Category Archives: Thinking

Why the need?

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18°C, Light SW, mostly sunny. CR:63 miles

Why the need to park like this? There is a guy in the corner house that has a pushchair for two kids. I presume he has to divert into the road, but that’s okay because your car is all white and perfect and lovely and new and you are so so proud of it. And it cost you all of your money.
This was on a quiet residential side-road. There is hardly any traffic on this road, the other parked cars provide some form of shelter and swiped side-mirrors are not a problem here. I can see that you have folded the mirrors so that people who have to squeeze passed don’t hurt them.

80

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27°C, clear & still

Two loosely related news stories this week have caught my attention with their retrograde trend. One, proposes to raise the speed limit on motorways to 80mph. This has sparked numerous threads on forums (or is that fora?), interviews in TV and is said to be opposed by “environmental groups”. What worries me about the debate is its one-dimensional nature. MPs and most commentators seems to think there is only one reason against a change- safety. It’s almost as if they haven’t considered that there are other reasons at all. As I get older I am increasingly pushed towards the view that our leaders & decision makers are just plain stupid.
Look guys, here are some factors to consider just so you don’t have to think any up yourselves: fuel consumption (oil is going to run out eventually), noise, wear (on cars and on the roads), fear (cars full of kids because mums fear the traffic). All of those problems increase with speed.

11th Sept. 2001+10

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18C,

The media haas been full of 9/11 ten years on stories this week. I expected to really hate all of this, but as it happens, there have been some moving personal accounts. Opinions varied hugely on questions like “is the world safer after the War on Terror?”. Even high ranking US govt. men had seemingly balanced views on this, Bush had been advised to drop the term but decided to stick to it because American’s aren’t bright enough to adjust (how ironic). It was reassuring to remember how we felt threatened by that war on terror- it did indeed create a huge recruitment drive for the anti-American groups as we warned at the time. The reassurance lies in being right ten years ago. With hindsight- GW Bush was every bit as bad as we thought at the time, he did make the world a worse place, a less safe one. Many more US soldiers died in the various campaigns than civilians had in the World Trade Centre. The USA can’t begin to imagine how much the world hates them, and why.

I have to take this opportunity to answer the challenge that we don’t feel any diminution of our civil liberties. We do: detention without trial, tourists who are arrested for taking pictures of ‘sensitive’ buildings in London, and for most people- the conduct of security checks at airports.

M101 blows

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Light cloud in complex layers. 19°C & less wind. CR:35 miles after school.

The brightest Type-A supernova is at it’s peak tonight. It’s hidden under some thin high stratus cloud right now, which is a bit of a problem. The object is faint anyway, you’d need binoculars at least, so the slightest cloud renders it invisible. I’d really like to see a supernova sometime in my life, even if it’s faint & non-descript; it’s the thought, that’s all.

Supernova type 1a

Rode after school tonight. The shower is still out of action so I left promptly and hit the road on two wheels at 5pm. I got two hours in and still arrived home ½hr. before sunset. Feel-good.

We’re going to have known nothing like it.

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8°C, rain to come.

In a few hours the kids will get their A-Level results, the news will fill with arguments about grade inflation, the kids will pose for photos where they jump up holding their certificates aloft. Head-teachers will praise hard working staff, “young people” and support staff. The format is well established, the exam results have increased every year for 28 years. So what do you say to kids who are ‘put out’ by talk of exams getting easier? You could do what many do- lie by saying the results only reflect better teaching & hard work. I suggest they view the results in the context of 2011 standards. Students could say “I have a grade B (2011) but you got a grade B (2001) old boy”. It’s like a vintage, and after all, the structure of courses changes every two years or so. You can’t compare like with like with this pretty constant change. The media will try to anyway.

Shall I repost this next week when the GCSE results are released to kids?

Latest: the results have stayed the same for the first time in 28 years, within 0.5% anyway.

50% fail

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24C, hot & humid.

Education panic: BBC 30% of 10 year olds fail to reach the “expected” level in maths & literacy. Erm, this is where I need to call on the services of a statics expert. Remember in the Labour Govt Ed Balls wanted most kids to achieve “above average (mean)” results? So with results scattered on a Normal Distribution curve, shouldn’t there be about 30%percentage reaching only the arbitrary “expected” level anyway? If you’re comfortable handling standard deviations, then perhaps you could post me an informative link. My competence with bell-curves falls below the required standard I have to say!

What I suspect here is that we are dealing with politicians’ stats rather than competently functioning data handling. (It’s not just me that feels uneasy)

I recall as a kid leaving primary school my own reading age test result was considerably below my chronological age. I’m sure I now have a reading age considerably above 46 years. So the problem was only really a problem for the school, not for me. On the other hand, statistics abuse is a real problem in journalism and politics in the last few decades.

Hobnail boot

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18°C, NE 10mph. CA:20

Ever woken with a deep ache in a muscle? It’s often a mystery as this one is for me today. It feels like someone kicked me up the arse in the night. I can’t recall anyone tip-toeing in hobnail boots into my room last night. the dogs didn’t rouse, so the mystery remains.

Happy birthday Neptune. In a way. It’s gone round the sun once since the day it was first discovered, so as of today, it’s ONE.

Avian miracle II

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23°C, wall to wall blue. CK:50 miles

Riding near Mawdsley Lancs., I saw a bird lying in the road. As I passed, it was obvious that it was still alive. So I turned around and went back, if left it would get driven over. It was a bull-finch, sitting in the pale sun-bleached tarmac with one leg sticking out at an awkward angle. So ( like last time) I picked it up with one hand, and suddenly it flew away towards a tree with other passerines swirling round.

Further proof that I can do miracles, as if any were needed.

I suppose it had an injured leg that prevented it jumping enough to take off. A very similar thing happened a few years ago in Leicestershire, I have blogged about it here but can’t locate it right now.

Dog guilt

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18C, bright.

Home, yesterday greeted me with a big splodgy mess on the kitchen floor. One or both the dogs pulled down a bag of bananas off the fruit bowl and ate the lot. Well, okay, they left the skins, but still… In a stern voice I ordered “come here”, Rosie came over while Bessie’s tail dipped between her legs and she walked outside. The body language said “guilt2 to me, which was frankly rather surprising. I can’t imagine the old dear getting up high enough to reach the bag. But still

Later, it turns out, Rosie’s face smelt of bananas, she had an upset stomach and needed to be let out twice in the night. So that confirms it- the dog who cheerfully came over the previous evening, wagging and interested was actually the villain of the day. Bessie’s performance was little more than that- an act. I’m still puzzling over her motive for that.

I have to remind myself as a pet owner, that they are at heart- scavengers and I keep two of them in my house. Seen that way, we should expect trouble every once in a while. It’s a bad mistake to expect human values even though they clearly do think. It’s the way they think that is puzzling me. But think they do.

Here is a fun link