At the risk of incurring @Leon's wrath, but those Dalle pictures are utter shite.
I've noticed this bizarrely scatological reaction to Dalle-2 in many people. People who react emotionally, as you have done - they don't just say "it's poor", or "not so good" or "hmm" - they say "it's utter shite", "it's shit", "it's a turd"
Honestly, this is an actual thing. You just did it again
It's because people are scared, it's a reaction of fear and revulsion: at seeing a machine exhibit a human trait. The monster emerging from uncanny valley. You often find it in people with a modicum of artistic talent but not a great deal. They have some imagination but not a vast amount, but enough to feel the fear at being potentially replaced
I am not an artist. I can't draw to save my life. I don't feel fear or revulsion. I have never commented on Dalle before. I am just pointing out that to me they look awful, utterly third rate. The trait it exhibits is mediocrity.
The only person going on endlessly about Dalle is you - and in a manner which suggests that what you project onto me and others is what you feel. Probably.
I am not bothering with Dalle again.
I have had quite a lot of experience of AI in my professional life and jolly useful it can be. It can also be a trap for those fools who believe that one system will be the answer to their problem. It never is.
Dalle is a load of rubbish. If you asked it to produce SeanT it would produce Leon.
There is an absolute humdinger of a fake twitter thread based on this policy floating around. I was initially taken in by it before I applied the necessary level of scepticism.
Shows even the most incredibly savvy and sophisticated internet user such as my self is vulnerable to propaganda crafted to hit preconceived biases.
Is this fake? Probably. Oh well.
To some of us of a certain vintage, Starship Trooper means only one thing.
Oh I see, DALLE-2 lets you give it a helping hand, as if you were a Richard Dawkins-style wholly objective and material reality-based evolution "guide"... This is what I got after a few rounds of assisted variation. Goodness knows why they are so symmetrical. They can perhaps be compared in artistic quality to paintings by bottom-of-the-market artists, but even a two-bit painter would surely do a better job at producing a pretend Carrington if they put their back into it?
Seriously - a forest glade, painted in the style of LC! It's not hard to imagine loads of things that could go into that glade... but this is what the great DALLE-2 can come up with after repeatedly being helped!
Someone else had a go at Leonora:
Dall-e 2 The hands that control the nebula # 2 Surreal style of Leonora Carrington Uncropped #openai #dalle2 #dalle #aiartist #aiart #surrealism
Dalle2 is also getting better at faces (when allowed)
At first glance it is hard to believe this isn't a real person, but it is not a real person. What's with the clingfilm on her neck
Once it is truly allowed to let rip with genuine faces, holy shit
"Experimenting with different lighting setups with #dalle2 and the results are consistently stunning. I am missing the ability to reuse seeds here. I would love the chance to tweak an output to improve the way I prompt. Without it, tweaking prompts involves a lot of guesswork."
Imagine what this tech will do when it is let off the leash. It can create gorgeous human faces and bodies. It can move them around - imaginatively
It will create fake actors and actresses of flawless, hypnotic beauty, and we will love them; it will give them exactly the right voices and mannerisms to be charming and sexy - it will make the best Hollywood Stars in history. They will never age, or get drunk, they will never slap someone at the Oscars, they will work for nothing, in movies which are entirely generated - people, scenes, locations, words - by computer
It will be dazzling. The best movies ever made. And it will be inhuman, in all senses of the word
We're almost there already. Most Hollywood movies contain far, far more special effects than you think. Basically: it's pointless hiring extras or building sets. Increasingly, it is only the leading actors that are human.
And then the leading actors too will go
The potential is obvious and mind boggling. For a start Hollywood studios will be able to revive, with total accuracy, much loved stars from the past. A young De Niro. Cary Grant. Marilyn Monroe. Liz Taylor age 19. Or beloved comedians that everyone misses, Woody Allen before he got cranky, Gene Wilder, the Pythons at their peak
They will star in new fake movies. and people will love them once more, just as they did. So there will be no need for actual annoying humans with their flaws and ageing faces and liking for underage boys, or bourbon and cocaine
Or maybe the studios will inject the computer actors with flaws to make them even more believable? Fuck knows
Mostly, get rid of the actors. Fine. Actors are overrated and if you spot the actor rather than the character then tha actor isn't doing his job. The exception - and the area AI will master last - is comedy: comedy is massively underrated as an art form, and good comic actors are for me the most talented of the bunch. Once AI can do something like Green Wing then humanity really can give up.
Thoughts and prayers for GB News as Discovery sells its stake.
Sorry Pete, not as big a deal as you think nor 'sends a signal'.
Warner Bros Discovery CEO said last week that the company was changing strategy and not making so wild bets as in the past - and GB News is that.
Still the fact that GB News is now being funded by wealthy individuals who believe in it and it's message is probably the best thing for continued funding for the channel. John Malone can be quite ruthless with things .
Hmmm. £60m in new investment. Now with GB News production values that could take them well into the next century.
“Jabba the Hutt as a gangsta rapper. 1996 photo” by KarlRunarsson
#dalle #dalle2 #aiart #aiartwork
What is this?
The AI has taken the image of Jabba the Hutt, turned him into a gangsta rapper in a hoodie, and represented it in the style of a photograph from the 1990s. And it did it in ten seconds
I have been playing around with Dall:E this month. It’s variable - some remarkably good results, some a bit meh.
Here’s three good examples:
The last one (unlabelled) was “Liz Truss as princess Celestia from My Little Pony”.
I think Dall-e has restrictions on famous people as this was its attempt at "portrait of tony blair in the style of chuck close"
Which, as you can see, looks nothing like Tony Blair, nor the style of Chuck Close.
It blocked any attempt at Boris, Trump, Macron etc. But somehow Truss got through. Not famous enough perhaps (yet).
Weirdly for my Tony Blair prompt it also produced this which, to its credit is sort of in the style of Chuck Close post stroke but is clearly of Jack Straw
Looks more like Donald Rumsfeld in the 1980s IMO.
Not sure it does. For comparison here's an actual picture of him from the 80s:
I think it's pretty close to him, maybe the 1990s rather than 1980s.
I don't think that program likes me. This is what I got for "Two Bedlington terriers in different emotional states, three priestly enthusiasts of kabbalah, and a twenty-something female somnambulist, all painted in the style of Leonora Carrington":
2 by elections tonight LD easy hold in Cambridge and Tories lose one to an independant in Wyre. They've proposed a new quarry in tbe ward, and perhaps unsurprisingly the ward has said fuck you, voting in an anti quarry indy.
I don't think that program likes me. This is what I got for "Two Bedlington terriers in different emotional states, three priestly enthusiasts of kabbalah, and a twenty-something female somnambulist, all painted in the style of Leonora Carrington":
rcs1000 said: "There's a lot of evidence that candidates without political experience do - on average - worse that seasoned politicians."
Let me extend that: There's a lot of evidence that people without experience do their jobs - on average - worse that people with experience.
Which is why I prefer candidates for high executive positions to have appropriate experiences. Through most of our history, most American voters agreed with me, most of the time. And so our successful presidents have often been governors or generals before becoming president. (Or in the early days, secretaries of state, when foreign policy problems were central.)
I don't think that program likes me. This is what I got for "Two Bedlington terriers in different emotional states, three priestly enthusiasts of kabbalah, and a twenty-something female somnambulist, all painted in the style of Leonora Carrington":
Actually, some of those are pretty good. Amusing. It definitely helps to put MORE detail into your prompts, as to style, content, theme. The more explicit or imaginative your instructions, the more impressive the results
I don't think that program likes me. This is what I got for "Two Bedlington terriers in different emotional states, three priestly enthusiasts of kabbalah, and a twenty-something female somnambulist, all painted in the style of Leonora Carrington":
Are you using Dalle? Dalle-2? Mini-dalle?
Now that is REALLY interesting because Bedlingtons notoriously look more like sheep than dogs, and it has filed them under sheep despite the terrier clue
I don't think that program likes me. This is what I got for "Two Bedlington terriers in different emotional states, three priestly enthusiasts of kabbalah, and a twenty-something female somnambulist, all painted in the style of Leonora Carrington":
Actually, some of those are pretty good. Amusing. It definitely helps to put MORE detail into your prompts, as to style, content, theme. The more explicit or imaginative your instructions, the more impressive the results
I don't think that program likes me. This is what I got for "Two Bedlington terriers in different emotional states, three priestly enthusiasts of kabbalah, and a twenty-something female somnambulist, all painted in the style of Leonora Carrington":
“Jabba the Hutt as a gangsta rapper. 1996 photo” by KarlRunarsson
#dalle #dalle2 #aiart #aiartwork
What is this?
The AI has taken the image of Jabba the Hutt, turned him into a gangsta rapper in a hoodie, and represented it in the style of a photograph from the 1990s. And it did it in ten seconds
That's not *quite* true.
It has generated an image that scores well with image classifiers with the following keys:
“Jabba the Hutt as a gangsta rapper. 1996 photo” by KarlRunarsson
#dalle #dalle2 #aiart #aiartwork
What is this?
The AI has taken the image of Jabba the Hutt, turned him into a gangsta rapper in a hoodie, and represented it in the style of a photograph from the 1990s. And it did it in ten seconds
That's not *quite* true.
It has generated an image that scores well with image classifiers with the following keys:
"gangsta rapper" "jabba the hutt" "1996 photo"
Well yes, but as is my wont I phrased it in a more mellifluous way, like a really good piece of neural writing software
And now I must go to bed. It has actually been quite refreshing to revisit Dalle-2. There are now so many people using it the trickle of impressive images has become a beauteous flood
But also scary. These machines really will replace virtually all human artists, pretty much, within 10-20 years. Including writers and actors
"Why Rishi Sunak failed The former chancellor, once Britain’s most popular politician, seems to have let No 10 slip from his grasp. Where did he go wrong? By Harry Lambert"
The AI pictures on this thread are mundane and mediocre. What exactly is the point of them?
The problem it has is that the best art is not what you asked for, but rather the weirdly unexpected, like the film that I watched tonight on MUBI. "The woman with a knife" or the disturbingly unhinged "Wake in Fright" on BFI player. Films that are hard to like, yet leave you craving to repeat.
I have just got the following from 'Stockport Viaduct under a low full moon, watercolour'.
Pretty good considering it's done by a computer which has never seen Stockport Viaduct. Oddly wobbly and vague. Like Stockport viaduct in a dream. The program I was using (craiyon) seems woeful at faces. Give it a landscape to do and it's a bit better.
When Trump won in 2016 everyone should have come together to work out why so many people voted for him and to try to ensure that it wouldn't happen again by dealing with the problems that must have resulted in him being elected. The fact that he's favourite again would suggest the problems haven't been properly addressed.
“Jabba the Hutt as a gangsta rapper. 1996 photo” by KarlRunarsson
#dalle #dalle2 #aiart #aiartwork
What is this?
The AI has taken the image of Jabba the Hutt, turned him into a gangsta rapper in a hoodie, and represented it in the style of a photograph from the 1990s. And it did it in ten seconds
That's not *quite* true.
It has generated an image that scores well with image classifiers with the following keys:
"gangsta rapper" "jabba the hutt" "1996 photo"
Well yes, but as is my wont I phrased it in a more mellifluous way, like a really good piece of neural writing software
And now I must go to bed. It has actually been quite refreshing to revisit Dalle-2. There are now so many people using it the trickle of impressive images has become a beauteous flood
But also scary. These machines really will replace virtually all human artists, pretty much, within 10-20 years. Including writers and actors
Brrr!
Night night
I wasn't aware that "mellifluous" actually meant "inaccurate".
When Trump won in 2016 everyone should have come together to work out why so many people voted for him and to try to ensure that it wouldn't happen again by dealing with the problems that must have resulted in him being elected. The fact that he's favourite again would suggest the problems haven't been properly addressed.
Many of the problems are incredibly difficult to solve.
Take the forgotten towns, in Ohio or Pennsylvania or wherever.
They are stuck in a cycle: businesses leave because of China or automation or private equity owners or just simple bad luck or bad management.
This means there are no jobs, so people leave.
Those that remain are the old and those who cannot afford to go elsewhere.
And the tax base of the city has been screwed, because the major business left. But it still has to pay pensions to retired police, firefighters, etc.
Taxes rise to meet obligations, which discourages people from moving in. While schools are starved of resources, because the tax base has shrunk, but the spending obligations to retirees remain.
Ambitious parents leave, and those that stay see their children get terrible educations
Andy_JS - It is absolutely true that Trump owes some of his support to problems that weren't addressed. For example: During the Obama years, life expectancy fell: "The average life expectancy in the United States has been on a decline since 2014. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites three main reasons: a 72% increase in overdoses in the last decade (including a 30% increase in opioid overdoses from July 2016 to September 2017, but did not differentiate between accidental overdose with a legal prescription and overdose with opioids obtained illegally and/or combined with illegal drugs i.e., heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, etc.), a ten-year increase in liver disease (the rate for men age 25 to 34 increased by 8% per year; for women, by 11% per year), and a 33% increase in suicide rates since 1999." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
As did the fertility rate. (The rate was, for two years during the George W. Bush presidency, 2006 and 2007, above replacement rate. I don't know of any other industrial nations for which that is true, since 2000.)
Obama did almost nothing about China's predatory trade policies.
If any of these problems even interested Obama, he hid his interest well.
Moreover, Obama's allies worsened race relations, and his administration provoked abortion controversies. You don't make Al Sharpton an ally if you want to improve race relations, and you don't pick a fight with the Little Sisters of the Poor, if you are looking for some middle ground on abortion.
Obligatory disclaimer: Trump has no solutions to any of these problems, and no interest in doing the hard work of finding solutions.
When Trump won in 2016 everyone should have come together to work out why so many people voted for him and to try to ensure that it wouldn't happen again by dealing with the problems that must have resulted in him being elected. The fact that he's favourite again would suggest the problems haven't been properly addressed.
Many of the problems are incredibly difficult to solve.
Take the forgotten towns, in Ohio or Pennsylvania or wherever.
They are stuck in a cycle: businesses leave because of China or automation or private equity owners or just simple bad luck or bad management.
This means there are no jobs, so people leave.
Those that remain are the old and those who cannot afford to go elsewhere.
And the tax base of the city has been screwed, because the major business left. But it still has to pay pensions to retired police, firefighters, etc.
Taxes rise to meet obligations, which discourages people from moving in. While schools are starved of resources, because the tax base has shrunk, but the spending obligations to retirees remain.
Ambitious parents leave, and those that stay see their children get terrible educations
How do you solve this issue?
These people feel the Federal government has abandoned them.
And the people of Texas and Arizona and California don't want to send cash to Ohio. It's like the Eurozone crisis, but playing out in thousands of small municipalities across the US.
And then there are the opiates. People without hope, looking for escape.
The government is planning a huge overseas recruitment drive to plug the gap in the NHS and social care . Barclays is targeting those from India and the Philippines .
Of course Barclays daren’t try and recruit from the EU seeing as he was part of the Leave campaign who told EU workers to get lost .
And those workers hardly feel welcome after being scapegoated by the hateful right wing press .
Also more likely to be permanent immigrants, rather than temporary, and to set up chain migration.
Mind you, I really rate our Keralan and Philippine nurses, a great bunch of colleagues
Aiui (from Spectator TV I think but am too lazy to check) Britain already has a higher proportion of immigrants in the workforce than anywhere else, and also record levels of immigration since Brexit.
ETA Too many graduates? Something odd is going on.
When Trump won in 2016 everyone should have come together to work out why so many people voted for him and to try to ensure that it wouldn't happen again by dealing with the problems that must have resulted in him being elected. The fact that he's favourite again would suggest the problems haven't been properly addressed.
Many of the problems are incredibly difficult to solve.
Take the forgotten towns, in Ohio or Pennsylvania or wherever.
They are stuck in a cycle: businesses leave because of China or automation or private equity owners or just simple bad luck or bad management.
This means there are no jobs, so people leave.
Those that remain are the old and those who cannot afford to go elsewhere.
And the tax base of the city has been screwed, because the major business left. But it still has to pay pensions to retired police, firefighters, etc.
Taxes rise to meet obligations, which discourages people from moving in. While schools are starved of resources, because the tax base has shrunk, but the spending obligations to retirees remain.
Ambitious parents leave, and those that stay see their children get terrible educations
How do you solve this issue?
These people feel the Federal government has abandoned them.
And the people of Texas and Arizona and California don't want to send cash to Ohio. It's like the Eurozone crisis, but playing out in thousands of small municipalities across the US.
And then there are the opiates. People without hope, looking for escape.
There are no easy answers.
This is actually quite a good argument for the more centralised funding model of English Local Government, which dates back to Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s. Similar towns in the UK aren't saddled with having to pay pensions to firefighters. They can't just raise tax either, not so much. So the towns/cities can't really go bankrupt. The problem ends up returning to Central Government, who have to send in commissioners to run failing authorities, an increasingly common phenomenon.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
"Apple warns of serious security flaw for iPhones, iPads and Macs that could let attackers take complete control of devices - and it may have already been 'exploited'"
Disturbingly when I wargame this in my head, as Vlad Putin, I keep reaching the conclusion: Do Something Bad
ie Leak at least a bit of radiation, blame it on the Ukrainians, say it was shelled. What's not to like? Don't destroy the plant and the world, but do enough - poison a town or two - to put terror into your enemies, and make Europe sue for peace
Putin and Russia rely on the impression of power and aggression. If they back down now, and nothing happens, then it will look weak. So it was all a bluff. The West will gain resolve
For this gambit to work best for him, he needs to do something bad at the power plant, just not something apocalyptic, yet
If I was Putin I woudl want the west to forget about ukraine - hence do very little of interest - a bit of war in the East of Ukraine etc - After all the west (after great consternation at the time) forgot about the Taleban takeover in a matter of weeks , so much so that people were surprised it was only a year ago the other day on the anniversary.
No, he wants the sanctions lifted. The status quo is not good for him, medium term
sanctions will get lifted he is does very little either out of boredom, money incentive to break them or the (real) need of the west for Russia's gas especially
But this is a way to get them lifted very quickly
Create a Fukushima style calamity. Kill a few hundred people and contaminate 100 sq km of Ukraine
That would be enough, I reckon, to horrify the world, terrify europe and create pressure on Ukraine to accept a bad peace, as the west agrees to lift sanctions
It’s not pleasant but I could easily see that “working” for Putin
And equally, not. It's just as likely that the west decides someone so dangerous has to be resisted.
And just as pertinently, China does not appreciate reckless gambles from its allies, either.
"Apple warns of serious security flaw for iPhones, iPads and Macs that could let attackers take complete control of devices - and it may have already been 'exploited'"
The government is planning a huge overseas recruitment drive to plug the gap in the NHS and social care . Barclays is targeting those from India and the Philippines .
Of course Barclays daren’t try and recruit from the EU seeing as he was part of the Leave campaign who told EU workers to get lost .
And those workers hardly feel welcome after being scapegoated by the hateful right wing press .
Also more likely to be permanent immigrants, rather than temporary, and to set up chain migration.
Mind you, I really rate our Keralan and Philippine nurses, a great bunch of colleagues
Aiui (from Spectator TV I think but am too lazy to check) Britain already has a higher proportion of immigrants in the workforce than anywhere else, and also record levels of immigration since Brexit.
ETA Too many graduates? Something odd is going on.
Waves from UAE, where the locals are only 15% of the population, and about 5% of the workforce. 👋🏼
But yes, outside a few small petro-states, UK (and USA) is pretty high up the list of countries by number of immigrants - as witnessed by the 6m permanent visas given to EU citizens a couple of years ago.
Most of the nurses out here are Filipinas by the way, lovely people. Philippines is top of the inverse of the list above, they have more of their citizens working overseas than anywhere else. Their largest source of foreign currency is ‘remittances’ from overseas workers to their families.
"Apple warns of serious security flaw for iPhones, iPads and Macs that could let attackers take complete control of devices - and it may have already been 'exploited'"
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
Disturbingly when I wargame this in my head, as Vlad Putin, I keep reaching the conclusion: Do Something Bad
ie Leak at least a bit of radiation, blame it on the Ukrainians, say it was shelled. What's not to like? Don't destroy the plant and the world, but do enough - poison a town or two - to put terror into your enemies, and make Europe sue for peace
Putin and Russia rely on the impression of power and aggression. If they back down now, and nothing happens, then it will look weak. So it was all a bluff. The West will gain resolve
For this gambit to work best for him, he needs to do something bad at the power plant, just not something apocalyptic, yet
If I was Putin I woudl want the west to forget about ukraine - hence do very little of interest - a bit of war in the East of Ukraine etc - After all the west (after great consternation at the time) forgot about the Taleban takeover in a matter of weeks , so much so that people were surprised it was only a year ago the other day on the anniversary.
No, he wants the sanctions lifted. The status quo is not good for him, medium term
sanctions will get lifted he is does very little either out of boredom, money incentive to break them or the (real) need of the west for Russia's gas especially
But this is a way to get them lifted very quickly
Create a Fukushima style calamity. Kill a few hundred people and contaminate 100 sq km of Ukraine
That would be enough, I reckon, to horrify the world, terrify europe and create pressure on Ukraine to accept a bad peace, as the west agrees to lift sanctions
It’s not pleasant but I could easily see that “working” for Putin
And equally, not. It's just as likely that the west decides someone so dangerous has to be resisted.
And just as pertinently, China does not appreciate reckless gambles from its allies, either.
If there’s one thing pretty much guaranteed to get NATO countries actively involved in this war, it’s Russia playing silly games with a nuclear power station and causing an ‘accident’.
And no, Mr Putin, absolutely no-one believes you when you say that the Ukranians are going to cause an ‘accident’ at their own power station. Any ‘problems’ at Zaporizhzhya are entirely on Russia.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
We agree it is selective but not whether it is like a grammar school. Both this and the other one you mention probably do well at least in part because their kids apply to Oxbridge in the first place, whereas many don't.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
To my mind there is a huge difference between selection at 11 and selection at 16. I don't have a problem with selective sixth forms (my daughter will probably be going to one, pending results next week), and in reality all A level courses have entry requirements. But selection of younger children is unnecessarily divisive, creates two classes of education, writes kids off before some have the chance to show their potential, and is unfair because in reality it disadvantages poorer kids. My objection to selection in education is more practical than ideological - looking at the evidence I don't think it works at 11, but I can see the case for it at 16, and even more so at 18. My objection to private education is both ideological and practical, on the other hand.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
For any A level a "B" or better in the relevant GCSE is a requirement, even within schools. It is not like selection for grammar schools at age 11.
No one objects to selection focused on particular subjects at age 18 to go to University, it is selection at age 11 to cover all subjects that is the problem.
"Apple warns of serious security flaw for iPhones, iPads and Macs that could let attackers take complete control of devices - and it may have already been 'exploited'"
Yep, this is a serious one. Update your devices today, guys and gals.
Funnily enough this was being pushed in The Sun earlier yesterday so I took their advice - usually the only advice I take from them is from Dear Deirdre.
To be fair to them they are quite hot on their tech updates with regular updates re changes to WhatsApp etc.
And the Republicans have managed to put up an awful lot of inexperienced candidates in key Senatorial contests:
Oz in Pennsylvania - was a pro-Choice doctor, and has little connection with the State Masters in Arizona - worked for Peter Thiel's hedge fund; thinks that the dollar should be replaced by Bitcoin; speaks in a monotone with weird pauses Walker in Georgia - was an American football player Vance in Ohio - wrote a book, and worked as a venture capitalist
Only in Nevada have the Republicans picked an experienced politico - and Laxalit is looking odds on to win that race, even though it should be a much harder State for the Republicans than (say) Georgia or Pennsylvania.
The US Primary system means that activists get to choose the candidate, so the more extreme ones get chosen. These are then less likely to appeal to voters in the actual election. Currently this is a much bigger problem for the Republicans because of Trump. It is also a problem for our very own Tory party where the activist are choosing the person least likely to appeal to the wider electorate.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
I don’t know whether Peter Symonds still offers boarding but they used to have boarding as well as a lot of locals who put up students as lodgers which increased the catchment.
A lot of students went there from public schools for sixth form for a variety of reasons - it was better, and rightfully had the reputation, than their private schools at getting students into top universities, the students wanted a transition between boarding school life and university life, they had been asked to leave their private schools once GCSEs were done…
Most of the people I knew there were from wealthy families and it was a back door to top universities. Very good school and if you think that Oxbridge etc are actively reducing places offered to public schools then a very good switcheroo to send your kids there for sixth form after three years elsewhere.
Since 2009 doctors have had real terms pay cuts most years, including 6% this year*, with a cumulative cut of 20-30% according to grade,
* though this may be changed, there is a ballot on industrial action shortly, almost certain to endorse rejecting the government's offer, and hence a strike.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
For any A level a "B" or better in the relevant GCSE is a requirement, even within schools. It is not like selection for grammar schools at age 11.
No one objects to selection focused on particular subjects at age 18 to go to University, it is selection at age 11 to cover all subjects that is the problem.
Not for any, only for some. Politics and Sociology don't usually have thresholds, for example.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
I don’t know whether Peter Symonds still offers boarding but they used to have boarding as well as a lot of locals who put up students as lodgers which increased the catchment.
A lot of students went there from public schools for sixth form for a variety of reasons - it was better, and rightfully had the reputation, than their private schools at getting students into top universities, the students wanted a transition between boarding school life and university life, they had been asked to leave their private schools once GCSEs were done…
Most of the people I knew there were from wealthy families and it was a back door to top universities. Very good school and if you think that Oxbridge etc are actively reducing places offered to public schools then a very good switcheroo to send your kids there for sixth form after three years elsewhere.
I went to Peter Symonds. The boarders were almost entirely children of the military, rather than other parts of the country. Some were children from local authority care. The vast majority of the intake was from the feeder Comprehensives, of which there were 5.
I don't think the intake has changed much since my day.
And yes, I can create basic binary arithmetic circuits.
But now think about the complexities involved in creating storage. Or doing timings. How do you ensure that your cascade of transistors have finished before the next clock cycle starts?
Is it correct that Weisselberg has said he won't testify against Trump as part of his plea deal ?
I think he's said he'll cooperate with the probe into the Trump Organization, but went testify against Trump in a criminal case.
Not, of course, that he can resist a lawful subpoena.
No, but he can decline to answer questions.
The (to my thinking rather lenient) jail term of 5 months reportedly results from the refusal to cooperate with the investigation into Trump himself. He's saved himself a decades long (in his case effectively life) jail term by testifying against the company. ...Weisselberg, who is seen as one of Mr Trump's most loyal business associates, worked for the former president for almost 50 years. He left his job as chief financial officer which he had held since 2005 when he was arrested last year. The Trump Organization is also a defendant in this case and its lawyers have entered a not guilty plea. Weisselberg must now testify against the company at a criminal trial later this year, after agreeing to a plea deal that was first reported by The New York Times. But he refused to co-operate with prosecutors in their wider investigation into Donald Trump and his business practices, reports say....
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
I don’t know whether Peter Symonds still offers boarding but they used to have boarding as well as a lot of locals who put up students as lodgers which increased the catchment.
A lot of students went there from public schools for sixth form for a variety of reasons - it was better, and rightfully had the reputation, than their private schools at getting students into top universities, the students wanted a transition between boarding school life and university life, they had been asked to leave their private schools once GCSEs were done…
Most of the people I knew there were from wealthy families and it was a back door to top universities. Very good school and if you think that Oxbridge etc are actively reducing places offered to public schools then a very good switcheroo to send your kids there for sixth form after three years elsewhere.
I went to Peter Symonds. The boarders were almost entirely children of the military, rather than other parts of the country. Some were children from local authority care. The vast majority of the intake was from the feeder Comprehensives, of which there were 5.
I don't think the intake has changed much since my day.
Maybe I knew the Symmonds people in a freak period but had friends there from the comprehensive feeders but also a good number of “The Hon xxxx xxxxxx” and A lot of ex Radley, charterhouse, and similar. Not a massive proportion but not negligible.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
To my mind there is a huge difference between selection at 11 and selection at 16. I don't have a problem with selective sixth forms (my daughter will probably be going to one, pending results next week), and in reality all A level courses have entry requirements. But selection of younger children is unnecessarily divisive, creates two classes of education, writes kids off before some have the chance to show their potential, and is unfair because in reality it disadvantages poorer kids. My objection to selection in education is more practical than ideological - looking at the evidence I don't think it works at 11, but I can see the case for it at 16, and even more so at 18. My objection to private education is both ideological and practical, on the other hand.
My guess is that the vast majority of the kids attending Brampton previously attended non-selective comprehensives and got their GCSE grades at those. As you say, there is a huge difference between selection at 16 and at 11.
The frauds reportedly were motivated by Trump being too cheap to pay his executives market rates. They therefore paid themselves benefits by way of fraud.
High quality AI-generated art will make high-quality human generated art even more valuable. There will always be a premium on something created by a person.
People not feeling the need to tighten their belts.
Or simply having to pay higher prices for things...
Well, that makes my point even more strongly. Discretionary spending up in July, rather than falling off a cliff as one might expect. And that’s despite things being more expensive.
People not feeling the need to tighten their belts.
Or simply having to pay higher prices for things...
Or stocking up.
Indeed, expecting things to go further up in price.
The ONS did mention that alcohol, tobacco, clothes and household goods all fell. This would suggest to me that discretionary spending is down.
Lol, you’ve realised the logical error in your first argument.
To be honest, that discretionary spending isn’t falling off a cliff should be a big concern.
Of course, the media don’t see it like that. They want the story to be “people are feeling the squeeze and spending less.” They don’t like asking “well why aren’t people saving ahead of the huge energy price rises?”
There is an absolute humdinger of a fake twitter thread based on this policy floating around. I was initially taken in by it before I applied the necessary level of scepticism.
Shows even the most incredibly savvy and sophisticated internet user such as my self is vulnerable to propaganda crafted to hit preconceived biases.
Is this fake? Probably. Oh well.
To some of us of a certain vintage, Starship Trooper means only one thing.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
Sure. But somewhere like Greenhead College in Kirklees, which is neither in an affluent area nor selective, also gets very good results.
When Trump won in 2016 everyone should have come together to work out why so many people voted for him and to try to ensure that it wouldn't happen again by dealing with the problems that must have resulted in him being elected. The fact that he's favourite again would suggest the problems haven't been properly addressed.
It was difficult for people to come together to solve these problems because Trump was in power for 4 years. And then when Biden won, he’s been somewhat limited by a narrow hold on the Senate and Republican filibustering, plus a pair of global crises in COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
High quality AI-generated art will make high-quality human generated art even more valuable. There will always be a premium on something created by a person.
It will be but one genre amongst many.
Saying it will crowd out everything else is as ridiculous as saying American action painting will mark the end of the portrait.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
Sure. But somewhere like Greenhead College in Kirklees, which is neither in an affluent area nor selective, also gets very good results.
Well run large sixth form colleges work.
Shame that the government's administration methods, funding structure and tax policies are making them pretty well unviable then.
And yes, I can create basic binary arithmetic circuits.
But now think about the complexities involved in creating storage. Or doing timings. How do you ensure that your cascade of transistors have finished before the next clock cycle starts?
That question is interesting; especially as the clock signals take time to go through the chips.
A few years ago Steve Furber (co-designer of the ARM chip) and his group at Manchester University created Amulet, an asynchronous chip with no main clock signal.
'East End Eton' celebrates record year with nearly 90% of A-level students getting A* or A grades: State school in one of London's poorest boroughs will send 85 pupils to Oxbridge this year Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As 85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
Looking at their admissions page, they are a state school, but seem to be an independent selective sixth form college; so you need A's or B's at GCSE and to pass an interview to get in. A bit like a 'grammar school'.
Not really like a grammar school. I think a lot of sixth form colleges (and even sixth forms in schools) are selective; perhaps this one more than most.
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
I am not sure I agree - it seems like the success of this arrangement is very closely connected to the principle of selective education, which is the same principle that drives grammar schools; and it is what left leaning middle class people often object to. Brampton College provides a dilemma for them, because the beneficiaries of the system are overwhelmingly poor people, many of whom appear to be non white and from an immigrant background.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
I don’t know whether Peter Symonds still offers boarding but they used to have boarding as well as a lot of locals who put up students as lodgers which increased the catchment.
A lot of students went there from public schools for sixth form for a variety of reasons - it was better, and rightfully had the reputation, than their private schools at getting students into top universities, the students wanted a transition between boarding school life and university life, they had been asked to leave their private schools once GCSEs were done…
Most of the people I knew there were from wealthy families and it was a back door to top universities. Very good school and if you think that Oxbridge etc are actively reducing places offered to public schools then a very good switcheroo to send your kids there for sixth form after three years elsewhere.
I went to Peter Symonds. The boarders were almost entirely children of the military, rather than other parts of the country. Some were children from local authority care. The vast majority of the intake was from the feeder Comprehensives, of which there were 5.
I don't think the intake has changed much since my day.
Maybe I knew the Symmonds people in a freak period but had friends there from the comprehensive feeders but also a good number of “The Hon xxxx xxxxxx” and A lot of ex Radley, charterhouse, and similar. Not a massive proportion but not negligible.
Winchester is certainly a posh area, but when my sibs and I were there, I don't recall there being many from private schools. Most were fairly ordinary middle class folk. It is much more of a London commuter town now, but when I have been back to visit, not greatly different demographics
Almost everyone (including us) came from the feeder Comprehensives locally. There were a couple from private schools, but no one that I knew had a title etc.
Lana del Rey was lucky to get away with that. But Creep vs Hollies is no more or less a copy than any other rock song in the last 30 years. Similar chord progression but different tempo and mood.
Comments
Dall-e 2
The hands that control the nebula # 2
Surreal style of Leonora Carrington
Uncropped
#openai #dalle2 #dalle #aiartist #aiart #surrealism
https://twitter.com/triflingtree/status/1557657985358462978?s=20&t=7UtJcqte7H1p5sW7LPUMSg
Not amazing, but a lot better than yours. Work on your prompts? We don't know the full prompt here, tho
“Jabba the Hutt as a gangsta rapper. 1996 photo” by KarlRunarsson
#dalle #dalle2 #aiart #aiartwork
The exception - and the area AI will master last - is comedy: comedy is massively underrated as an art form, and good comic actors are for me the most talented of the bunch.
Once AI can do something like Green Wing then humanity really can give up.
"No spin, no bias".
Dalle-2 is brilliant in its simplicity. I am itching to explain it, so just ask
This the output for Leonora Carrington glade with strange creatures
https://huggingface.co/spaces/dalle-mini/dalle-mini
"35mm photo of a humanized rat chilling on a couch watching TV and smoking weed, digital art" Dalle Is crazy"
https://twitter.com/sixffline/status/1558923715475152896?s=20&t=7UtJcqte7H1p5sW7LPUMSg
LD easy hold in Cambridge and Tories lose one to an independant in Wyre. They've proposed a new quarry in tbe ward, and perhaps unsurprisingly the ward has said fuck you, voting in an anti quarry indy.
Let me extend that: There's a lot of evidence that people without experience do their jobs - on average - worse that people with experience.
Which is why I prefer candidates for high executive positions to have appropriate experiences. Through most of our history, most American voters agreed with me, most of the time. And so our successful presidents have often been governors or generals before becoming president. (Or in the early days, secretaries of state, when foreign policy problems were central.)
It has generated an image that scores well with image classifiers with the following keys:
"gangsta rapper"
"jabba the hutt"
"1996 photo"
“UK consumer confidence hits record low as household mood darkens”
And now I must go to bed. It has actually been quite refreshing to revisit Dalle-2. There are now so many people using it the trickle of impressive images has become a beauteous flood
But also scary. These machines really will replace virtually all human artists, pretty much, within 10-20 years. Including writers and actors
Brrr!
Night night
The former chancellor, once Britain’s most popular politician, seems to have let No 10 slip from his grasp. Where did he go wrong?
By Harry Lambert"
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/conservatives/2022/08/why-rishi-sunak-failed
[You can read a few articles for free by registering which is how I read it].
https://mubi.com/films/the-woman-with-a-knife?utm_source=app_share&utm_medium=android
https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-wake-in-fright-1971-online
Pretty good considering it's done by a computer which has never seen Stockport Viaduct.
Oddly wobbly and vague. Like Stockport viaduct in a dream.
The program I was using (craiyon) seems woeful at faces. Give it a landscape to do and it's a bit better.
Take the forgotten towns, in Ohio or Pennsylvania or wherever.
They are stuck in a cycle: businesses leave because of China or automation or private equity owners or just simple bad luck or bad management.
This means there are no jobs, so people leave.
Those that remain are the old and those who cannot afford to go elsewhere.
And the tax base of the city has been screwed, because the major business left. But it still has to pay pensions to retired police, firefighters, etc.
Taxes rise to meet obligations, which discourages people from moving in. While schools are starved of resources, because the tax base has shrunk, but the spending obligations to retirees remain.
Ambitious parents leave, and those that stay see their children get terrible educations
"The average life expectancy in the United States has been on a decline since 2014. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites three main reasons: a 72% increase in overdoses in the last decade (including a 30% increase in opioid overdoses from July 2016 to September 2017, but did not differentiate between accidental overdose with a legal prescription and overdose with opioids obtained illegally and/or combined with illegal drugs i.e., heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, etc.), a ten-year increase in liver disease (the rate for men age 25 to 34 increased by 8% per year; for women, by 11% per year), and a 33% increase in suicide rates since 1999."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
As did the fertility rate. (The rate was, for two years during the George W. Bush presidency, 2006 and 2007, above replacement rate. I don't know of any other industrial nations for which that is true, since 2000.)
Obama did almost nothing about China's predatory trade policies.
If any of these problems even interested Obama, he hid his interest well.
Moreover, Obama's allies worsened race relations, and his administration provoked abortion controversies. You don't make Al Sharpton an ally if you want to improve race relations, and you don't pick a fight with the Little Sisters of the Poor, if you are looking for some middle ground on abortion.
Obligatory disclaimer: Trump has no solutions to any of these problems, and no interest in doing the hard work of finding solutions.
These people feel the Federal government has abandoned them.
And the people of Texas and Arizona and California don't want to send cash to Ohio. It's like the Eurozone crisis, but playing out in thousands of small municipalities across the US.
And then there are the opiates. People without hope, looking for escape.
There are no easy answers.
ETA Too many graduates? Something odd is going on.
Betfair next prime minister
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
16.5 Rishi Sunak 6%
Next Conservative leader
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
17.5 Rishi Sunak 6%
Two thirds of people with mild Covid-19 are still infectious five days after their symptoms begin, according to a study.
The research revealed people spread the virus for longer than previously thought, contrary to NHS guidance which states “many will no longer be infectious to others after five days”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/covid-infections-study-increases-calls-for-masks-vrbcjcr8t (£££)
Fears of winter crisis amid 160,000 vacancies in the sector
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/overseas-hiring-spree-to-bail-out-care-homes-rl2wbb2s9 (£££)
Sky TV drama about the government during the first Covid wave with Ken Branagh as Boris.
Trailer @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl8PolKlg5U
Doctors to have a 10 per cent pay cut — Liz hates @Foxy
Patients to be charged to see doctors
The Royal Navy to lose two aircraft carriers
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19553769/liz-truss-charge-patients-doctor-defence-cuts/
Brampton Manor Academy in one of London's poorest boroughs sees 430 students achieve straight A* or As
85 pupils secured places at Oxford or Cambridge universities - with 470 going to a Russell Group institution
School in Newham has now sent nearly 300 students to Oxbridge in just a decade since it opened sixth form
This year's figure for Oxbridge of 85 was a significant rise on the 55 offers received in 2021 and 51 in 2020
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124035/East-End-Eton-Brampton-Manor-Academy-sees-nearly-90-level-students-getting-A.html
A bit like a 'grammar school'.
https://www.bramptoncollege.com/admissions/
But yes, if you filter out pupils who do not want to be in school at all, and then pick the most academic of those, the sausage is halfway made but it is still doing something right if it scores more Oxbridge places than Eton.
Aggressive targeting, perhaps. One chap once told me he got people through DofE awards by carefully tailoring programmes to people rather than sending massive cohorts through one-size-fits-all expeditions.
And the power of example. The kids can see what is possible if it has been done before. No longer is there a sense that university is "not for the likes of us".
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11125441/Apple-warns-security-flaw-iPhones-iPads-Macs.html
The difference today, is that this one is actually in Russia, 30km from the Ukranian border near Kharkiv.
https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1560384840066895874
Explosions reported at another Crimean airbase too, this one near Sevastopol.
It's just as likely that the west decides someone so dangerous has to be resisted.
And just as pertinently, China does not appreciate reckless gambles from its allies, either.
But yes, outside a few small petro-states, UK (and USA) is pretty high up the list of countries by number of immigrants - as witnessed by the 6m permanent visas given to EU citizens a couple of years ago.
Most of the nurses out here are Filipinas by the way, lovely people. Philippines is top of the inverse of the list above, they have more of their citizens working overseas than anywhere else. Their largest source of foreign currency is ‘remittances’ from overseas workers to their families.
Somewhere like Peter Symonds College in Winchester typically applies a 5 C's at GCSE admission policy, and gets very good Oxbridge offers, something like 60 in an average year. But it is in an affluent area with very high house prices (Winchester).
And no, Mr Putin, absolutely no-one believes you when you say that the Ukranians are going to cause an ‘accident’ at their own power station. Any ‘problems’ at Zaporizhzhya are entirely on Russia.
No one objects to selection focused on particular subjects at age 18 to go to University, it is selection at age 11 to cover all subjects that is the problem.
To be fair to them they are quite hot on their tech updates with regular updates re changes to WhatsApp etc.
It is also a problem for our very own Tory party where the activist are choosing the person least likely to appeal to the wider electorate.
A lot of students went there from public schools for sixth form for a variety of reasons - it was better, and rightfully had the reputation, than their private schools at getting students into top universities, the students wanted a transition between boarding school life and university life, they had been asked to leave their private schools once GCSEs were done…
Most of the people I knew there were from wealthy families and it was a back door to top universities. Very good school and if you think that Oxbridge etc are actively reducing places offered to public schools then a very good switcheroo to send your kids there for sixth form after three years elsewhere.
Not, of course, that he can resist a lawful subpoena.
* though this may be changed, there is a ballot on industrial action shortly, almost certain to endorse rejecting the government's offer, and hence a strike.
https://turingcomplete.game
Retail sales volumes rose slightly by 0.3% in July 2022 following a fall of 0.2% in June 2022.
Retail remains 2.3% above its pre-pandemic level http://ow.ly/aAlL50KnA8c
People not feeling the need to tighten their belts.
And it's now 6 or above, not B or above.
I don't think the intake has changed much since my day.
And yes, I can create basic binary arithmetic circuits.
But now think about the complexities involved in creating storage. Or doing timings. How do you ensure that your cascade of transistors have finished before the next clock cycle starts?
The ONS did mention that alcohol, tobacco, clothes and household goods all fell. This would suggest to me that discretionary spending is down.
The (to my thinking rather lenient) jail term of 5 months reportedly results from the refusal to cooperate with the investigation into Trump himself. He's saved himself a decades long (in his case effectively life) jail term by testifying against the company.
...Weisselberg, who is seen as one of Mr Trump's most loyal business associates, worked for the former president for almost 50 years. He left his job as chief financial officer which he had held since 2005 when he was arrested last year.
The Trump Organization is also a defendant in this case and its lawyers have entered a not guilty plea.
Weisselberg must now testify against the company at a criminal trial later this year, after agreeing to a plea deal that was first reported by The New York Times.
But he refused to co-operate with prosecutors in their wider investigation into Donald Trump and his business practices, reports say....
🥛 Two-pint carton of milk in Morrisons 📈 56%
🫘 Own-label baked beans 📈 50%
🍞 White Hovis loaf in Tesco 📈 21%
☕️ Nescafe instant coffee in Asda 📈 50%
See the full list here ⤵️ https://t.co/Zji2P7cxUb
To be honest, that discretionary spending isn’t falling off a cliff should be a big concern.
Of course, the media don’t see it like that. They want the story to be “people are feeling the squeeze and spending less.” They don’t like asking “well why aren’t people saving ahead of the huge energy price rises?”
But somewhere like Greenhead College in Kirklees, which is neither in an affluent area nor selective, also gets very good results.
Well run large sixth form colleges work.
@NewStatesman. https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/08/liz-truss-power-state-relieve-living-standards-emergency
Creep was fifth on my Spotify Top Songs of 2021.
Only behind "The Seeker", "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep", "All the Young Dudes" and "Layla"
Creep is THAT good.
Saying it will crowd out everything else is as ridiculous as saying American action painting will mark the end of the portrait.
So to work out how to stop people voting for Trump means to work out how to stop people voting Republican.
A few years ago Steve Furber (co-designer of the ARM chip) and his group at Manchester University created Amulet, an asynchronous chip with no main clock signal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMULET_microprocessor
Almost everyone (including us) came from the feeder Comprehensives locally. There were a couple from private schools, but no one that I knew had a title etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaXFc4Zb78s