Francis Berger
  • Blog
  • My Work

They Can Still Impress . . . Sometimes

5/4/2022

5 Comments

 
Anyone involved in university-level education knows how rarely students manage to do anything that inspires admiration or respect. The only amazing thing about university students these days is the banal and apathetic quality of their work. Nevertheless, every once in a while something manages to break through and impress. 

Case in point, a student presentation from yesterday. The presentation itself was uninspired and dull, but the nature photographs with which the student populated his PowerPoint slides were quite impressive. That the student had taken the photos was even more impressive. 

Below is an example. I don't know about you, but the image -- featuring a roe buck in a grain field -- ranks among the most beautiful wildlife/nature photos I have ever seen.

Note added: Of course, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the photo is not actually the student's photo, or that he photo-shopped it, or that he had a friend hold a stuffed deer trophy head in the field to capture this image, but for the time being I'm going to assume the photo is authentic and enjoy the good feelings that stem from that. 
Picture
5 Comments
Coronald McDonald
5/4/2022 16:58:27

Meh -- that is GMO grain and it obviously has stunted the growth of Bambi's antlers, alas...

Reply
Francis Berger
5/4/2022 17:16:59

@ Coronald - For what it's worth . . . if official sources are to be believed -- and there is no reason that they should be believed -- Hungary is GMO-free. Since the grain field is in Hungary, it is probably not GMO grain.

https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/report/downloadreportbyfilename?filename=Agricultural%20Biotechnology%20Annual_Budapest_Hungary_10-19-2018.pdf

Stunted antlers? Well, I suppose that's a matter of perspective.

Reply
Carol
5/4/2022 19:53:08

@Coronald - umm, it's quite obviously still very young, practically a baby, why would you expect it to have bigger antlers?

Reply
lea
5/6/2022 03:16:46

Lads and lasses, coronald was joking, almost certainly.

Having almost no qualifications in formal education myself, i am rarely impressed with anything i hear stemming from the system, mostly because it's all sounding very dogmatic lately. Not joking; i met and asked a student working in quantum computing/ nanotech whether the generic 'scientific method' is applicable to social sciences in the same way as to his area's of interest and the 'hard sciences' in general, because i would posit there are many concerns of ambiguity, semantic problems, and general vagueness. He replied something along the lines of 'Yes of course, the scientific method just works'. There are so many things wrong with this statement that i just stopped bothering to try and remember his name, or talk to him from that point forward on my night out. Just because someone can do a page long equation does not mean they have insight, rather then computational skills. Perhaps he was not aware of 'woke science' at all, a sign of living in a personal bubble in that case, but more alarmingly; apparently you can close in on finishing a technical masters without more then a week or two of philosophy being offered. Sounds eerily familiar to my endocrinologist that had 2 weeks of his EIGHT year studies spent on nutrition. He could talk about my liver function for 3 days straight but had not the faintest clue what could be wrong about eating highly processed white bread every day, i digress.

Reply
Francis Berger
5/6/2022 17:49:10

@ lea - Whenever I get to thinking about these sorts of things, I always remind myself that the world has never been flooded with as many university degrees as it is now. And where has that brought us?


Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Blog and Comments

    Blog posts tend to be spontaneous, unpolished, first draft entries ranging from the insightful and periodically profound to the poorly-argued and occasionally disparaging.
     

    Comments are moderated. Anonymous comments are never published (please use your name or a pseudonym). 

    Emails welcome:

    f er en c ber g er (at) h otm   ail (dot) co m
    Blogs/Sites I Read
    Bruce Charlton's Notions
    Meeting the Masters
    From The Narrow Desert
    No Longer Reading
    ​
    Brief Outlines
    ​Steeple Tea
    Berdyaev.com
    ​
    Synlogos ✞ Aggregator
    New World Island 
    ​Adam Piggott
    Fourth Gospel Blog
    The Orthosphere
    Junior Ganymede

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    June 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Picture
    A free PDF is also available in My Work. 
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.