Ah, yes, that’s right.

canyon.mid is also a real classic, even if it’s not quite as funky.

He hides the pain for all of us.

This appears to be the reasoning: The first and second attempts were invalidated because both were inadmissible under the examination regulations (strictly speaking, the student should have failed on the first attempt). Therefore, a new exam date was scheduled, on which the student then failed for the same reason, he should have failed on the first attempt (the exam regulations do not provide for exceptions due to nervousness, but rather stipulate that the examinee fails in such cases because his performance is insufficient to pass).

So only the third attempt was counted, which meant the student did not receive his diploma, since he would have had to pass that oral exam to do so - which, unfortunately, he did not after his second attempt was striken from the record.

My friend had simply tried to appeal to human leniency, which is strictly speaking not permitted under official rules. It’s quite possible that the first attempt wasn’t even officially recorded, since the student should have already failed. Unfortunately, I don’t know what exactly was recorded for the first attempt.

Apparently, however, the judge or the responsible administrative official at the Ministry of Education had at least some sympathy, since they had the entire exam retaken. But it’s also quite possible that this is the standard procedure when inconsistencies arise regarding the exam regulations. Administratively, it’s probably way easier than initiating an detailed “investigation” of the case.

But yeah, all in all: pretty strange.

Edit: I think it is certainly possible to reschedule an exam, but I assume that a doctor’s note must be submitted to prove that the examinee is unable to take the exam for health reasons.

The student might have been able to get such a note, but since this seems to be an ongoing problem, it would probably have been nothing more than a temporary reprieve.

Germany.

However, the complaint was not directed at the grade itself, but rather at a violation of the examination regulations, which do not allow for a retake of an oral exam simply because the student is too nervous to pass. That is why my friend was unable to secure another exception on the student’s third attempt - everything unfortunately had to be strictly correct.

I don’t teach myself, but I’ve heard from various friends that lawsuits over the most absurd things are definitely a thing in Germany, too. As a result, teachers have far fewer freedoms than they did ten years ago - and also face much more bureaucratic red tape to document everything in a way that reduces the risk of lawsuits.

I’m not really familiar with that area myself, but unfortunately, I can easily imagine how frustrating it must be for the teachers.

Edit: Here is an article that describes the problem (in German).

A friend of mine is a teacher, and he told me the following story a while back:

A student had an oral exam and was so nervous that he couldn’t get a word out. So my friend coordinated with the “exam committee” to give the student a second chance, which, fortunately, was possible that very same day thanks to some persuasion among his colleagues. After my friend worked with the student to help him regain his confidence, the second attempt at the exam went better - the student was still very nervous, but overall, it was enough to barely pass the exam. The student was absolutely thrilled, and the examiners were reasonably satisfied.

My friend thought to himself: All right, that turned out well after all - but unfortunately, no: The student’s parents sued the school because they were dissatisfied with their son’s exam grade. The lawsuit was based on the claim that the exam regulations weren’t strictly followed, since the student had to take the exam twice (with different exam topics, so the other students wouldn’t be at a disadvantage, of course). The parents won the lawsuit, and the court ruled that the oral exam must be repeated.

So now the completely dismayed student had to take the exam again - a nightmare for the poor guy. The examiners were the same ones who, despite the absurdity of his parents’ demands, remained well-disposed toward him. However, the student was understandably even more nervous the third time - so much so that he once again couldn’t get a single word out. This time, my friend’s hands were tied, since everything had to be completely correct from an administrative standpoint. So, unfortunately, the examiners had no choice but to fail the nervous student, meaning that, thanks to his parents, he ultimately did not receive his diploma.

So here too: insane parents who even ruined their own son’s graduation because of their unrealistic expectations.

It’s a real shame, but unfortunately that’s how it went all thanks to the student’s crazy parents…

/c/showerthoughts also has a “no politics” rule, which means that many topics are off-limits - and since this rule is worded very vaguely, the admins decide at their own discretion which topics are allowed.

Noice!

Because they are all the same kind of people, and age doesn’t really matter in itself - most of the people at the top are just white and old men because the system was set up by those very people.

And that is precisely the problem: this system of endless greed propels ruthless psychopaths to the top. It is sold as a performance-based society, even though performance has absolutely nothing to do with it - if that were the case, the problem wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Sometimes I even sing…

I think similar mechanisms are at work there as well, though to a lesser extent: I think there’s hardly any country in the world where nationalism is as pronounced as it is in the U.S.

On the one hand, this has to do with cultural dominance, which is reflected, for example, in the global popularity of the U.S. entertainment industry and so on. On the other hand, however, it also has to do with the fact that the US has been placing nationalism at the center of its culture for decades, ranging from the pledge of allegiance in schools to the targeted promotion of sporting events, where not only are flags waved, but the desired, ruthless competitive mentality - which is essential to unbridled capitalism - is directly manifested in mass events with a participatory character. There are countless examples of how the image of the superior, righteous nation has been massively propagated over decades.

This illusion is now beginning to crumble, however, because unlike its predecessors, the current U.S. regime does not care about maintaining a respectable facade, which actually does not strike me as particularly clever: Apparently, these people are solely concerned with maximizing their own enrichment, even if it means risking the collapse of the entire system.

The reason for this seems simple to me: Even their first, rather pathetic coup attempt went unpunished - they therefore assume they can do whatever they please without being held accountable. And they seem to be right in this assessment: Millions of people do take to the streets on particular days, as they did just yesterday, but this has no serious consequences for the regime, especially since they largely control the media, so that despite the scope of the protests, there is hardly any reporting on these mass demonstrations.

And this is likely the crux of the matter: because public discourse takes place in the media, yet the media is controlled by the very same people on whose behalf the corrupt regime acts, many citizens still seem unaware of the extent of the misery in which the country finds itself.

Coupled with the fact that the U.S. has always heavily cultivated national pride, many citizens likely assume that things will sort themselves out as usual: Despite obvious corruption, they continue to trust the legal system, hope for the midterms, and believe that everything will get better again with the Democrats, and so on. In any case, a majority of U.S. citizens seem to assess the situation as such that it is not yet necessary to put their own comfortable way of life at risk, although this appears to be changing somewhat. If I understand correctly, there are now apparently efforts to organize a general strike, which seems to me to be the only peaceful means of forcing the regime to step down and, maybe, even pushing through long-overdue fundamental reforms.

Whether this will work, however, seems rather unlikely to me. I see it - also from the outside - exactly the same way you do: It also seems to me that the majority of U.S. citizens underestimate the gravity of the situation, or at least that they do not want to admit that their system has been so thoroughly infiltrated that it is beyond salvation - at least if the living conditions of citizens are ever to improve significantly.

As I said, I see the reason for this in a combination of self-deception and the fact that the media are controlled to an extreme degree by oligarchs.

I think it’s fair to say that, on the whole, many U.S. citizens haven’t woken up from the “American Dream,” even though it’s been an absolute nightmare for quite some time now.

I suppose many people don’t even want to wake up, because then they’d have to take charge of shaping their own day.

Yes, it’s really quite strange - especially in its extremest form among MAGA supporters: This “movement” clearly has much more in common with a cult than with a rational, political organization. I don’t necessarily think that the vast majority of people who feel they belong realize what they’re being used for. It’s interesting from a mass psychology perspective, but unfortunately disastrous for the US as well as for the entire world.

In a way, but then again, not really, because to feel shame, one must first acknowledge that one is responsible for something reprehensible. It seems to me rather that it is precisely the acceptance of responsibility for the collective actions of the US - which are, after all, manifested in the actions of elected representatives - that is being prevented by ignoring reality. It seems to be more of a defense mechanism to protect one’s own, believed-to-be-secure identity from collapse by fleeing from reality.

In this sense, it strikes me more as something like willful blindness, deliberate ignorance, or cognitive dissonance reduction - as psychologists would say. So some kind of self-deception designed to allow one to continue clinging to one’s established self-image, even when one is aware that it does not correspond to reality.

Shame, on the other hand, would be the next step - one would only feel that once they have realized that they have lived a lie for half their life.

I suspect this is because the U.S.’s ruthless actions contradict the country’s self-image, which has been cemented by decades of propaganda: the narrative that the U.S. is the good guy, spreading freedom and democracy wherever it intervenes, the proud nation that protects the world and punishes dictators for their cruelty - all that bogus.

Reality simply doesn’t fit this propagandistic narrative: after all, in violation of international law, the U.S. is waging a war of aggression alongside genocidal mass murders and committing the most heinous war crimes in the process - crimes so repugnant that they immediately expose the fairy tales of the freedom-loving, friendly world police as obvious lies.

So I consider this to be denial of reality. People simply prefer to live in a flattering lie rather than face reality: for many, their misguided pride in their nation is apparently so important that they refuse to acknowledge that there is absolutely nothing to be proud of anymore - on the contrary, they should be ashamed of their country, but they simply won’t accept that, which is why they prefer to close their eyes to reality.

Printer cartridges and razor blades

FOSS

What I find most absurd about LLMs is the providers’ business model, since it fundamentally cannot function without stealing the work of others.

A good example of how fundamental religious belief is nothing more than mental illness.

The reason seems rather to be that these people are deliberately and very demonstratively protecting their own underage daughter because they are fully aware of what their “conservative” peers have in mind for her.