note: The intent here is not to imply that dedicating resources to vulnerable minorities is “objectively” illogical or wasteful. The point is that logic is only as good as the goals and principles behind it, and having overly simplistic success criteria without strong ethical considerations will result in those vulnerable groups suffering further mistreatment and neglect)

Humans have a wide range of needs, values and priorities that vary between individuals. Safety vs Autonomy, Privacy vs Protection, etc. And a politician must be compassionate and responsive to those values, even with all their contradictions, but to do so, human input and participation is required. No one politician, human or otherwise, is going to get it exactly right and please everybody. But a human is still going to have more success in trying than a robot, as it is near impossible to reduce the balance of these issues down to mere numbers and algorithms.

So while I’ll entertain the idea that a robot maybe could run a country, I don’t think anything would ever convince me that they should do so.

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[fideidefenswhore]

There is no longer any hope of this king ever being brought to the point through persuasion, for his sin enthrals him more and more, besides which this accursed Lady has so enchanted and bewitched him that he will not dare say or do anything against her will and commands.

[nature-played-a-trick-on-me]

Telling myself not my circus not my monkeys not my circus not my monkeys when the bf tells me he is procrastinating his schoolwork again

[venting-town]

Fuck all this shit

[reasonsforhope]

A new treatment combining ReCET and semaglutide could eliminate the need for insulin in type 2 diabetes, with 86% of participants in a study no longer requiring insulin therapy. The treatment was safe and well-tolerated, and further trials are planned to confirm these results.

Groundbreaking research presented at UEG Week 2024 introduces a promising new treatment approach for type 2 diabetes (T2D) that has the potential to greatly reduce or even eliminate the need for insulin therapy.

This innovative approach, which combines a novel procedure known as ReCET (Re-Cellularization via Electroporation Therapy) with semaglutide, resulted in the elimination of insulin therapy for 86% of patients.

Globally, T2D affects 422 million people... While insulin therapy is commonly used to manage blood sugar levels in T2D patients, it can result in side effects... and further complicate diabetes management. [Note: Also very importantly it's fucking bankrupting people who need it!!] A need therefore exists for alternative treatment strategies.

Study Design and Outcomes

The first-in-human study included 14 participants aged 28 to 75 years, with body mass indices ranging from 24 to 40 kg/m². Each participant underwent the ReCET procedure under deep sedation, a treatment intended to improve the body’s sensitivity to its own insulin. Following the procedure, participants adhered to a two-week isocaloric liquid diet, after which semaglutide was gradually titrated up to 1mg/week.

Remarkably, at the 6- and 12-month follow-up, 86% of participants (12 out of 14) no longer required insulin therapy, and this success continued through the 24-month follow-up. In these cases, all patients maintained glycaemic control, with HbA1c levels remaining below 7.5%.

Tolerability and Safety

The maximum dose of semaglutide was well-tolerated by 93% of participants, one individual could not increase to the maximum dose due to nausea. All patients successfully completed the ReCET procedure, and no serious adverse effects were reported.

Dr Celine Busch, lead author of the study, commented, “These findings are very encouraging, suggesting that ReCET is a safe and feasible procedure that, when combined with semaglutide, can effectively eliminate the need for insulin therapy.”

“Unlike drug therapy, which requires daily medication adherence, ReCET is compliance-free [meaning: you don't have to take it every day], addressing the critical issue of ongoing patient adherence in the management of T2D. In addition, the treatment is disease-modifying: it improves the patient’s sensitivity to their own (endogenous) insulin, tackling the root cause of the disease, as opposed to currently available drug therapies, that are at best disease-controlling.”

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to conduct larger randomized controlled trials to further validate these findings. Dr. Busch added, “We are currently conducting the EMINENT-2 trial with the same inclusion and exclusion criteria and administration of semaglutide, but with either a sham procedure or ReCET. This study will also include mechanistic assessments to evaluate the underlying mechanism of ReCET.”

-via SciTechDaily, October 17, 2024

--

Note: If it works even half as well as suggested, this could free so many people from the burden of the ongoing ridiculous cost of insulin. Pharma companies that make insulin can go choke (hopefully).