Because my other half went to one of them (there is TG primary, TG boys, TG girls etc all adjacent to each other along 100 yards of road) had a daughter at TG primary....
The teachers sussed she was IT/web savvy and asked her about websites, she eventually built them a beautiful website for free, inc free hosting, cut a long story short it got quite acrimonious when the head discovered that one of the features (a forum) meant that parents could actually ask questions on a public forum.... questions such as how come a primary school with a couple of hundred pupils has a million pound plus annual budget? how come their IT is limited to a dozen laptops for the kids, half of which are broken at any one time? how come the deeper you dig the more it appears that the school is nothing more than a business with lots of hands in lots of pockets and the absolute lowest priority is the actual education that the students themselves receive? How come they employ an IT director that doesn't know what Linux is or how to ALT-TAB between windows in windows or even fix a laptop install?
Hence the "special needs" tagline, it is all about bums on seats, and the more bums you have the greater your budget per annum, and the greater number of those bums that you can attach a label to such as "special needs" (which can range from anything from a physical disability to a rowdy kid that needs no more than a clip around the ear) the greater your budget.
Bottom line on this is wasting time teaching the little bastards Tolkien speak isn't going to offend any minorities, except the trekkies or dr who nerds, and who gives a fuck about them anyway, so it is a "safe" way to deliberately cause "mission creep" and thus prepare the ground for greater annual budgets in the years to come.
It makes me want to fucking puke and then take up arms.
At the end of the day this is just a classic example of a system that has degraded to the point where simple curative measures no longer suffice, when schools are turning out a MAJORITY of pupils who have severe difficulties with English (never mind a useful foreign language, much less elvish / klingon / aramaic) and find even simple long division extremely taxing then it really is time to throw the baby out with the bath water.
It just so happens that I know this particular school and the goings on there pretty well, but trust me when I tell you that this is FAR FAR FAR from being an isolated incident.
I also note the BBC website readers comments on the story... apart from one person with some class ("Elvish has left the building...") is it only me that finds it strange that all the other people with computers and internet connections and kids of an age to attend these schools have nothing disdainful / critical / ridiculing / negative to say?
I need a green card... any female type slashdotters in the states interested in hooking up with a sexual deviant?
Had an extensive article on full body exoskeletons VERY remeniscent of the kit ripley wore in aliens...
The article included actual photographs of actual working (though tethered by hoses to a static power pack) units that were being developed by/for the US Army.
I cannot remember the axact issue or year because I was a mere sprog and my dad used to buy the occassional pop mechanics, but it was early sixties.
This was 45 years ago people....
Please don't tell me I'm the only fart on/. over 30 who hasn't suffered from terminal alzheimers....
When they started out the bonnet (hood) WAS locked shut, and only a Rolls Royce engineer (not mechanic) could open it.
As to all the predictable comments about "what if the big end blows etc" people had the same concerns way back then, and the response from Rolls? "Rolls Royce motor cars do not break down"
and there was of course a lot of truth in that comment, they were fiednishly expensive but they were genuinely far more robust than the average car of the day, so/.ers may need to consider the marketing aspect here, Vulva are probably merely on a PRbunny trip about quality and exclusivity rather than making any machanical MTBF type statements.
Of course Rolls Royce is no longer english, it was sold to the germans, and quite apart from the new rollers not being rollers any more and being quite hideous, along with the change of ownership all the old paperwork and marketing guff will have moved office... now who really owns vulva nowadays?
Yet another "invention" by some idiot who doesn't ride, like airbags for bikers etc etc etc....
A biker does not need ANY instruments to ride, you judge you speed to the road conditions, the actual mph doesn't matter, just "safe" and "smooth" and "controlled" is all that matters. You don't need a bloody revcounter, fuel gauge, selected gear indicator, tyre pressure indicator, inclinometer or any other crap, you can hear and feel everything you need to know, this is the WHOLE POINT of being a biker....
In the real world a speedo has one use and one use only, to make sure you don't get a ticket, particularly here in the UK where councils use speed cameras set at arbitrarily low speeds on good roads and revenue generators, for everything else your brain and your experience tell you everything you need to know about speed.
Another thing about this thread, people writing about their local experience and making it sound as though that applies worldwide, it doesn't, alcohol certainly is NOT the major cause of death amongst motorcyclists in the UK... in my own opinion that would be "born again" bikers who sold a 500cc bike years ago when the kids came along and now in later years with increased purchasing powers buy a 1300cc 200mph penis extension, and only discover that they lack sufficient training and experience going into that 60 mph corner at 120.....
Similarly helmets, ride here (UK) in winter on motorways and (full face) helmets are beautiful things, they stop your brain from being chilled down to the processing power of a chimpanzee on mogadon... ride in southern europe in summer and no helmet is the only sensible choice, assuming the law allows you to make a sensible choice, which it doesn't.
Then we have riders who wear bulletproof kevlar everything and ride around like assholes thinking they are superman, and others who ride around wearing shorts and a tee shirt and sneakers... stupidity, no more and no less.
Bikers do not need or want more crap getting on the bike with us, bikers need LESS crap, less distractions, less gizmos, and MORE bonding and feedback between rider and bike in the seat of your pants area.
As for me, I'm mid 40's and I've ridden just about everything one time or another, in a lot of places around the world, currently running a 23 year old xs11 special that does everything I ask of it, don't own a car and don't posess a car licence, winter / summer, rain / shine, year in year out and more miles than I can shake a stick at.
In all of that time and experience there is ONLY ONE THING that I can think of that is any use, and that is training, not the sort of training that you forget 2 minutes after you pass the exam, but the sort of training that sticks with you and changes how you do things... you just can't have too much of it, and it would be nice is some of the car drivers had some compulsory (2 wheel) training too...
ride safe, and don't forget what makes biking fun.
freedom. not reading instruments.
Slashdot Mirror
Because my other half went to one of them (there is TG primary, TG boys, TG girls etc all adjacent to each other along 100 yards of road) had a daughter at TG primary....
y /i ndex.php?option=show&type=2
The teachers sussed she was IT/web savvy and asked her about websites, she eventually built them a beautiful website for free, inc free hosting, cut a long story short it got quite acrimonious when the head discovered that one of the features (a forum) meant that parents could actually ask questions on a public forum.... questions such as how come a primary school with a couple of hundred pupils has a million pound plus annual budget? how come their IT is limited to a dozen laptops for the kids, half of which are broken at any one time? how come the deeper you dig the more it appears that the school is nothing more than a business with lots of hands in lots of pockets and the absolute lowest priority is the actual education that the students themselves receive?
How come they employ an IT director that doesn't know what Linux is or how to ALT-TAB between windows in windows or even fix a laptop install?
Hence the "special needs" tagline, it is all about bums on seats, and the more bums you have the greater your budget per annum, and the greater number of those bums that you can attach a label to such as "special needs" (which can range from anything from a physical disability to a rowdy kid that needs no more than a clip around the ear) the greater your budget.
Bottom line on this is wasting time teaching the little bastards Tolkien speak isn't going to offend any minorities, except the trekkies or dr who nerds, and who gives a fuck about them anyway, so it is a "safe" way to deliberately cause "mission creep" and thus prepare the ground for greater annual budgets in the years to come.
It makes me want to fucking puke and then take up arms.
http://www.northfield-westheath.org.uk/communit
At the end of the day this is just a classic example of a system that has degraded to the point where simple curative measures no longer suffice, when schools are turning out a MAJORITY of pupils who have severe difficulties with English (never mind a useful foreign language, much less elvish / klingon / aramaic) and find even simple long division extremely taxing then it really is time to throw the baby out with the bath water.
It just so happens that I know this particular school and the goings on there pretty well, but trust me when I tell you that this is FAR FAR FAR from being an isolated incident.
I also note the BBC website readers comments on the story... apart from one person with some class ("Elvish has left the building...") is it only me that finds it strange that all the other people with computers and internet connections and kids of an age to attend these schools have nothing disdainful / critical / ridiculing / negative to say?
I need a green card... any female type slashdotters in the states interested in hooking up with a sexual deviant?
peace.
Had an extensive article on full body exoskeletons VERY remeniscent of the kit ripley wore in aliens...
/. over 30 who hasn't suffered from terminal alzheimers....
The article included actual photographs of actual working (though tethered by hoses to a static power pack) units that were being developed by/for the US Army.
I cannot remember the axact issue or year because I was a mere sprog and my dad used to buy the occassional pop mechanics, but it was early sixties.
This was 45 years ago people....
Please don't tell me I'm the only fart on
When they started out the bonnet (hood) WAS locked shut, and only a Rolls Royce engineer (not mechanic) could open it.
/.ers may need to consider the marketing aspect here, Vulva are probably merely on a PRbunny trip about quality and exclusivity rather than making any machanical MTBF type statements.
As to all the predictable comments about "what if the big end blows etc" people had the same concerns way back then, and the response from Rolls?
"Rolls Royce motor cars do not break down"
and there was of course a lot of truth in that comment, they were fiednishly expensive but they were genuinely far more robust than the average car of the day, so
Of course Rolls Royce is no longer english, it was sold to the germans, and quite apart from the new rollers not being rollers any more and being quite hideous, along with the change of ownership all the old paperwork and marketing guff will have moved office... now who really owns vulva nowadays?
Yet another "invention" by some idiot who doesn't ride, like airbags for bikers etc etc etc.... A biker does not need ANY instruments to ride, you judge you speed to the road conditions, the actual mph doesn't matter, just "safe" and "smooth" and "controlled" is all that matters. You don't need a bloody revcounter, fuel gauge, selected gear indicator, tyre pressure indicator, inclinometer or any other crap, you can hear and feel everything you need to know, this is the WHOLE POINT of being a biker.... In the real world a speedo has one use and one use only, to make sure you don't get a ticket, particularly here in the UK where councils use speed cameras set at arbitrarily low speeds on good roads and revenue generators, for everything else your brain and your experience tell you everything you need to know about speed. Another thing about this thread, people writing about their local experience and making it sound as though that applies worldwide, it doesn't, alcohol certainly is NOT the major cause of death amongst motorcyclists in the UK... in my own opinion that would be "born again" bikers who sold a 500cc bike years ago when the kids came along and now in later years with increased purchasing powers buy a 1300cc 200mph penis extension, and only discover that they lack sufficient training and experience going into that 60 mph corner at 120..... Similarly helmets, ride here (UK) in winter on motorways and (full face) helmets are beautiful things, they stop your brain from being chilled down to the processing power of a chimpanzee on mogadon... ride in southern europe in summer and no helmet is the only sensible choice, assuming the law allows you to make a sensible choice, which it doesn't. Then we have riders who wear bulletproof kevlar everything and ride around like assholes thinking they are superman, and others who ride around wearing shorts and a tee shirt and sneakers... stupidity, no more and no less. Bikers do not need or want more crap getting on the bike with us, bikers need LESS crap, less distractions, less gizmos, and MORE bonding and feedback between rider and bike in the seat of your pants area. As for me, I'm mid 40's and I've ridden just about everything one time or another, in a lot of places around the world, currently running a 23 year old xs11 special that does everything I ask of it, don't own a car and don't posess a car licence, winter / summer, rain / shine, year in year out and more miles than I can shake a stick at. In all of that time and experience there is ONLY ONE THING that I can think of that is any use, and that is training, not the sort of training that you forget 2 minutes after you pass the exam, but the sort of training that sticks with you and changes how you do things... you just can't have too much of it, and it would be nice is some of the car drivers had some compulsory (2 wheel) training too... ride safe, and don't forget what makes biking fun. freedom. not reading instruments.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3256454.stm
The moral is adapt and survive, a job made much easier if you have resisted the "live now, pay later" consumer credit culture...