As a sibling poster notes, the Desmos calculator and math tools spun out to Desmos Studio PBC, which has a bunch of great people – with the goal of ensuring those remain available to all and not tied to a single curriculum provider. The Desmos Classroom tools for social, interactive classroom instruction, and another bunch of great colleagues, are part of Amplify, which together with Polypad and other tooling, make up Amplify Classroom ( https://classroom.amplify.com ), powering terrific IMO math, science and English curricula.
It's been a lot of fun – and a lot of tricky work! – bringing all of these tools and humans together.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that we are hiring, including for Software Engineer, Analytics Engineer, Data Engineer, and AI Engineer positions at various levels :)
(Since you're in the thread, can I ask you to give kudos to whoever's kept the original "Let's Explore Geography! Canadian Commodities Trader Simulation Exercise" class code active all these years? I think you might have even changed the multiple-choice component to better support the weird thing I was doing with empty choice text.)
This is exactly true and it’s what every SaaS company counts on. They have four basic moves:
1. Sell you X seats, expecting that internal network effects will get you to 3X soon enough.
2. Sell you X seats, noting that as soon you reach 2X seats, you need to move to the Enterprise plan, under which largely the same feature set plus a couple of gated SCIM controls will cost twice as much.
3. Sell you X seats for their core product, then announce that features B and C are actually an additional SKU that requires additional per-seat subscriptions that double the cost.
4. Sell you X seats for their core product, then immediately announce that you’re on a “legacy plan”, but they’re happy to move you now to their updated offering, which is the same product but now structured to cost twice as much.
Yeah, as I was toggling "blue" / "green" / "blue" / "green" I had the distinct sensation that it might just show me that I was in a region where I couldn't even make a consistent distinction.
That is indeed how it is supposed to work. But things haven't exactly been working like they're supposed to lately.
For FY26, when we had a PBR proposing massive cuts followed by a government shutdown with a long stretch where NASA didn't know what their real budget was going to be, we saw a bunch of layoffs and project cancellations in preparation for a budget that might resemble what the president was requesting. Whether or not that was legal is in question:
That is true, but in all fairness, every politician has at one time, or another requested all sorts of nonsense to appease the base, not just presidents hence the term "political lobbying".
If you look up the definition of 'politics," it's the method or strategy: sometimes used to describe the tactics, schemes, or "art" used to gain influence, sometimes carrying a negative connotation of manipulation or intrigue. Everybody has done it since the beginning of time :|
Congress also declares wars, and we know how well that has worked out for everyone.
First year civics: the legislative branch passes the budget, the executive branch is the one that actually spends it. Or doesn’t, in which case you have a constitutional crisis.
It’s a technical distinction. The last true “budget” was FY1997. Otherwise, CRs are used until some kind appropriations bill can be passed. The problem is, that appropriations bill isn’t a true budget as money was already spent via CR.
Man this is my current bug bear. Last year I wanted to go offline for all my music. So many of these sites selling mp3s complain about how Spotify pays a fraction of a cent per stream and I should buy music, and I agree.
But then they sell the mp3 albums at $15, more than the physical version ever was. Come on, there has to be a middle ground. At $5 each I'll buy 20, at $15 maybe 1
I have a Tin Can for my 8 year old – it is terrific and he loves it. He can call friends, grandparents, and his cousins; it is more reliable than the DIY version I was cobbling together with a Pi and some Legos; and my spouse or parents can supervise or update it too.
From last year, this Moonlight Sonata in the 12-15 year old category is awesome: https://polypad.amplify.com/p/3VOW6BLM7AYqhQ
And I'm partial to this creation by an educator: https://polypad.amplify.com/p/hPjJZ4DC2Tpywg
but they're all great
(disclaimer: i am CTO of Amplify)
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