TerryB

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk A big part of Thatcherism was not the policies as such, but rather the myth making that supported those policies. Her legacy was not just the policies, it was the myths.

#DogsOfMastodon Bella is 1 year old today.

@lina@ohai.social Makes me wonder if they have a machine in the basement satan.vatican….

@ChrisMayLA6 Policy is wonderful. Over a lifetime of teaching kids with SEN in their own schools I’ve seen lots of policies. Policies in folders, in booklets,in packs,in websites,in pamphlets. They come, they go. What I haven’t seen since about 1986 has been the funds to actually meet the kids’ needs. On the contrary, the expensive, shiny policies seem to exist to replace actually paying for teachers to get stuff done.

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk Which makes sense. That said doing various postgrad courses while working, not aiming at an MA or anything, the need to reference stuff, in that institution’s house style, for my dissertation drove me bonkers. Later in life I didn’t even bother to do one. Not needing the certificate as such.

@HollyHawk@mastodon.sdf.org Thank You. Have a great weekend #DogsOfMastodon#FoxTerrier #WireFoxTerrier

@flicka OTOH #DogsOfMastodon

@Tijn@dosgame.club A kid- even an adult- who could afford and bought a game and shared it with their friends was a sale. If each member of the group did that each member had n games, and the publisher had n sales. If they can’t share they still have one game each. i.e. if buyers buy what they can afford it doesn’t matter if they share. Copying loses sales, of course. But not as many as the companies claim. i.e not all or even most copies are lost sales.

@RickiTarr@beige.party Miss- Having so many options to chose from. Enjoy - Not needing to chase so many options.

@aymm @yayaver@mastodon.social @alex Plus the 6 minutes before to get set up, the 7 minutes after to tidy up, the half hour or more before where you can’t do anything useful because you’d have to stop…..

@alex_p_roe@mastodon.world @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Except PPE degrees. Which I suspect may be like MBAs- ought to be a disqualification for the role.

@paul_ipv6 Or as I tend to say, the state payed good money for me to learn this technique called “reading “. It is random access data acquisition and highly efficient. I have no wish to waste time following sequential information with high redundancy

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us @sjwrenlewis@econtwitter.net Or conversely, if they are continuosly saying we can't have cake, there is no cake, but maybe there will be cake if we don't have cake now it's hard to convey the message that there's plenty of cake. This applies to tax, immigration etc etc.

@hananc@tooot.im When I read a story like that my first (and only) thought is always “Would it have killed them to just behave with generosity”.

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us My contacts and social media follows in (particularly) IT consider that HR exists purely to protect the company from the consequences of their actions

@david_chisnall @linuxgnome@todon.eu @ChrisMayLA6 Agree. This also explains the desperation to hype “Artificial Intelligence “ for just about every activity from shoe lace tying to Cosmology, when really it’s an occasionally useful trinket.

@libreoffice@fosstodon.org Interestingly in UK HMRC want submissions from small charities claiming Gift Aid in ODF format and supply a spreadsheet to make claims on and require users to submit these claims saved in ODF not.xlsx

@mtechman OTOH

@paranoiapen @ChrisMayLA6 Teaching has been reduced to a box ticking activity, by the Behaviourists. It’s the only field where they still hold sway. The research by The Goodmans, Smith etc came from cognitive Psychology. But politicians like Behaviourism because it’s controllable and measurable *and cheap*. It deprofessionalises teachers, turning us into deliverers of scripted content. And there are tests. That measure something that can be treated as a proxy for education.

@paranoiapen @ChrisMayLA6 I think the academics remember Goodman & Goodman, Frank Smith etc. But even 25 years ago it was knowledge mostly held and promoted by literacy teaching specialists or lecturers. And most of us are retired or sidelined. Teaching training has none of this stuff anymore.

@paranoiapen @ChrisMayLA6 Yeah, that’s a newish aspect and feeds into a wider social issue that having a policy is somehow seen to be the same as doing stuff (often stuff that professionalism, common sense and compassion would have you doing anyway if you actually had the staff to do it). OFSTED are more interested in paper than people.

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Does this have some root in "It was the Sun what won it"? Though I dimly remember Anthony Trollope had something along that. line in one of the Barsettshire novels It's a long long time since I read that stuff.( I think the ink was still wet). So I can't recall details.

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st The UK has lots of information in data sheets. What there isn’t is anything useful Like how long to repay the cost. Getting a straight answer from installers is tougher than getting a politician to say yes. Getting advice on if they’ll repay the cost within your lifetime is close to impossible. Then there’s the battery. We got ours from Costco because they were the only ones not trying to sell panels + battery as a package. We got a battery later - I’m not sure it was a good idea.

@redrummy@ohai.social I’ve always been a bit intrigued by the idea of going on an old fashioned cruise, mid-20thC or earlier style. But the modern 20 deck floating cities just leave me feeling cold at best. I’d want black tie, captain’s table, folding deck chairs, pretty much recognising everyone by sight after a few days, type of cruise. Something special not just a mega-hotel that’s on the water instead of next to it.

@murderbotbot@wandering.shop Poster at the back of my uni psych lab, on the special mirror that read “Just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you”.

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us The former has always sounded more like an excuse for a decision that is purely ideological in foundation.

@ChrisMayLA6 @tomgauld.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy Passwords are a pain. But are increasingly deprecated. Passkeys or password managers are now recommended. Or a very complex password for each site, in a little anonymous looking notebook that never leaves the house. OTOH I know people who don't even try to recall passwords, but use the password reset procedure- which is a bit like using a passkey in effect.

@lehtimaeki@snapp.social I think of it as running close to an average 4 minute mile pace (something well beyond most of us even those who do running) for 26 consecutive miles.

@0xabad1dea I’m not sure it isn’t, reading it.

@paranoiapen @ChrisMayLA6 The instrumentalisation of Education means it can be treated as a political football. Once it ceases to be a Good Thing in its own right, and becomes a means to an end the value of it becomes that end. So training supersedes understanding, because to be employed the workers need training. The reality is; people who never read if they don’t have to, graduates working in jobs once held by school leavers, and a public who don’t know how to question assumptions.

@paranoiapen @ChrisMayLA6 OFSTED was invented to be an enforcer. Under guise of frequent independent inspection they were created to make sure teachers did what govt policy makers wanted instead of what professional judgment demanded. Hence the absurdity of Phonics. A sounds reasonable but mostly useless approach to teaching reading that governments love. Measurable & easy to show to voters. Can be inspected & enforced. Makes ££ for publishers. Leaves kids barking at print & not really reading.

@dramypsyd@ohai.social Err. It isn’t day light savings. Unless you happen to be in America. But International? No. In half the world if there is a change it’s the opposite anyway. So I support your feminism but I’ll fight you on America-centrism. Edit: Written as the immensely proud father of two incredibly successful daughters. The elder a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist in the NHS and the younger already a Senior Business Tech Consultant with one of the major companies in her mid-20s.

@JoePajak@mstdn.science Perhaps more important is the "why" of that.. Why they hide evidence that something is safe.

@trpeal@ohai.social The Amazon price trick. Item available at 5 different prices, with 5 different delivery costs (almost certainly from the same location with the same delivery company) that end up costing the same when totalled.

@atrupar Trump, like Boris Johnson in the UK was, seems to be one of those people you get in schools, who wanted to be Head Boy. Not because they had anything to offer. But just because they want to be the Head Boy.

@backupbear Nah. The singularity at the centre of our Solar System means that the entire box will vanish into an alternate universe precisely 90 seconds before you need it

@MostlyHarmless “For sale, bought from new. Apply Coco c/o Billy Smart’s Circus tent”.

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us This is not new within the Labour Party; or the Labour movement as a whole. Racism and Antisemitism has been there from the start. The article below (chosen at random) is one of any number documenting this. They all say pretty much the same thing. Whether it's sterotyping Jews as being rich capitalist conspiritors or claiming that Moslems are nefarious abusers stealing the jobs there is a thick vein of racism.

@pence "Remembering" is key. How much of our education system, from reception to MSc, is built in assessing how much an individual can regurgitate. A system built by people who's success was built on the main skill of being good at regurgitating stuff.

@killick@dmv.community @broadwaybabyto@zeroes.ca Vimes’ Boots Theory. #TerryPratchett #VimesBoots

@dev@discuss.systems Ah. Now I get the reference. In fairness to that presentation though, one of the (many) criticisms of the venture capitalists is that they do “Kill the Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs”. Gutting successful companies for the quarterly bonuses.

@pieist@ohai.social I assume you mean that they accept McGann is in the canon of Dr’s Who. But the film was excremental. Just as, by the way, the BBC’s more recent attempt to produce a Discworld adaptation was. It appears they never learn.

@carlozancanaro@aus.social @liamoc@types.pl Good point

@broadwaybabyto@zeroes.ca This crosses over with a number of other issues such as our appalling school meals (featured yet again on R4’s Food Programme this week) or care for the elderly etc etc. It’s as if the English see social provision as a form of charity to be given suspiciously reluctantly and grudgingly rather than as social duty.

@redrummy@ohai.social We've seen those mega-cruise ships parked in Madeira when we were there; and up from St Marks in Venice. They’re overwhelming. And these were the smaller ones, because the full size jobbies are a whole category bigger and have to park out at sea.

@quixoticgeek@social.v.st For our panels it’s a fairly simple equation. What we used to use in mains electricity compared to what we can realistically get from solar + what we can earn in selling back. But the battery is a much more complex estimate. The problem is that second value- an estimate of how much annual generation is realistic.

@david_chisnall The appendix is enough to disprove that idea. Something that just sits doing nothing for decades and then sometimes kills you.

@pence The thing is to be able to recall the essence and how to find the details.