Your video, Facebook quizzes are stupid, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, Glove and Boots: Stop with the Buzzfeed Quizzes, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

It's a good start, but remove "quizzes" from the title and we'll really be making progress.

My absolute favourite one is the derren brown one.

They've put this guy on a show called "the bubble" which he presents and quizzes others on fake news stories. It really doesn't leave the door open for what david mitchell is best at which is angrily ranting about injustices/stupidity.

Shame really. Just give him a recording crew and let him off the leash, ala soap box, surely?

I think the difference between a teacher and a good teacher is that a good teacher gives a shit about their students' futures. I had the misfortune of having teachers (not all, but most) who treated it like a job instead of an honour or responsibility. I make a point of meeting with teachers (my brother's, my nephews/nieces, and my kids teachers) as much as I can. I usually won't go off on them if I disagree, but it does help me understand what role they will assume with their students, and if it will be necessary for me to supplement the kids education.

A young persons outlook on life is more often than not cemented into permanence by the time they graduate from high school. Some will change and blossom into more open-minded folks later in life, but not too many.

If there is one thing that bothers me even more than complacent teachers, it's complacent parents. I really don't like it when parents don't push their kids, but where I come from it happens far too often.

One thing I want to teach my kids (that I learned from my parents) is that as young people they will have the opportunity to push their peers if they think it's merited. I was able to help some peers who had hardscrabble upbringings in their childhood, and it can make a difference.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by Throbbin:
Enoch - bravo!


We need more teachers like Enoch. The robots might as well go work in a factory somewhere.


thanks man!
i am not the smartest man nor the most educated,in fact i was a horrible student.i fell into teaching late in life and found a genuine passion for it.
i taught comparative religions for two years but as i have told others,this was an elective class for adults.
when the alternative school for teens lost funding i went into the public school system at the behest of dr carlos.
i loved it the first day.
to teach adults is one thing but to have so many young minds ready to be jump started is a whole new arena and i was excited!
i lasted 6 maybe 7 weeks in that school.
not due to the kids..they were GREAT.
it was the other teachers and the administrators who had a problem with me.
not with my kids test scores,nor their assignments.
it was due to the fact that i was not following the precise dictates of NCLB and how i was expected to deliver that curriculum.
my argument was that if my students were doing well on the mandatory quizzes,which is a crucial to federal funding,who CARES how i taught them?
the school board took issue with,what they called "my attitude".
i was told i needed to grade my kids notebooks...i refused,because it has no bearing on what they have learned and is irrelevant.
i was told i could not grade them on participation...i argued that is crucially more vital than a notebook.
i was written up three times for supposed "prejudicial teaching practices",which was only my strategy in getting a lazy thinker to stop being lazy.
what i was doing is the first 20 minutes of the period i would have the class discuss how a historical event could be related to a current event.(my way of interjecting civics).
if a student regurgitated a textbook answer i knew he/she was trying to slip by with only rudimentary understanding of what we were covering.
so i would hammer that student the entire period and make an example of that student.
embarrassing? maybe
uncomfortable?most likely
will they come to my class ill prepared again?
never in a million years.
i also got into trouble for adding three bonus questions on every quiz that were worth 10%.
they were essay questions that i wanted in the students own words.
this was more for the kids that maybe didnt take tests well and i gave an opportunity to reveal that they did have a nominal understanding of the material and hence could bolster their grade a tad.
i also graded on participation.
if you did well on tests but didnt interact with the class i counted that against you.
that got me into some hot water also.
the school system was not looking for a teacher but a warm body to take attendance.
not for that kind of money or any amount of money.
now i tutor my friends kids when they need it.
of course i dont get paid but thats not what is important.
what IS important is to get these kids excited and curious.to become passionate about learning.
that, in itself, is a pretty big bonus in my book.
till next time.
namaste.

In reply to this comment by Throbbin:
Enoch - bravo!


We need more teachers like Enoch. The robots might as well go work in a factory somewhere.


thanks man!
i am not the smartest man nor the most educated,in fact i was a horrible student.i fell into teaching late in life and found a genuine passion for it.
i taught comparative religions for two years but as i have told others,this was an elective class for adults.
when the alternative school for teens lost funding i went into the public school system at the behest of dr carlos.
i loved it the first day.
to teach adults is one thing but to have so many young minds ready to be jump started is a whole new arena and i was excited!
i lasted 6 maybe 7 weeks in that school.
not due to the kids..they were GREAT.
it was the other teachers and the administrators who had a problem with me.
not with my kids test scores,nor their assignments.
it was due to the fact that i was not following the precise dictates of NCLB and how i was expected to deliver that curriculum.
my argument was that if my students were doing well on the mandatory quizzes,which is a crucial to federal funding,who CARES how i taught them?
the school board took issue with,what they called "my attitude".
i was told i needed to grade my kids notebooks...i refused,because it has no bearing on what they have learned and is irrelevant.
i was told i could not grade them on participation...i argued that is crucially more vital than a notebook.
i was written up three times for supposed "prejudicial teaching practices",which was only my strategy in getting a lazy thinker to stop being lazy.
what i was doing is the first 20 minutes of the period i would have the class discuss how a historical event could be related to a current event.(my way of interjecting civics).
if a student regurgitated a textbook answer i knew he/she was trying to slip by with only rudimentary understanding of what we were covering.
so i would hammer that student the entire period and make an example of that student.
embarrassing? maybe
uncomfortable?most likely
will they come to my class ill prepared again?
never in a million years.
i also got into trouble for adding three bonus questions on every quiz that were worth 10%.
they were essay questions that i wanted in the students own words.
this was more for the kids that maybe didnt take tests well and i gave an opportunity to reveal that they did have a nominal understanding of the material and hence could bolster their grade a tad.
i also graded on participation.
if you did well on tests but didnt interact with the class i counted that against you.
that got me into some hot water also.
the school system was not looking for a teacher but a warm body to take attendance.
not for that kind of money or any amount of money.
now i tutor my friends kids when they need it.
of course i dont get paid but thats not what is important.
what IS important is to get these kids excited and curious.to become passionate about learning.
that, in itself, is a pretty big bonus in my book.
till next time.
namaste.

while finishing up my university education, i found work in honolulu in a very upscale restaurant overlooking waikiki beach -- this place had fantastic food, an unbelievable view and a great reputation, such that their employees (particularly waitstaff) stayed on for years and years - the average age of the waitstaff was ~35-40, and this was their career, not just some tide-me-over summer work -- as well, they were all very well educated, with most speaking at least 3-4 different languages

of course i couldn't enter the job at the waitstaff level, because those at the top of this hierarchy never left -- i began as a dishwasher, and learned as i worked 'how to' and 'all about' every aspect of the restaurant's food service and preparation business - we 'lower levels' would be routinely quizzed by the chef and management about such bizarre things as wine varietals and the history of the different wine-making regions, the history and ingredients of things like 'worchestershire sauce', as well as every ingredient and what amounts in each and every dish our restaurant prepared, as well as our knowledge of the hawaiian islands and interesting places our, primarily tourists, customers could enjoy -- i worked hard at this and eventually excelled over my co-workers, thus quickly rising to a position of 'senior' busboy - then i was allowed to clear plates and refill water glasses

i eventually rose to the position of 'backwaiter' whose job was basically to do all the 'dirtywork' of a 'frontwaiter' - the frontwaiter being primarily the frontman of a closely knit team overseeing the pleasurable dining of those customers assigned to us of a particular evening (this was done very carefully, going so far as to assign a german or japanese speaking waitstaff team to a german or japanese-speaking table of tourists, respectively)

continuing to learn and display an ever-growing knowledge of foods, wines, liquors, local culture, as well as as decorum and panache... i eventually was promoted to frontwaiter when one of those coveted positions opened up because of a staff member being hurt in a terrible car accident -- this meteoric rise took me almost 2.5 years

as a frontwaiter, i had the ultimate responsibility for my server team - such that i could, at an appropriate remove, watch my tables and anticipate any and all needs of my guests, dispatching my team members with a nod, a glance, or a simple unobtrusive gesture to immediately comply with whatever i felt needed to be done to make our guests' experience perfect - like a team of spies, my staff would report to me, e.g., which of our guests was eating the most slowly... so that i could anticipate when the last dish of the previous course would likely be cleared away so that the next dish could be served in as timely a fashion as possible - we all knew the cooking times of the next course, and would instruct the chef's team of when to begin the preparation of the next course based on which dish of said course would take the longest to prepare - as well, replacement cutlery was already on its way to the table before a guest's implement had completed its fall to the floor due to a patron's clumsy elbow or the like

after another year of this, i was promoted to assistant manager of the restaurant, where i would oversee the 'front of the house' and the individual frontwaiter teams working seamlessly with both the kitchen and barstaff

i say all of this as a way to make some here understand that, imho, there was simply no way that an hourly wage or salary could have created the pride and dedication to excellence that the tips from our commensurate service often brought - it would boggle your minds to know the number of times our customers showed their generous appreciation of our attempts to make their evening (and entire vacation in the islands) as memorable as possible

on one particular evening, an elderly australian couple came in for dinner, obviously tourists - the hostess informed me that they had presented an 'entertainment card' upon being seated -- now, this e-card is a popular facet of tourism locales, whereby the tourist buys a fat book of coupons for both goods and services available around the islands - this typically cost them us$30 and it came with a sort of credit card that could be presented in lieu of toting around this cumbersome book of offers -- in our case, the e-card entitled the holder to one free entree of equal of lesser value for every regularly priced entree purchased - the book further stipulated that a condition of using this offer, the e-card holder 'could be' automatically service charged (15%) as a gratuity, and that to be in compliance with the offer, the gratuity would be based on the original, undiscounted total of their meal

as we were very near our closing time, and my staff had had a long evening of it... as well as the pugnacious and crass demeanor of the elderly australian gentleman, i offered to serve as their front waiter, rather than have one of my hard-working staff suffer under his tight-fisted and surly deprecations

i proceeded to give them, imho, one of the best dining experiences of their lives, and at the close of the evening, i presented the gentleman with his check... noting both the orginal and discounted bill, and that the check had been service charged at 15% of the original total - he paid by credit card, and after i had returned to collect the signed credit card slip, i noticed that he had 'lined-out' the place on the slip where the gratuity was printed, and then 'corrected' the total -- when i returned to top-off their coffees, i enquired if anything during their evening had been amiss - they responded that everything had been perfect -- i then politely broached the subject of their not leaving a tip -- the australian gentleman then garrulously countered that he didn't 'believe in tipping' - i gently pointed out the e-card policy through which they'd received the discounted price, and he responded with an obscenity

i asked him to produce his e-card again, and i quickly went to my office, photocopied the relevant pages of the entertainment-card book, the credit card slip with the the tip section lined out, and cut his e-card in half... the last of which i returned to him

the next day, he complained to the restaurant owner and the e-card company - but when i produced the relevant details, both of the above sided with me

was i in the wrong? imho, the fact is that there is service and then there is 'service' - the latter of which should certainly be more commensurately rewarded than the former... but some people just refuse to see it this way

Some from Edward Gorey-

To his club-footed child said Lord Stipple,
As he poured his post-prandial tipple:
"Your mother's behaviour
Gave pain to Our Saviour
And that's why He made you a cripple."

An incautious woman called Venn
Was seen with the wrong sort of men;
She vanished one day
But the folloing May
Her legs were retrieved from a fen.


and this one should evoke all manner of visceral response in some, my personal favorite:


A headstrong young lady of Ealing
Threw her two-year-old child at the ceiling;
When quizzed why she did
She replied: "To get rid
Of a strange overpowering feeling."

A suggestion from a new member: Seems that the "quality" invocations' tossed about here are flexed mainly to score the points for the brown-nosers in the herd. Most who have the power don't flex it, and those that use it seem to abuse the thing. How about affording the invocation to a user based on published videos? Perhaps one quality-charge for every 10 published videos??

Algorithmic formulas are so, well..geekariffic. Not saying the same work in sayyy, surveys and quizzes but, seriously; Who cares??

Great work lucky760 on all you've done thus far-not here to doenplay the dilligent efforts of the few and the brave-proud as well we'll add.

We decided not to do video, but when picking our still photog, his presentation and professionalism really stood out. He had us come to a rented studio, wrote up an org chart of the family relations on our first interview - showing he was organized and was aligning his priories with ours. He projected samples of his work and we quizzed him about his most challenging assignments. He had a film background, understood the processes, not just point and click.
Other photogs we talked to met us in coffee shops and were half assed. So that first impression, and attention to detail, was huge. On the day of the wedding he got good shots while blending in, easy going and organized, and had a backup photog.
From what I've heard, a lot of photogs learn the biz 'backing up' an established person.
On the other hand, I read a Yelp review of a photog who lost a couple's weddings pics in a HD crash. This is a *huge* responsibility...trust me, that bride will bad mouth him till the day she dies
Previous work is really important because this is a one-shot deal that has to be right... combination of personality/rapport, technical chops, and of course good taste/sensibilities with editing.

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by Ornthoron.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Quizzing-on-a-rollercoaster

I know that death is a natural part of life, but I have to admit that the concept of my own death is a little baffling to me. Among other things, death involves permanent loss of consciousness, and it's just hard for me to wrap my puny human brain around the concept that my awareness will stop one day. I'm an atheist, but I can see how humans developed the concept of an immortal "soul," or "ultimate reality," or what have you. It's just hard for some to believe that one day your body will be like a stone - inanimate, devoid of life, no consciousness - with nothing at all remaining, not even a conscious soul that goes to a magical place somewhere.

That's why the fact that religious people seem more scared of dying than the non-religious is truly bizarre. Now it's no crime to be scared of dying. Many people, both religious and atheist, are scared of it. But if I were dying from a horrible affliction I'd much rather be whisked away to Heaven if I knew for certain it existed. To quote from the New York Times article:

“People think that spiritual patients are more likely to say their lives are in God’s hands — ’Let what happens happen’ — but in fact we know they want more aggressive care,” said Holly G. Prigerson, the study’s senior author and director of the Center for Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

“To religious people, life is sacred and sanctified,” Dr. Prigerson said, “and there’s a sense they feel it’s their duty and obligation to stay alive as long as possible.”

But do you really think they want to stay alive because of their belief in the "sanctity of life," or could it possibly mean that the religious are secretly afraid that there is no afterlife? Or are they afraid that they just might end up in Hell? The article never mentioned if the religious patients were quizzed about precisely why they wanted heroic measures taken to make them last as long as possible. I'm curious.

I'm a university professor, and I have a lot of reactions to this ad (which I had seen before seeing in VS). I think we are going to see a lot of changes to how education, and group innovation, are fostered over the coming decades. I guess my response to this AS AN AD is twofold:

1. Universities are, to varying extents, embracing technology. It's why I can download podcasts on tons of engineering and science topics. It's why my students use smartphones to give me feedback in the middle of my lectures (they love the little interactive quizzes to find out if I got my point across and continually ask for more of them). It's why we have televised lectures and tele-driven instruction. That isn't available only at some place like Kaplan.

2. At some point, there is no substitute for human contact. As we get better at Telepresense, more of the human contact may be online, but in my classes I use texts, online fora, video, interactive tablets, and my own voice to interact with students. I am forever amazed how many times students have clear descriptions of subject matter, and yet they just can't get it until they are interacting with me. There is something about human-to-human contact that has to be live--not canned.

And it's not just contact with instructors I'm talking about: students mostly need each other. The critical mass effect from having other interested and motivated students in your vicinity is crucial. Working side by side with people in a lab, in the field, or just at the blackboard is powerful, and while we are heading for a time when that sort of "side-by-side" effect can come online, we aren't quite there yet.

3. There are a lot of kinds of education, and no one I know has ever been in favor of "one size fits all." One of my professors at Stanford had no Bachelors Degree: he was just brilliant and self-taught and highly published. Some people thrive that way, but most do not. Universities provide structure, but these days, the structure is flexible, and in many senses, the structure is self-defined. If Kaplan does a good job at that, that will be great, but they won't be alone.

I suspect this comment is too long and no one will read it, but it's a topic I feel strongly about, so I invested the time to try to say what I meant.