Idiotprogrammer Blog

Category: comments from others

  • Brilliant Bits: What everybody knows and nobody talks about

    Although this blog mostly describes my life and writing, I also use it to store various things I find online. Sometimes if it’s short I’ll mention it on Facebook posts or something similar, there are enough nuggets of wisdom, I usually will save them for reference. This is especially true for Reddit and elsewhere; yesterday in fact I saw an interesting open-ended question on Twitter , Please quote this tweet with a thing that everyone in your field knows and nobody in your industry talks about because it would lead to general chaos. Here are my favorite replies; some might veer into sloppy generalization or glib observations, Also, twitter tends to skew towards geeks, artists and generally disgrunted people. So watch out!

    ORIGINAL POSTER: literally everything you have ever done on the internet was logged somewhere and can be associated with you if someone is persistent enough. Hell, private investigators can buy your browsing history from your ISP now.

    (more…)

  • What HS Teachers will never tell their students

    Ok, I won’t make a habit of doing these kinds of posts, but here are the best answers from a reddit question of teachers.

    **********************

    One day you’re going to come across people who are not being paid to tolerate you, and all of a sudden life is going to become considerably more difficult. ***

    I actually teach middle school rather than high school, but I’ll play:I love them a whole bunch (I do actually tell them this, that’s not the thing) but goddamn every single middle schooler is an asshole. Like, even the best ones. They’re all assholes. You can’t help it at that age. Part of the process of being a good middle school teacher is accepting the assholishness and figuring out ways to work with it. Don’t worry, guys, your peers (and you) will stop being assholes soon. Most of you, anyway. ***

    That we have much better hearing than you assume. We just choose our battles as it pertains to inappropriate comments. And sometimes I pretend not to see that thing you did just because I too found it humorous, and speaking to you about it would only result in me cracking up. ***

    Your parents are literally the worst part of my job. ***

    We work incredibly long hours for very little pay-last night I was making posters/anchor charts until midnight just because I was “in the zone”. We really appreciate letters, cards, gifts and thank you’s. Please be polite. You know how good it feels when we make you feel significant, teachers are the same. If you make us feel significant you make it all worth while. It’s heartbreaking when you disrespect us. ***

    Learn how to play the game. You just have to give teachers/administration/parents what they want to see, then you can move on. If you hate math, then do the work and study so that you can pass the class and never have to deal with it again. If you hate the principal, then speak to them politely and respectfully so that they leave you alone and you fall off their radar. You don’t have to mean it, you don’t have to love it, but playing the game a little will help you get to wherever you want to be. ***

    I’m sorry that your parents are not educated enough to know that education is your best chance out of poverty.***

    Also, all the things you think your parents and teachers don’t know about? We do. We’ve done it all. We just would prefer not to think about you doing it because you’re much too young. ***

    Failing is not the end of the world. I teach at a private school, and I have had so many students in the last week alone come in on the verge of tears because they’re so worried about exams. Like, absolutely try your best and prepare for the exam, but most of us have NO idea what we got on our high school midterms. I’m a teacher and I have no idea. If you don’t get the grade you want, it’s not the end of the world. Failure builds character. Heck, I’ve failed more than most, and I’m still here! ***

    Oh, and do you think you hate exams, tests and homework? Your mild dislike of the work is a mere candle flame compared to the hatred that burns like a million suns, that I feel when I have to fucking mark it.
    *** (My god, I love this comment!)

    That we get just as stressed out as they do about workload and deadlines.
    ***

    That we take no satisfaction in giving failing grades, and in many cases, it can make us sick with stress when a kid doesn’t get acceptable grades (especially when you can tell that they try). ***

    That we appear happy and engaged (most days) but we are walking a tight rope of decision making: “What part of my work can I put off tonight so that I can spend a few minutes/an hour with my wife/kids, etc. ***

    I don’t want to see you in public either. I’m eternally thankful that my one student had her nose in her phone long enough for me to climb the tree outside the train station and hide from her. ***

    One of the most valuable lessons I can teach you is to fake looking busy.

    If we’re supposed to be working on an assignment or reading or whatever, and you see me coming your way… At the least have a piece of paper on your desk and a pen in your hand and some shit on your paper, and then I won’t bother you. If you have nothing going on and can’t even be bothered to make it look like you’re trying, I’m heading your way.

    This lesson will be invaluable with eventual bosses someday.
    ***

    Yes, I do have favorite students. No, I won’t tell you who they are because that would discourage you, but yes they’re probably who you imagine them to be. ***

    If you’re nice to me and aren’t disruptive I’ll always work the numbers in your favor when it comes time to post grades. ***

    Your small town is ruining you. RUN. ***

    I pretend to like you and I pretend to care about your fads and interests but I’ll mostly never going to see you again when you leave. Keeping a healthy detachment at all times is important to maintaining mental health. ***

    College-level first-year writing instructor here, but that’s practically still high school.

    • Stop fucking all the friends you made in my class. It’s going to be awkward later.
    • I have to make sure “all sides are heard,” but you’re being racist/sexist/etc.
    • You’re a great student, but you have some very toxic ideas about how the world works. I’m legitimately afraid you’re going to become an evil CEO or kill yourself in the next 30 years.
    • I love your passion to change the world. But you’re probably not going to. Still, I’m going to keep telling you that you can, on the off-chance that you might be the next J.K. Rowling or Barack Obama. And even if you don’t change the world, you can change lives around you, which might be just as important. ***

    I don’t care if you get high. Either take some edibles so we don’t smell it, and don’t do it when you’re IN THE ACTUAL BUILDING, and don’t do too much so it’s obvious due to how incompetent you’re acting. I get it, you have anxiety. I wish you had a better coping mechanism instead of weed but I’m glad you’re doing SOMETHING rather than avoiding school, etc. Just please please PLEASE don’t give me a reason to send you to the nurse and/or dean. Learn some practical skills. We all have to at some point. ***

    If you are stupid enough to have filmed yourself doing something that can get you in trouble, especially legal trouble, for the love of God don’t post it online. ***

    I teach middle school, not high school, but for me, it’s that I know shit sucks at home. I see it every day when you come into my class. I see the tears you’re hiding, the pain behind that class clown smile, the emotional fragility behind your tough-guy persona. I know exactly what it’s like to come from a broken home. I wish I could do something, but until you come to me, all I can do is try and let you know, with a look, a smile, a subtle turn of phrase, that I’m always there for you when you need an ear, or a shoulder. ***

    I totally played favourites. Hands down. I was like a mirror reciprocating what you send my way. If you wanted to be a lil bitch, I would not meet you halfway for anything. ***

    Show respect, or make me laugh with your wit, or ridiculousness, and I can make adjustments and compromises. ***

    Also, cheat and plagiarize away, dumbass. You’ll pass my class because I don’t get paid enough to police your entitled ass, but post-secondary education or the real world will nail you with your ineptitude. Or maybe it won’t and you’ll be lucky. I get paid the same either way, and I’d rather spend my time providing useful feedback. ***

    When it’s surprise movie day instead of lecture and actual class time – I’m likely hungover or just having a fuck it kind of day. They aren’t gifts to you. They are gifts to me. Or i faffed off and had no lesson plan, shh.***

    Some classes got pizza parties/ potlucks/ departures from the norm way more often than others. I lied when I said each class got about the same amount.
    .***

    Just because I like you as a person doesn’t mean that I won’t fail you. Being smart isn’t a justification for being lazy and I can’t pass someone that never hands in work. .***

    I moved you away from your friends because they were taking you down with them. You have a real future in sports but you need to pass my class to play them. Your friends were making you fail and, if you don’t get to play volleyball, I don’t know what kind of future you have in front of you. .***

    I wish that the positivity that you get in my class could follow you home. I’ve met your parents and they are a nightmare. I do my best to encourage you here but I know that, some days, that just might not be enough. .***

    I have never and will never find a student intimidating. That’s why I laughed at you when you asked me if I “knew who your father was”. Yeah, he’s the manager of a car dealership; that means nothing to nobody. I had a kid throw a desk at me and, while it scared me in the moment, it didn’t make me fear him. One day, you will meet someone who has real power and I just wish that I could be there to see it. ***

    The odds of you using any specific piece of knowledge you learn in high school is slim. The odds of you using some piece of knowledge from high school is near absolute and you have no idea what it’s going to be or when it will happen, so you may as well try at all of it. The biggest thing you’re going to learn is how to learn.
    ***

    I’d let you get away with so much more if you were actually a decent person who treated others with kindness and respect. Assholes rarely get the benefit of doubt or indifference.
    ***

    I’m sorry but I probably don’t know your full name, and the year after you leave my class, I won’t remember you. The students whose names I remember were either the awesome students, or the dickheads who I hoped would amount to nothing.
    ***

    I’m really sorry. Your parents put you in this elite private school because they think they can protect you from all the evils of the outside world… including responsibility. You aren’t getting any of the skills you will need to function as an adult. I’m doing the best I can but my hands are tied by the school.
    ***

    I’d tell the girls “Stop dating that guy. You’re intelligent, ambitious, and talented. He’s a dead-eyed sociopath who got kicked off the football team for drunk driving. You could easily run a Fortune 500 company, but if you marry this guy you’ll be living in a trailer park taking care of this soggy unappreciative jackass for the rest of your life.”
    ***

    I can see who you have a crush on in the classroom.
    ***

    If your parents email a teacher and argue with them, the whole staff knows. (At least at my school) ***

    “If you end up having a boring, mediocre, miserable, pathetic, unfulfilling life because a teacher, or pastor, or parent, or anyone else told you how to live your life, THEN YOU DESERVE IT. -Frank Zappa”
    ***

    I know when you are using your phone dipshit no one looks down at their crotch and just smiles.
    ***

    When you think you are being genius by getting me to talk about random things at the beginning of class instead of “teaching”, I’m really allowing it to happen b/c I don’t have enough planned to cover a full class.
    ***

    There are two things that make me happy:

    1. You doing what I ask you to (I will admit to this)
    2. You refusing to do what I ask you to in a polite, respectful, and meaningful way (I will not admit to this).

    ***

    I don’t always agree with what I’m told to tell you the rules are. I don’t always have a personal stake in their enforcement. I just want to not get in trouble for not enforcing them. If it’s important enough, and students are polite and respectful about declining something, and do what they can to keep class moving smoothly while not doing whatever it is, that doesn’t bother me. It’s a frustration I’m happy to deal with in exchange for the idea that I had a small part in teaching kids how to adult, which is not on state standards.
    ***

    Sadly, students often think the best way to achieve this is “argue with teacher until teacher relents,” when relenting is not an option we’re often afforded, and it’s not an adaptive option for adulthood necessarily. I often tell kids who have complaints to take it up with admins or put it in writing, and they don’t often listen. I understand why they don’t, as I was worn down at their age too, but still.
    ***

    I believe the arbitrary and, let’s be honest, sometimes unnecessary rules of high school are a preparation for a real world that is often cruel, arbitrary, and uncaring. Escalating to higher authorities, explaining clearly and calmly one’s grievances, and not taking out frustrations about a rule on the person enforcing it are life skills.

    And yes, sometimes it’s my rules the kids don’t like. And that’s ok too. Go over my head with you like, respect it as a boundary of my personal classroom if you like, just be nice to me about it. I’m generally only annoyed rather than offended if you sneak and do what I asked you not to behind my back too, unless you’re rude about it. I wouldn’t come into your room and do some of the things you do in mine, but if I did I would be contrite about it.

    TLDR: I’m not offended when you disobey rules I don’t like as long as you’re nice to me about it and understand when I can’t or won’t change something. Bonus points for trying to change rules I don’t like in a constructive, adult way. It’s all about respect.

  • Ordinary people complain about the IRS (and Trump)

    I am a New York Times junkie (I received a discounted rate which has never expired). The articles are first rate, but sometimes the reader comments are more interesting than the actual articles.

    After NYT published its shocking investigative report about the Trump family’s $400 million tax fraud (summarized here), I found the comments harrowing to read. Most were mad not at Trump but at the IRS for not scrutinizing his returns more closely. Here’s one comment about one IRS “victim:”

    COMMENT 1: By the end of the main article, I had tears in my eyes. My 88 year old aunt was audited by the IRS because she reported the redemption of a small municipal bond (or something like that) in the wrong year, and had to pay a penalty and was harassed by the IRS. But they turn a blind eye to the vastly undervalued appraisals in the Trump tax returns for the gift and estate taxes. I had to worry about filing the returns and the forms for foreign accounts for my deceased mother two years after she died because it took time for the bank to divide the remaining few thousand dollars between me and my brother – after all, I want to do everything as required by law, even though we owed no tax on those small amounts. I feel so betrayed. Not by the Trumps – they are crooks and there will always be crooks. I feel betrayed by the government and its IRS that are supposed to protect me from the crooks. That are supposed to uphold the idea that all are equal before the law. It is not because of the understaffing of the IRS – they would benefit the most by going after people like the Trumps. They choose not to.

    Comment 2: Auditing a poor family.

    In the 80’s, I was audited by the IRS. At the time, I was living hand to mouth, my meager salary unable to meet the costs of daycare for my three young children, rent, and the most basic of living expenses. Our apartment had no heat, save for one small gas-fired heater. I cooked meals on a hotplate; I had no stove or oven. We spent winters in our coats, huddled around that little stove. At Christmas, we received a turkey from the Salvation Army, but had no way of cooking it – and our pipes were frozen. There were no presents. I spent my last few bucks on a tree and with scissors, crayons, and some ribbon, we made decorations. We all dressed up in our finest and pretended to have an elegant, candle-lit dinner.

    I brought a shoebox of papers (including proof that my children were actually living with me) to the IRS meeting. They went through my finances and found a ten dollar error in my tax form, which I had to pay. The agent apologized for their bringing me in and said that the IRS had audited me because they hadn’t thought it was possible to raise three children on the amount of money I was making.

    I read this article about the Trump’s obfuscations and fraud and find it difficult to understand that an IRS that was so doggedly determined to catch a poor person like me could not have seen the unbelievably huge elephant in their “room.”

    And BTW, I have used some of those decorations on my trees ever since!


    Here’s another comment by an affluent (but not superrich) person:

    Echoing the other individual stories. My life was turned upside down by having to pay $1Million in taxes over a four year period from 2002 to 2006 on short term capital gains. It was a million I did not have at the time. I basically worked for nothing for four years. The IRS was all over me for those four years, and then a few years later tried to claim I still owed $50,000+. Fortunately, I saved all my records and receipts. But then I read this report and I feel only anger towards the Treasury Department for not enforcing our laws, and at Congress for saying the wealthy are paying too much in taxes and passing the latest tax cut bill which has resulted in tremendous shortfalls in our federal budget. Remind me once again why we should pay federal taxes if our leaders are not paying taxes, please.

    Another one:

    After carefully digesting this incredible fact-finding journalism, new headline suggestion: Donald Trump is a shyster, criminal, tax-evading fraud.

    What I don’t understand is how the trump family has evaded serious investigation by the IRS — for decades! There truly are different rules for the wealthy vs the rest of us tax-paying peons.

    I’m self-employed and diligently pay my quarterly taxes, as required by law. Yesterday, I received a letter from the IRS detailing my 2017 payments and saying I still owed nearly $7000 plus penalties and interest. Problem is, 2 of my payments were not reflected in the letter. I jumped online to my bank and found the 2 payments and dates they were cashed by IRS (complete with photos of checks, front and back). Nearly 2 hours on the phone with IRS to learn they mistakenly applied those payments to 2018, not 2017, although checks clearly indicated 2017 and were accompanied by official IRS payment paperwork. IRS employee says “will take up to 6 weeks to make correction & I still need to pay interest for late payment” –even though payments were made on time!

    It baffles me how the IRS will jump on the “little guy” like me, yet millions owed by the likes of trump are ignored. The system IS rigged towards the “wealthy” & against the rest of us. Sickening!

    Two almost self-evident comments.

    First, according to the tax experts interviewed by the NYT reporters, all of this fraud fell outside of the statute of limitations, so essentially the Trump family “got away with murder.”

    Second, dozens of commenters stated that as a rule Republicans have underfunded the IRS; indeed, last year’s Trump budget cut its budget even further.

    Finally, today’s Paul Krugman’s economics column started with a shocker even for news junkies:

    The 2017 tax cut has received pretty bad press, and rightly so. Its proponents made big promises about soaring investment and wages, and also assured everyone that it would pay for itself; none of that has happened.

    Yet coverage actually hasn’t been negative enough. The story you mostly read runs something like this: The tax cut has caused corporations to bring some money home, but they’ve used it for stock buybacks rather than to raise wages, and the boost to growth has been modest. That doesn’t sound great, but it’s still better than the reality: No money has, in fact, been brought home, and the tax cut has probably reduced national income. Indeed, at least 90 percent of Americans will end up poorer thanks to that cut.

    Even more interesting were the anecdotes from commenters about their estimated tax bills. Here’s a sample from a New Yorker:

    I bought this year’s Turbo Tax 2018 and plugged my 2018 numbers in. I also plugged my 2018 numbers into last year’s Turbo Tax 2017, just to see what happens. Because I’m a modest earner with hefty real-estate taxes living in a state with a high income tax, my total federal income tax on my 2018 earnings was a full 75% higher (yes, that says 75% higher) under the 2018 rules than it would have been under the 2017 rules. Again, I’m squarely middle-class, with relatively simple taxes except that I itemize my deductions. So can we please stop talking about Trump’s tax cuts? Perhaps Trump got a tax cut, but many of us got exactly the opposite.

    Actually I have commented several times on NYT articles. But I used a pseudonym, so you’ll never know it’s me!

  • Carnival of Fun at MOMA

    Responding to   an article by Claudia La Rocca about this provocative MOMA exhibit featuring live nude models, here are some entertaining and interesting comments from readers (See below). Three  brief comments:

    1. As amazing as it sounds, but after looking through Youtube and Google Images, I could not find a single image by   Marina Abramovic that looked interesting or beautiful.
    2. This is another case where the substance of the article is less important than the variety of responses.
    3. I don’t have a problem with these kinds of exhibits. But I have to wonder whether a MOMA endorsement dooms it to oblivion by rendering it as official/ceremonial art; wouldn’t it be more exciting to see this same exhibit in a smaller art space in your own city. Gosh, imagine the  tourists traveling to NYC just to see this exhibit! (Or should they go to the Radio/TV museum instead?)

    If you go to NYC, don’t waste your time at museums. Go to a good bookstore, find a literary calendar and float around the city to go to free readings. That’s my idea of appreciating NY art.   

    Reader Comments:

    As Andy Warhol said, "Art is whatever you can get away with."

    I liked it better when my tax money was used to construct the face of the virgin mary with camel dung. THAT was art!

    Groper = not cute enough to be an innocent toucher.

    I think, that it is amazing that it has taken so long for the non-art of performance art to come to light. People are reacting to it with very bad behavior but, … after so many years of the art institutions pointedly trying to break down the the ivory tower of the art museums, making art touchable and interactive, and now, a performance artist wants to be objectified and distanced from the viewer. You can’t have it all ways, you can’t break all the rules, blur the edges, and then get upset when the rules are broken. I for one hope performance art goes away. If it is art it’s not good art.

    "When will Americans finally accept that nudity is nothing special?"  Oh dude, you must be a carnival of fun if you think naked bodies are nothing special.

    If you’re standing around naked in a public place in NYC you’ll learn something about our populace.

    The pathetic truth is that artists and performers who make this kind of trash/garbage/shock art revel in criticism, and view the disdain and contempt of the public as a mark of artistic "success."  As a professional artist, I’ll be the first to say that this kind of mindless "art" has been stale for decades. There are thousands of young artists producing work of real excellence and merit, and it’s unfortunate that this kind of thing is still taking space and time away from more worthwhile projects.

    I wonder how acceptable it might be for a patron to amble through, viewing the installation in the nude?

    And to the empty-headed teabagger complaining about his tax money going to art: in this country, the amount of money per person per year that goes to public funding of the arts amount to about 75 cents. Get over it. But if it is really stretching you, post your address and I’ll send you 75 pennies. Otherwise, shut your whining pie hole.

    #5, I would much rather have my tax dollars spent on this rather clever and original exhibit than, say, on bombs and missiles.

    No 5 — from Texas says Please tell me none of my tax dollars were spent on this "art"…
    How could they be? This was a MOMA show. And why does someone always post this remark? So worried about where his tax dollars go as if someone took his particular tax dollars and spent them on something he didn’t like.
    Please tell me mine didn’t go to George Bush’s retirement fund. Oh? They did?

    I suspect it isn’t the artist(s) who are on display, but the viewing public.

    While uninvited groping is obviously inappropriate, a large degree of audience interaction should be expected. In fact, it seems to be invited. Otherwise, why bother with live human beings?

    So this is fully protected by the First Amendment as "art," but strip clubs can be regulated because they are not conveying a fully protected message? This is legal and mental duplicity at its finest.