Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
If education doesn't deserve tax advantages what charitable activity does? Aren't there something like 100,000 charities in the UK? How many of them would pass muster with Ed's inquisitors? But I don't expect Ed to crack down on other charities that don't deserve the name.
And some of them are tax wheezes. Labour wouldn't even like a clampdown on those.
To be honest, I don't really like tax exemptions, so I'm not opposed in principle to more organisations paying taxes they currently avoid. But Labour's plan to tax public schools has little to do with the money, and more to do with Labour's prejudices that everybody must have the same education, and that the state knows best. If they were really bothered about the potential abuse of charitable status they'd be casting the net much wider.
Labour wants everyone to have the same bad education. Does not matter how good or bad it is but that all have the same. The triumph of mediocrity.
Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
If education doesn't deserve tax advantages what charitable activity does? Aren't there something like 100,000 charities in the UK? How many of them would pass muster with Ed's inquisitors? But I don't expect Ed to crack down on other charities that don't deserve the name.
And some of them are tax wheezes. Labour wouldn't even like a clampdown on those.
Indeed, I cannot help but wonder at Gordon Brown's charity.
Where would the world be without it.
I'm pretty sure Labour would not close down those dubious Islamic "charities" so beloved of their imported vote. And ISIL.
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
If education doesn't deserve tax advantages what charitable activity does? Aren't there something like 100,000 charities in the UK? How many of them would pass muster with Ed's inquisitors? But I don't expect Ed to crack down on other charities that don't deserve the name.
And some of them are tax wheezes. Labour wouldn't even like a clampdown on those.
To be honest, I don't really like tax exemptions, so I'm not opposed in principle to more organisations paying taxes they currently avoid. But Labour's plan to tax public schools has little to do with the money, and more to do with Labour's prejudices that everybody must have the same education, and that the state knows best. If they were really bothered about the potential abuse of charitable status they'd be casting the net much wider.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I vividly remember my first day at secondary school. The rector and principal teachers, all robed and hooded sat on the stage while he addressed us. He told 130 little 11 and 12 year olds that our presence in the hall that day was no accident and that we had a duty to count among the leaders of country when the time came and then reeled off the name of lots of famous old boys. It is one of our old boys Lord Smith of Kelvin who is presently determining the future of Scotland.
As others have said, our school encouraged us to recognise the privileged position we had (academic not necessarily financial as we accepted lots of very bright boys from economically poor backgrounds) and give as much back to the inner city community which surrounded our school. I well remember the endless concerts I sang in for groups of elderly ladies while I was still a boy treble and later as a tenor.
However when Vince Cable and his pals in the ruling Labour group on Glasgow Corporation effectively abolished all the grant aided private schools out of class spite, at a stroke thousands of boys in future generations were deprived of one of the finest educations in Scotland and alas now my school is no more than a hole in the ground soon to be filled in with a new Glasgow college.
last time around (2010) I found a lot of the betting value to be gained was in individual constituencies - some of which with the LD strength at the time had the potential for some brilliant dutches if you just concentrated on the '2 most likely' parties in each constituency . Doesn't seem to be quite quite so clear cut yet with 6 months to go . hopefully constituency odds will begin to diverge the nearer we get to polling day and the more uncertain things appear and the more bookies try to gain a competitve advantage
Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
Eccentricity is not moderated by the passage of time! But in the absence of a general education system it must have made more sense.
Education is not an eccentricity.
But in any case eccentricity over a long period of time seems to me to be the essence of England!
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
The teachers?
There was nothing they could do about unruly pupils/students. So everyone had to put up with them.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
Okay an OT technical question - I've bought a laptop with Windows 8.1 on it and HATE IT. Most of my favourite apps won't work either and it can't talk to my TV using Windows Media Player. Oh and DivX streaming doesn't like it either which is a complete bastard as that's my primary system for everything video wise.
Rant over - I want to turn back time and install Windows 7 instead - I've been all over the net and it looks very messy as the file systems are different, trying to write over W8 is awkward and a bunch of other stuff. Has anyone tried to do this?
I'm assuming that I can somehow intercept the W8.1 boot up and then change the file properties/other stuff I've read about. It's been a very long time since I did this and software wasn't half as clever. I'm downloading the all singing version of Windows 7 now so I can rebuild my hard drive - but am nervous about gutting the whole thing within 72hrs of buying it!
If I ghost my other laptop that runs on Windows 7 - and ghost my new one - does that seem adequate insurance against a horrible screw up? I basically want to clone one laptop to another. I'm intending to make an exhaustive list of the drivers so I don't end up with a brick with W7 on it, with no working USB or touchpad or whatever.
Any technical help greately appreciated. I'm so frustrated with W8 that I've installed a copycat shell of XP as that's less annoying. I haven't used XP in a decade but it's still better.
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour lead drops to one point: CON 32%, LAB 33%, LD 7%, UKIP 16%, GRN 6%
The big news is 25% supporting either UKIP, Green or SNP compared to about 5% in 2010.
I am not a supporter of anyone which I guess makes me an impartial observer. Expect the vote share outside the big two to grow in the next few years as people like me who earn less than the 40% tax band realise that we get fucked over by both the big two parties.
They are now realising all the can expect from voting labour or conservative is a falling level of living. Will voting elsewhere help? Probably not but they will at least give it a go as they really at this point have so little to lose.
Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
If education doesn't deserve tax advantages what charitable activity does? Aren't there something like 100,000 charities in the UK? How many of them would pass muster with Ed's inquisitors? But I don't expect Ed to crack down on other charities that don't deserve the name.
And some of them are tax wheezes. Labour wouldn't even like a clampdown on those.
To be honest, I don't really like tax exemptions, so I'm not opposed in principle to more organisations paying taxes they currently avoid. But Labour's plan to tax public schools has little to do with the money, and more to do with Labour's prejudices that everybody must have the same education, and that the state knows best. If they were really bothered about the potential abuse of charitable status they'd be casting the net much wider.
So the Labour bounce yesterday lasted all of a day and they are still 2 points away from that crucial 35%. UKIP down 2 and Tories up 2 shows all that has happened is Tories have moved to UKIP and now back again
Can we really say that? Do polls really show anything, certainly anything so neat? I speculate that if anything they show that the electorate have the attention span of a goldfish and that the obsessives that obsess to each other obsessivly about what obsesses them are the ones out of touch not the polititians. Does flaggate klassgate mellorgate matter anymore to them than say tingtonggate ?
They might track a general mood, but day to day public opinion? Surely not. At the heart of an opinion poll is a fatuous question. There is not a general election tomorrow. Its in 6 months... after a financiial statement and a budget.
Everything is interconnected in this world, with protest parties gaining everywhere and governments being kicked out everywhere too - Podemos in Spain now in the lead in the latest opinion polls:
They should've gone to my school in that case - it was Do or Die every day - if you forgot a text book - you stood on a chair to be shamed about your lack of commitment and professionalism.
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I think the benefit of any education is in direct proportion to the effort you put into it as a student. Education should get the best out of everybody no matter what the ability. Everyone should work equally hard. The less able have most to gain proportionately I think from that but ultimately I do not think we should be surprised if the most able do the best in life.
Of course people can do well without an education. You just have to be somewhat sociopathic, say a successful criminal, or barrow boys in the business of oooh commodity trading.
They should've gone to my school in that case - it was Do or Die every day - if you forgot a text book - you stood on a chair to be shamed about your lack of commitment and professionalism.
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
In my school the each year was divided into 6 classes
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
The security services are out of control egged on by the current home secretary. You are surprised therefor that the mp's they brief are clueless?
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
Where I work we use similar algorithms. You then need to analyse and investigate the results and for certain matters we are under a legal obligation to make reports to the authorities.
The ISPs could do the same but it would take money and resources.
If someone was to grab the EU by the scruff of its neck they would be able to have a showdown over this sort of thing and force France to back down. It might need some leader with the charisma and cross-European appeal to win a genuine democratic mandate, for example. That's roughly the way in which the veto power of the House of Lords was broken in the British political system, for example.
They can't have a leader with charisma and cross-European appeal to win a genuine democratic mandate yet, because the member states would veto them rather than give the power away. They need a few cycles with the kind of technocratic fixers the member states would want to pick anyway to entrench the precedent that the candidate of the winning party gets the job.
Even then, I'm not sure they could bully an independent member state into giving up something symbolic like that. It's more likely that they'll make some kind of procedural workaround so that they don't have to go to Strasbourg any more, like sending one lonely bloke down there to bang a gavel while everyone else "attends" the session remotely from Brussels...
Okay an OT technical question - I've bought a laptop with Windows 8.1 on it and HATE IT. Most of my favourite apps won't work either and it can't talk to my TV using Windows Media Player. Oh and DivX streaming doesn't like it either which is a complete bastard as that's my primary system for everything video wise.
Rant over - I want to turn back time and install Windows 7 instead - I've been all over the net and it looks very messy as the file systems are different, trying to write over W8 is awkward and a bunch of other stuff. Has anyone tried to do this?
I'm assuming that I can somehow intercept the W8.1 boot up and then change the file properties/other stuff I've read about. It's been a very long time since I did this and software wasn't half as clever. I'm downloading the all singing version of Windows 7 now so I can rebuild my hard drive - but am nervous about gutting the whole thing within 72hrs of buying it!
If I ghost my other laptop that runs on Windows 7 - and ghost my new one - does that seem adequate insurance against a horrible screw up? I basically want to clone one laptop to another. I'm intending to make an exhaustive list of the drivers so I don't end up with a brick with W7 on it, with no working USB or touchpad or whatever.
Any technical help greately appreciated. I'm so frustrated with W8 that I've installed a copycat shell of XP as that's less annoying. I haven't used XP in a decade but it's still better.
ARGHHH.
I agree, my new work Laptop is Windows 8.1; I would happily switch it back to 7.
Private schools are part of the control system, whereby the high echelons teach some of the country's youth enough to be able to function as intermediate level servants, recruiting them into MI6/MI5, the church, the Army,Navy,RAF officer corps, and other positions where loyalty to the pyramid is always required, such as politics. High intelligence is not required, just blind loyalty. Think Owen Paterson, for example. http://tapnewswire.com/2014/11/owen-paterson-versus-theresa-may-at-last-the-expected-tory-splits-over-fracking/
Your years of paranoia should have been treated long ago.
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
Where I work we use similar algorithms. You then need to analyse and investigate the results and for certain matters we are under a legal obligation to make reports to the authorities.
The ISPs could do the same but it would take money and resources.
BTW Emily Maitlis is a useless interviewer.
The point exactly is it takes money and resources. Money and resources that the isp's then have to recoup from their customers that is just another tax on us all
I'm quite used to Microsoft releasing rubbish so always hang back a lot when they release their next nightmare - but I was thrown totally by how awful W8 is.
And the adverts masquerading as apps - Jeepers. I feel I'm fighting against those bloody moving/random windows and fiddling about trying to get a *charm* thingy in the top right corner to appear. Just give me an icon to click on!!!
My new laptop may be 3x as fast - but I was waiting 4x as long waiting for the graphics to finish moving about or wondering WTF is going on. I absolutely detest it. And trying to use a mouse is just so annoying - I don't want to be rubbing my fingers on the screen when I'm typing something else. It really feels like a messy confusion of W7 and an iPad.
I keep getting lost where I am and made the mistake of agreeing to allow MSoft to use my real name at one point - now it uses my name as my server title - No No No. And it's forced me to have a screen password???? And then texts me if I want to do anything as part of its bloody *protecting your privacy* protocol. So I have to have my mobile next to me to say I accept.
I really don't think it could be worse - but then I heard Vista was appalling - and ME was dreadful, so who knows!
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
If education doesn't deserve tax advantages what charitable activity does? Aren't there something like 100,000 charities in the UK? How many of them would pass muster with Ed's inquisitors? But I don't expect Ed to crack down on other charities that don't deserve the name.
And some of them are tax wheezes. Labour wouldn't even like a clampdown on those.
To be honest, I don't really like tax exemptions, so I'm not opposed in principle to more organisations paying taxes they currently avoid. But Labour's plan to tax public schools has little to do with the money, and more to do with Labour's prejudices that everybody must have the same education, and that the state knows best. If they were really bothered about the potential abuse of charitable status they'd be casting the net much wider.
Yes, how do animal charities benefit people?
They keep former MP's in funds until they can clamp themselves back onto the public teat of expenses.
I'm quite used to Microsoft releasing rubbish so always hang back a lot when they release their next nightmare - but iI thrown totally by how awful W8 is.
And the adverts masquerading as apps - Jeepers. I feel I'm fighting against those bloody moving/random windows and fiddling about trying to get a *charm* thingy in the top right corner to appear. Just give me an icon to click on!!!
My new laptop may be 3x as fast - but I was 4x a long waiting for the graphics to finish moving about or wondering WTF is going on. I absolutely detest it. And trying to use a mouse is just so annoying - I don't want to be rubbing my fingers on the screen when I'm typing something else. It really feels like a messy confusion of W7 and an iPad.
I keep getting lost where I am and made the mistake of agreeing to allow MSoft to use my real name at one point - now it uses my name as my server title - No No No. And it's forced me to have a screen password???? And then texts me if I want to do anything as part of its bloody *protecting your privacy* protocol. So I have to have my mobile next to me to say I accept.
I really don't think it could be worse - but then I heard Vista was appalling - and ME was dreadful, so who knows!
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
windows 8 is crap do not install it is the lesson here
I'm quite used to Microsoft releasing rubbish so always hang back a lot when they release their next nightmare - but I was thrown totally by how awful W8 is.
And the adverts masquerading as apps - Jeepers. I feel I'm fighting against those bloody moving/random windows and fiddling about trying to get a *charm* thingy in the top right corner to appear. Just give me an icon to click on!!!
My new laptop may be 3x as fast - but I was waiting 4x as long waiting for the graphics to finish moving about or wondering WTF is going on. I absolutely detest it. And trying to use a mouse is just so annoying - I don't want to be rubbing my fingers on the screen when I'm typing something else. It really feels like a messy confusion of W7 and an iPad.
I keep getting lost where I am and made the mistake of agreeing to allow MSoft to use my real name at one point - now it uses my name as my server title - No No No. And it's forced me to have a screen password???? And then texts me if I want to do anything as part of its bloody *protecting your privacy* protocol. So I have to have my mobile next to me to say I accept.
I really don't think it could be worse - but then I heard Vista was appalling - and ME was dreadful, so who knows!
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
Have you tried the update to 8.1? it supposedly undoes some of teh stupidity.
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
The security services are out of control egged on by the current home secretary. You are surprised therefor that the mp's they brief are clueless?
Absolutely. I had a rant about this to my local MP at a surgery she held, and she looked at me completely clueless as though I was from the planet Mars. Banging your head against a brick wall and all of that.
Pace NickPalmer's comment yesterday: the fact that schools have charitable status is not some recent "eccentricity" (as he put it). Education has been a charitable activity since the time of Queen Elizabeth the First.
If education doesn't deserve tax advantages what charitable activity does? Aren't there something like 100,000 charities in the UK? How many of them would pass muster with Ed's inquisitors? But I don't expect Ed to crack down on other charities that don't deserve the name.
The 'charity' sector is completely out of control. At a guess 35% or more, should lose their status. If the schools get walloped, might as well sort out the others too.
They should've gone to my school in that case - it was Do or Die every day - if you forgot a text book - you stood on a chair to be shamed about your lack of commitment and professionalism.
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
The problem with such a system, is that external drivers can never be as effective as internal ones. So many of those taught in such a method lose motivation as soon as that external control is removed.
As Cromwell realised: "I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else."
They should've gone to my school in that case - it was Do or Die every day - if you forgot a text book - you stood on a chair to be shamed about your lack of commitment and professionalism.
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
In my school the each year was divided into 6 classes
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour lead drops to one point: CON 32%, LAB 33%, LD 7%, UKIP 16%, GRN 6%
The big news is 25% supporting either UKIP, Green or SNP compared to about 5% in 2010.
I am not a supporter of anyone which I guess makes me an impartial observer. Expect the vote share outside the big two to grow in the next few years as people like me who earn less than the 40% tax band realise that we get fucked over by both the big two parties.
They are now realising all the can expect from voting labour or conservative is a falling level of living. Will voting elsewhere help? Probably not but they will at least give it a go as they really at this point have so little to lose.
Pretty stupid comment really. Tax thresholds have been raised and at the same time higher earners have had theirs lowered to make sure they do not benefit. You are just another spouting from prejudice and ignorance. Latest stats show inflation of the major staples either falling or stable and stuff like video games going up. So yours is a pretty poor definition of being 'done' over. The fact that you are so ignorant that you cannot find a decent reprintable word to coherently express your stupidity just emphasises how stupid you are.
And its a pretty pathetic (and of course highly dangerous) philosophy which has to rely on such crass hysteria to prop up its misbegotten message.
They should've gone to my school in that case - it was Do or Die every day - if you forgot a text book - you stood on a chair to be shamed about your lack of commitment and professionalism.
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of pupils, and the fact that everyone else was forced to spend large amounts of time in their "company" for many years. I'm talking about the sort of people who would have been sent to borstal a few years earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
The problem with such a system, is that external drivers can never be as effective as internal ones. So many of those taught in such a method lose motivation as soon as that external control is removed.
As Cromwell realised: "I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else."
The problem with that is internal drivers come from parents and upbringing and far to many parents don't give a shit about education in this country and therefore dont instill it in their children. This is why south east asians do so well. Their parents know what education is for just as my parents did
My grammar had three classes in each year, 1P, 1Q, 1R etc. Which led to the (then!) hilarious joke -- "Why are 1P called 1P? Cos that's what they're worth!"
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
Where I work we use similar algorithms. You then need to analyse and investigate the results and for certain matters we are under a legal obligation to make reports to the authorities.
The ISPs could do the same but it would take money and resources.
BTW Emily Maitlis is a useless interviewer.
The point exactly is it takes money and resources. Money and resources that the isp's then have to recoup from their customers that is just another tax on us all
Well, banks have to do it to detect insider dealing and money laundering. So it's reasonable to ask why ISPs shouldn't do the same for more serious offences.
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
The headline stretches things a bit.
Also, seasonal forecasts are probabilistic, not deterministic, so it's impossible to say whether an individual forecast is wrong or right in the way that you can with a forecast of a cyclone track - such as the excellent forecast four days ahead of the St Jude's day storm, for example.
The Met Office is a genuine British success story, better than any of the other national met services, even the Yanks.
Your criticism in this case betrays only your own ignorance.
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
The headline stretches things a bit.
Also, seasonal forecasts are probabilistic, not deterministic, so it's impossible to say whether an individual forecast is wrong or right in the way that you can with a forecast of a cyclone track - such as the excellent forecast four days ahead of the St Jude's day storm, for example.
The Met Office is a genuine British success story, better than any of the other national met services, even the Yanks.
Your criticism in this case betrays only your own ignorance.
From an organisation that predicted a barbecue summer for the washout in the summer of 2012, and forecast last winter to be drier than average. Also they forecast a warmer than average winter for 2010/11 when we had the coldest December for 100 years in 2010. I could point to many other examples, you're clearly the ignorant one, not me!
The Express asks ''Asked which party was most in touch with the views of white working class people, 27 per cent of people named Ukip compared to 21 per cent who pointed to Labour.'' Any surprise that the ting tong party should win that competition?
Everything is interconnected in this world, with protest parties gaining everywhere and governments being kicked out everywhere too - Podemos in Spain now in the lead in the latest opinion polls:
I had W8.1 installed when it arrived - but it's not Pro so I can't roll back to W7 without buying a licence - well that's not going to happen.
Windows Media Player doesn't work - and I've got 2.5k tracks all categorised and autoplaylisted so I can't swap it out without weeks of work. And it can't talk to my multi-media Smart TV and it doesn't have any DVD player or RW features unless I spend ANOTHER £99 to buy their bog standard Media Centre Pack.
Oh and no idea editing video editing SW, or graphic equaliser or or or or or.
It's appalling. I've checked out the returns policy and can send it back - but there are so few W7 laptops about now new that they cost a bomb, I don't think it's much of an option. I may as well wash my hard disk and start again even if it takes me 3 days to do it. If all else fails and I brick the HD, I'll buy a new HD and just start again - like my own OEM. I'll have bust the warranty way before then so have nothing to lose!!
I can't believe I've spent £500 on something so crap that I'm basically using it for spares with 72 hrs.
I'm quite used to Microsoft releasing rubbish so always hang back a lot when they release their next nightmare - but I was thrown totally by how awful W8 is.
And the adverts masquerading as apps - Jeepers. I feel I'm fighting against those bloody moving/random windows and fiddling about trying to get a *charm* thingy in the top right corner to appear. Just give me an icon to click on!!!
My new laptop may be 3x as fast - but I was waiting 4x as long waiting for the graphics to finish moving about or wondering WTF is going on. I absolutely detest it. And trying to use a mouse is just so annoying - I don't want to be rubbing my fingers on the screen when I'm typing something else. It really feels like a messy confusion of W7 and an iPad.
I keep getting lost where I am and made the mistake of agreeing to allow MSoft to use my real name at one point - now it uses my name as my server title - No No No. And it's forced me to have a screen password???? And then texts me if I want to do anything as part of its bloody *protecting your privacy* protocol. So I have to have my mobile next to me to say I accept.
I really don't think it could be worse - but then I heard Vista was appalling - and ME was dreadful, so who knows!
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
Have you tried the update to 8.1? it supposedly undoes some of teh stupidity.
Everything is interconnected in this world, with protest parties gaining everywhere and governments being kicked out everywhere too - Podemos in Spain now in the lead in the latest opinion polls:
The Express asks ''Asked which party was most in touch with the views of white working class people, 27 per cent of people named Ukip compared to 21 per cent who pointed to Labour.'' Any surprise that the ting tong party should win that competition?
What did the Tory-boy party score with that question?
I had W8.1 installed when it arrived - but it's not Pro so I can't roll back to W7 without buying a licence - well that's not going to happen.
Windows Media Player doesn't work - and I've got 2.5k tracks all categorised and autoplaylisted so I can't swap it out without weeks of work. And it can't talk to my multi-media Smart TV and it doesn't have any DVD player or RW features unless I spend ANOTHER £99 to buy their bog standard Media Centre Pack.
Oh and no idea editing video editing SW, or graphic equaliser or or or or or.
It's appalling. I've checked out the returns policy and can send it back - but there are so few W7 laptops about now new that they cost a bomb, I don't think it's much of an option. I may as well wash my hard disk and start again even if it takes me 3 days to do it. If all else fails and I brick the HD, I'll buy a new HD and just start again - like my own OEM. I'll have bust the warranty way before then so have nothing to lose!!
I can't believe I've spent £500 on something so crap that I'm basically using it for spares with 72 hrs.
I'm quite used to Microsoft releasing rubbish so always hang back a lot when they release their next nightmare - but I was thrown totally by how awful W8 is.
And the adverts masquerading as apps - Jeepers. I feel I'm fighting against those bloody moving/random windows and fiddling about trying to get a *charm* thingy in the top right corner to appear. Just give me an icon to click on!!!
My new laptop may be 3x as fast - but I was waiting 4x as long waiting for the graphics to finish moving about or wondering WTF is going on. I absolutely detest it. And trying to use a mouse is just so annoying - I don't want to be rubbing my fingers on the screen when I'm typing something else. It really feels like a messy confusion of W7 and an iPad.
I keep getting lost where I am and made the mistake of agreeing to allow MSoft to use my real name at one point - now it uses my name as my server title - No No No. And it's forced me to have a screen password???? And then texts me if I want to do anything as part of its bloody *protecting your privacy* protocol. So I have to have my mobile next to me to say I accept.
I really don't think it could be worse - but then I heard Vista was appalling - and ME was dreadful, so who knows!
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
Have you tried the update to 8.1? it supposedly undoes some of teh stupidity.
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
Where I work we use similar algorithms. You then need to analyse and investigate the results and for certain matters we are under a legal obligation to make reports to the authorities.
The ISPs could do the same but it would take money and resources.
BTW Emily Maitlis is a useless interviewer.
The point exactly is it takes money and resources. Money and resources that the isp's then have to recoup from their customers that is just another tax on us all
Well, banks have to do it to detect insider dealing and money laundering. So it's reasonable to ask why ISPs shouldn't do the same for more serious offences.
That is the wrong answer. Why should banks have to do it at all for most customers. I have this problem all the time these days even for seeing a solicitor. I do not have a current passport and my driving license is of the old paper variety. "oh we dont know who you are and you might be a money launderer" is the response when I am trying to consult on a redundancy agreement which the law says I can only accept after getting legal advice which the company had to pay for.
Banks and solicitors probably have an inkling which people are wanting to launder money. The government doesn;'t have to inflict the rest of us with that shit
They should've gone to my school in that case - it was Do or Die every day - if you forgot a text book - you stood on a chair to be shamed about your lack of commitment and professionalism.
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I've spent most of today thinking about what the biggest benefit of having a private education was for me.
It isn't a brilliant understanding and knowledge of history, but it was giving a lot of self confidence in oneself.
I went to a comprehensive school and I'd say I came out of the place with significantly less confidence than I had when I started, mainly thanks to the atrocious behaviour of a small minority of earlier.
I came out of a Comp with plenty of confidence, and a great deal of self reliance. It did me no harm at all in learning how to work with with people with very different world views to my own family. There is a lot more to education than the academic side, and I learned plenty of life skills.
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
The problem with such a system, is that external drivers can never be as effective as internal ones. So many of those taught in such a method lose motivation as soon as that external control is removed.
As Cromwell realised: "I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else."
The problem with that is internal drivers come from parents and upbringing and far to many parents don't give a shit about education in this country and therefore dont instill it in their children. This is why south east asians do so well. Their parents know what education is for just as my parents did
I agree. My family culture was one that valued education, and hard work.
The protestant work ethic is an endangered species in this country. Plenty of people want to be rich, but they do not see why they should have to work for it. True of education, but also of much else.
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
The headline stretches things a bit.
Also, seasonal forecasts are probabilistic, not deterministic, so it's impossible to say whether an individual forecast is wrong or right in the way that you can with a forecast of a cyclone track - such as the excellent forecast four days ahead of the St Jude's day storm, for example.
The Met Office is a genuine British success story, better than any of the other national met services, even the Yanks.
Your criticism in this case betrays only your own ignorance.
From an organisation that predicted a barbecue summer for the washout in the summer of 2012, and forecast last winter to be drier than average. Also they forecast a warmer than average winter for 2010/11 when we had the coldest December for 100 years in 2010. I could point to many other examples, you're clearly the ignorant one, not me!
You are talking solely about seasonal forecasts, which are new, experimental, and therefore not very good. But if you want to get good at something you have to keep trying while you are rubbish, so that you can get better.
There were people like you naysaying at Admiral FitzRoy when he started the Met Office up in the 19th century. Now they can make excellent forecasts four or five days ahead. The frost on Monday morning, for example, was clearly forecast on Thursday. Similarly, about a year ago, the Met Office made excellent forecasts of the path of the tropical cyclone that hit the Philippines.
I remember seeing a Met Office forecast for snow in London a few years ago which even managed to get right that it would snow north of the river, but not to the south!
As a point of pedantic accuracy on the famous "barbecue summer" forecast, the actual forecast was for it to be warmer than average. That summer was, just barely, warmer than average. Where the Met Office went wrong was in putting a bit of absurd spin on their own forecast.
Everyone makes mistakes, and the Met Office appear to be a lot more cautious about their seasonal forecasts, apparently learning from theirs.
Do you learn from your mistakes?
Are you making a prediction about this winter's weather that you can check after the event, or are you more a "forward-looking person" when it comes to being self-critical about past errors?
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
The "mini ice age" was not caused by a change in the jetstream...
The reason the forecaster expects the change in the jetstream is because... the computer models are predicting that to happen. Duh.
Admitting to uncertainty is not the same as admitting to a complete lack of ability. Your ignorance extends to the English language too!
Back in about 1994 I worked for Mercury Comms and there was a really weird apartheid - managers had Macs and staff had PCs.
Unfortunately, Macs were effing awful [OS2 or something] and crashed 15x a day. Every day. And they couldn't sync on the network with the PCs and their documents wouldn't open.
So I used to write a document, then print it off 50x and walk it from one desk to another to send a memo to my own team.
It was ridiculous. Given I worked for a telecoms firm - that we couldn't even get one network to talk to another was just unbelievable. It was the same when I joined BT in 96, same issues again. Thankfully, they binned the Macs.
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
The headline stretches things a bit.
Also, seasonal forecasts are probabilistic, not deterministic, so it's impossible to say whether an individual forecast is wrong or right in the way that you can with a forecast of a cyclone track - such as the excellent forecast four days ahead of the St Jude's day storm, for example.
The Met Office is a genuine British success story, better than any of the other national met services, even the Yanks.
Your criticism in this case betrays only your own ignorance.
From an organisation that predicted a barbecue summer for the washout in the summer of 2012, and forecast last winter to be drier than average. Also they forecast a warmer than average winter for 2010/11 when we had the coldest December for 100 years in 2010. I could point to many other examples, you're clearly the ignorant one, not me!
You are talking
Do you learn from your mistakes?
Are you making a prediction about this winter's weather that you can check after the event, or are you more a "forward-looking person" when it comes to being self-critical about past errors?
I hope I learn from my mistakes! Its insane repeating making the same mistakes and expecting different outcomes. Met Office are ok for around 4 days, but anything longer than that and they go off course. Look at Piers Corbyn and weatheraction.com - they've made some stunning long term forecast predictions based on their Solar Lunar Action Technique (SLAT) which gives them around an independently verified 80% forecast success rate. They're predicting a snowy colder than average winter - lets see who's correct come March - the Met Office or weatheraction - I'd put my money on the latter any day of the week thankyou.
Also, seasonal forecasts are probabilistic, not deterministic, so it's impossible to say whether an individual forecast is wrong or right in the way that you can with a forecast of a cyclone track - such as the excellent forecast four days ahead of the St Jude's day storm, for example.
The Met Office is a genuine British success story, better than any of the other national met services, even the Yanks.
Your criticism in this case betrays only your own ignorance.
From an organisation that predicted a barbecue summer for the washout in the summer of 2012, and forecast last winter to be drier than average. Also they forecast a warmer than average winter for 2010/11 when we had the coldest December for 100 years in 2010. I could point to many other examples, you're clearly the ignorant one, not me!You are talking solely about seasonal forecasts, which are new, experimental, and therefore not very good. But if you want to get good at something you have to keep trying while you are rubbish, so that you can get better.
There were people like you naysaying at Admiral FitzRoy when he started the Met Office up in the 19th century. Now they can make excellent forecasts four or five days ahead. The frost on Monday morning, for example, was clearly forecast on Thursday. Similarly, about a year ago, the Met Office made excellent forecasts of the path of the tropical cyclone that hit the Philippines.
I remember seeing a Met Office forecast for snow in London a few years ago which even managed to get right that it would snow north of the river, but not to the south!
As a point of pedantic accuracy on the famous "barbecue summer" forecast, the actual forecast was for it to be warmer than average. That summer was, just barely, warmer than average. Where the Met Office went wrong was in putting a bit of absurd spin on their own forecast.
Everyone makes mistakes, and the Met Office appear to be a lot more cautious about their seasonal forecasts, apparently learning from theirs.
Do you learn from your mistakes?
Are you making a prediction about this winter's weather that you can check after the event, or are you more a "forward-looking person" when it comes to being self-critical about past errors?
I would agree with you except for one small point. You can easily exceed the met office prediction accuracy of weather simply by predicting rain every day. When your forecasts with all that equipment can be beaten that easily then frankly I think you have a bit of a cheek asserting yourself as a scientific body
Off to bed now, but just to leave you with a view of hunchman's "mini-ice age". This year is on track to be a record for Central England. See if you can guess in which direction...?
Chris Hopson CEO FTN (@ChrisCEOHopson) 20/11/2014 13:44 Look what my mum found - we think it was given to my dad when he left the Navy in 1948. Love the words at the bottom! pic.twitter.com/C1FzC132EX
Apologies to people by the way if I seem grumpier than usual but I have some reasons for being so amongst them that I have to web browse from this piece of crap pc
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
The "mini ice age" was not caused by a change in the jetstream...
The reason the forecaster expects the change in the jetstream is because... the computer models are predicting that to happen. Duh.
Admitting to uncertainty is not the same as admitting to a complete lack of ability. Your ignorance extends to the English language too!
Mini Ice Age (MIA) has a jet stream that becomes increasingly long with north to south kinks, rather than east to west flow, but its primarily caused by relative solar inactivity. You get some warm events with it like the warm period at the end of October in the UK, but you get many more cold events such as the recent weather in the US. The current solar cycle 25 is much weaker than previous cycles, as we're heading for a very inactive sun over the next 20-25 years that is forseeable (2 solar cycles of 11 years) on a larger 300 year cycle. Maunder minimum was very cold from 1640-1715, looks like we're headed for something similar which is not good news for world agriculture.
Off to bed now, but just to leave you with a view of hunchman's "mini-ice age". This year is on track to be a record for Central England. See if you can guess in which direction...?
Off to bed now, but just to leave you with a view of hunchman's "mini-ice age". This year is on track to be a record for Central England. See if you can guess in which direction...?
That's widely discredited boll*x data.
Oblitus believes in AGW you will not persuade a true believer in the faith no more than you could convinve Nabavi of the evils of internet monitoring. They have unshakeable faith
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
Weird seeing somebody on this site not getting this. Sometimes things happen on a reasonably regular pattern, so you can watch what happens and predict them reasonably well. But sometimes something new happens, and you don't have enough precedents to work with. UKIP took a chunk off the Tories. Then they took a chunk off Labour. Will those voters go back to their respective parties in 2015? Or just the Tory ones? Or just the Labour ones? Or mainly in marginals? We can guess, but anybody who confidently predicts the answer to that hasn't understood the question.
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
Weird seeing somebody on this site not getting this. Sometimes things happen on a reasonably regular pattern, so you can watch what happens and predict them reasonably well. But sometimes something new happens, and you don't have enough precedents to work with. UKIP took a chunk off the Tories. Then they took a chunk off Labour. Will those voters go back to their respective parties in 2015? Or just the Tory ones? Or just the Labour ones? Or mainly in marginals? We can guess, but anybody who confidently predicts the answer to that hasn't understood the question.
There is one huge hole in this argument. AGW advocates tell us that the science is settled therefor long term weather forecasts should be easy as they know all the science behind climate and weather. Of course we know they are talking shadow chancellors but some still feel the need to defend a science that cannot predict the past let alone the future. Much like astrology really
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
Weird seeing somebody on this site not getting this. Sometimes things happen on a reasonably regular pattern, so you can watch what happens and predict them reasonably well. But sometimes something new happens, and you don't have enough precedents to work with. UKIP took a chunk off the Tories. Then they took a chunk off Labour. Will those voters go back to their respective parties in 2015? Or just the Tory ones? Or just the Labour ones? Or mainly in marginals? We can guess, but anybody who confidently predicts the answer to that hasn't understood the question.
There is one huge hole in this argument. AGW advocates tell us that the science is settled therefor long term weather forecasts should be easy as they know all the science behind climate and weather. Of course we know they are talking shadow chancellors but some still feel the need to defend a science that cannot predict the past let alone the future. Much like astrology really
No, nobody is saying they know all the science behind climate and weather.
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
Weird seeing somebody on this site not getting this. Sometimes things happen on a reasonably regular pattern, so you can watch what happens and predict them reasonably well. But sometimes something new happens, and you don't have enough precedents to work with. UKIP took a chunk off the Tories. Then they took a chunk off Labour. Will those voters go back to their respective parties in 2015? Or just the Tory ones? Or just the Labour ones? Or mainly in marginals? We can guess, but anybody who confidently predicts the answer to that hasn't understood the question.
There is one huge hole in this argument. AGW advocates tell us that the science is settled therefor long term weather forecasts should be easy as they know all the science behind climate and weather. Of course we know they are talking shadow chancellors but some still feel the need to defend a science that cannot predict the past let alone the future. Much like astrology really
No, nobody is saying they know all the science behind climate and weather.
Actually yes they are....we keep getting told the science is settled by the load at East anglia. The fact their grants depend on that belief is neither here nor there I guess. I write statiscal models for a living these days. Guess what if my models can't predict the past we know something is wrong with the code. If I write bad models I get sacked they cant write models that predict either the past nor the present let alone the future therefore we should have as little faith in them as we have in tea leaf readers or any other form of Cassandra
Weird seeing somebody on this site not getting this. Sometimes things happen on a reasonably regular pattern, so you can watch what happens and predict them reasonably well. But sometimes something new happens, and you don't have enough precedents to work with. UKIP took a chunk off the Tories. Then they took a chunk off Labour. Will those voters go back to their respective parties in 2015? Or just the Tory ones? Or just the Labour ones? Or mainly in marginals? We can guess, but anybody who confidently predicts the answer to that hasn't understood the question.
There is one huge hole in this argument. AGW advocates tell us that the science is settled therefor long term weather forecasts should be easy as they know all the science behind climate and weather. Of course we know they are talking shadow chancellors but some still feel the need to defend a science that cannot predict the past let alone the future. Much like astrology really
No, nobody is saying they know all the science behind climate and weather.
Actually yes they are....we keep getting told the science is settled by the load at East anglia. The fact their grants depend on that belief is neither here nor there I guess. I write statiscal models for a living these days. Guess what if my models can't predict the past we know something is wrong with the code. If I write bad models I get sacked they cant write models that predict either the past nor the present let alone the future therefore we should have as little faith in them as we have in tea leaf readers or any other form of Cassandra
It's possible to make a confident prediction about some of the things without being able to confidently predict all the things.
Assuming she runs, will Anna Soubry be reelected as an MP? Hard to say. David Cameron be reelected as an MP? Yes. Will particular voter John Smith in David Cameron's constituency vote for him? Also hard to say.
No, nobody is saying they know all the science behind climate and weather.
Actually yes they are....we keep getting told the science is settled by the load at East anglia. The fact their grants depend on that belief is neither here nor there I guess. I write statiscal models for a living these days. Guess what if my models can't predict the past we know something is wrong with the code. If I write bad models I get sacked they cant write models that predict either the past nor the present let alone the future therefore we should have as little faith in them as we have in tea leaf readers or any other form of Cassandra
It's possible to make a confident prediction about some of the things without being able to confidently predict all the things.
No it really isnt when they have so many unknowns. If a statisical model cannot even get near predicting the past which their models cannot then they have no f**king business confidently predicting the future.
They know little of how clouds affect climate.
They seem to have little idea about how solar forcing and solar cycles impact
As two examples
They cannot explain the present and why it has diverged from their model yet think we should spend billions based on their predictions of the future.
I agree climate change is happening, it always has.
I agree mankind is probably contributing to that to a greater or lesser degree.
Where I disagree is that they have a clue where its going or whether on the whole it will be a beneficial of malign change. These people really don't have the faintest clue and I cite the fact that they had to change the term "global warming" to "climate change" to illustrate that. They are no better than the snake oil sellers of the mid west of america. Time and again their predictions have proved to be bullshit. Why do supposedly intelligent people continue to support them is beyond me.
Spend money on research I heartily agree. But don't come around with your doomladen predictions till you have a model that can run forward from any arbitrary date we have sufficient data to use as a start point and accurately predict the steps along the way to now. When they have that I will consider listening to what they think will happen in the future. While they don't I will continue to consider them bull shitters who care more about grant money than anything else.
Rifkind sinking without trace on Newsnight. Happy to ignore the failings of the security services but delighted to be able to stick the boot in on the Internet providers even though he clearly doesn't have the first clue about how they work.
I watched him and do not agree with your assessment.
Where I work we use similar algorithms. You then need to analyse and investigate the results and for certain matters we are under a legal obligation to make reports to the authorities.
The ISPs could do the same but it would take money and resources.
BTW Emily Maitlis is a useless interviewer.
The point exactly is it takes money and resources. Money and resources that the isp's then have to recoup from their customers that is just another tax on us all
Well, banks have to do it to detect insider dealing and money laundering. So it's reasonable to ask why ISPs shouldn't do the same for more serious offences.
That is the wrong answer. Why should banks have to do it at all for most customers. I have this problem all the time these days even for seeing a solicitor. I do not have a current passport and my driving license is of the old paper variety. "oh we dont know who you are and you might be a money launderer" is the response when I am trying to consult on a redundancy agreement which the law says I can only accept after getting legal advice which the company had to pay for.
Banks and solicitors probably have an inkling which people are wanting to launder money. The government doesn;'t have to inflict the rest of us with that shit
In any case its technically illiteral. When you conduct a conversation on the social media, 99% of the time the data is encrypted between your browser and the social media provider with TLS or whatever, your ISP can't read it. The social media provider is sitting in the USA, where anyone handling that sort of data is operating under Title 512 of the DMCA, the Safe Harbor provisions, which state that if the company has knowledge of the information it becomes liable for it, so they take great pains to not be knowledgeable about it, hence the "buttons" for users to push. Saying that say Facebook is liable for what you post there is as idiotic as saying BT is liable for what you say on the telephone.
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
A typically ridiculous post from the type of right-wing nutjob that resides here.
The MetOffice is one of the few success stories we have in this country - the right-wing loony bias we have on this blog will instinctively dismiss their achievements...
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
The "mini ice age" was not caused by a change in the jetstream...
The reason the forecaster expects the change in the jetstream is because... the computer models are predicting that to happen. Duh.
Admitting to uncertainty is not the same as admitting to a complete lack of ability. Your ignorance extends to the English language too!
Of course they know why the jet stream changes direction. They change it themselves using HAARP technology, by lifting the ionosphere with energy beams. The jet stream rushes into the gap created, pulling weather at lower altitude to follow suit. This way Arctic weather can be delivered at the touch of a computer keyboard, or drought or torrential rain. http://tapnewswire.com/2014/06/haarp-is-being-used-to-make-you-think-global-climate-change-is-happening/
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
A typically ridiculous post from the type of right-wing nutjob that resides here.
The MetOffice is one of the few success stories we have in this country - the right-wing loony bias we have on this blog will instinctively dismiss their achievements...
PS - my winter forecast will be ready soon...
In fairness, I think it's a particular type of nutjob that you'll find on any blog.
The ability to forecast weather is one of humanities greatest achievements. We've gone from looking at the sky and having a vague idea of the likely weather over the next few hours, to being able to predict, with increasing accuracy, the weather a few days in advance.
That's pretty incredible given the complexity of it all.
The nutjobs would find fault with spending money on an earthquake predictor that was only 50% successful, because it was 50% unsuccessful.
It's quite interesting that 13% of the over 60's haven't had sex with the opposite gender. That really surprised me. It would be great to use this yougov as a resource in PSHE lessons for teenagers, to give them an accurate idea of what a normal sex life for an adult looks like. I'd hazard a guess that the reality is very different to what they imagine it to be.
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
The "mini ice age" was not caused by a change in the jetstream...
The reason the forecaster expects the change in the jetstream is because... the computer models are predicting that to happen. Duh.
Admitting to uncertainty is not the same as admitting to a complete lack of ability. Your ignorance extends to the English language too!
Of course they know why the jet stream changes direction. They change it themselves using HAARP technology, by lifting the ionosphere with energy beams. The jet stream rushes into the gap created, pulling weather at lower altitude to follow suit. This way Arctic weather can be delivered at the touch of a computer keyboard, or drought or torrential rain. http://tapnewswire.com/2014/06/haarp-is-being-used-to-make-you-think-global-climate-change-is-happening/
I'm confused, I thought it was us gays who were causing the floods and droughts?
Staggering admission from the Met office last night in their forecast for the week ahead broadcast on BBC1 at 0035 nearly 24 hours ago now. They talked about how the jetstream normally goes west to east carrying systems in off the Atlantic however what we expect at the end of the week is for the jetstream to buckle and plunge north to south ie classic Mini Ice Age behaviour. They then went on to say '' because our computer models are not used to seeing this kind of set up they find it difficult to predict when our weather will transition from one type to another'' so there you have it in their own words.. In summary they don't know why the jetstream behaves like this, their computers don't either, therefore we can't accurately forecast the weather. What a useless bunch they are!
The "mini ice age" was not caused by a change in the jetstream...
The reason the forecaster expects the change in the jetstream is because... the computer models are predicting that to happen. Duh.
Admitting to uncertainty is not the same as admitting to a complete lack of ability. Your ignorance extends to the English language too!
Of course they know why the jet stream changes direction. They change it themselves using HAARP technology, by lifting the ionosphere with energy beams. The jet stream rushes into the gap created, pulling weather at lower altitude to follow suit. This way Arctic weather can be delivered at the touch of a computer keyboard, or drought or torrential rain. http://tapnewswire.com/2014/06/haarp-is-being-used-to-make-you-think-global-climate-change-is-happening/
I'm confused, I thought it was us gays who were causing the floods and droughts?
Off to bed now, but just to leave you with a view of hunchman's "mini-ice age". This year is on track to be a record for Central England. See if you can guess in which direction...?
That's widely discredited boll*x data.
Oblitus believes in AGW you will not persuade a true believer in the faith no more than you could convinve Nabavi of the evils of internet monitoring. They have unshakeable faith
Basically, it's science - it's the best we've got. Sure, it suffers from entrenched interests, funding bias, overinflated egos, and advocates who will conveniently benefit from the likely consequences etc etc, but ultimately it's all based on the scientific method. Don't make yourself look silly pretending it's no more valid than pie-in-the-sky-religion.
oh, and a bit more evidence-backed-science for you (psychology this time);
"A new study from Duke University finds that people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don't, then they tend to deny the problem even exists."
It's quite interesting that 13% of the over 60's haven't had sex with the opposite gender. That really surprised me. It would be great to use this yougov as a resource in PSHE lessons for teenagers, to give them an accurate idea of what a normal sex life for an adult looks like. I'd hazard a guess that the reality is very different to what they imagine it to be.
Off to bed now, but just to leave you with a view of hunchman's "mini-ice age". This year is on track to be a record for Central England. See if you can guess in which direction...?
That's widely discredited boll*x data.
Oblitus believes in AGW you will not persuade a true believer in the faith no more than you could convinve Nabavi of the evils of internet monitoring. They have unshakeable faith
Basically, it's science - it's the best we've got. Sure, it suffers from entrenched interests, funding bias, overinflated egos, and advocates who will conveniently benefit from the likely consequences etc etc, but ultimately it's all based on the scientific method. Don't make yourself look silly pretending it's no more valid than pie-in-the-sky-religion.
oh, and a bit more evidence-backed-science for you (psychology this time);
"A new study from Duke University finds that people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don't, then they tend to deny the problem even exists."
The thing is, even if you accept the AGW debate at face value, trying to stop it is still an exercise in futility, even the most ambitious plans will make the square root of no difference in 100 years time, money would be vastly better spent on dealing with the (actually dramatically less damaging than most alarmists predicts) effects.
Comments
Labour wants everyone to have the same bad education. Does not matter how good or bad it is but that all have the same. The triumph of mediocrity.
I'm pretty sure Labour would not close down those dubious Islamic "charities" so beloved of their imported vote. And ISIL.
Probably because you got taught self-defence?
There were no females to distract me at school, when I was finally exposed to females, I had lost time to make up for.
As others have said, our school encouraged us to recognise the privileged position we had (academic not necessarily financial as we accepted lots of very bright boys from economically poor backgrounds) and give as much back to the inner city community which surrounded our school. I well remember the endless concerts I sang in for groups of elderly ladies while I was still a boy treble and later as a tenor.
However when Vince Cable and his pals in the ruling Labour group on Glasgow Corporation effectively abolished all the grant aided private schools out of class spite, at a stroke thousands of boys in future generations were deprived of one of the finest educations in Scotland and alas now my school is no more than a hole in the ground soon to be filled in with a new Glasgow college.
But in any case eccentricity over a long period of time seems to me to be the essence of England!
I quite relish coming up against Public school people in meetings and negotiations, they typically are poorly prepared, amateurish though well spoken, and believe that they can blag their way through. They are so often brought down by their own over-confidence, rather like David Cameron when the chips are down.
Rant over - I want to turn back time and install Windows 7 instead - I've been all over the net and it looks very messy as the file systems are different, trying to write over W8 is awkward and a bunch of other stuff. Has anyone tried to do this?
I'm assuming that I can somehow intercept the W8.1 boot up and then change the file properties/other stuff I've read about. It's been a very long time since I did this and software wasn't half as clever. I'm downloading the all singing version of Windows 7 now so I can rebuild my hard drive - but am nervous about gutting the whole thing within 72hrs of buying it!
If I ghost my other laptop that runs on Windows 7 - and ghost my new one - does that seem adequate insurance against a horrible screw up? I basically want to clone one laptop to another. I'm intending to make an exhaustive list of the drivers so I don't end up with a brick with W7 on it, with no working USB or touchpad or whatever.
Any technical help greately appreciated. I'm so frustrated with W8 that I've installed a copycat shell of XP as that's less annoying. I haven't used XP in a decade but it's still better.
ARGHHH.
They are now realising all the can expect from voting labour or conservative is a falling level of living. Will voting elsewhere help? Probably not but they will at least give it a go as they really at this point have so little to lose.
They might track a general mood, but day to day public opinion? Surely not. At the heart of an opinion poll is a fatuous question. There is not a general election tomorrow. Its in 6 months... after a financiial statement and a budget.
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/11/25/spanish-protest-party-taking-lead/
What price UKIP in the lead at some point? And when ?!
Very character building - and though it sounds brutal, it didn't feel like it - it was very tough love.
We all left absolutely task/duty focussed - and that second best was entirely unacceptable. Sad to hear that some parents wasted their money on their child if they didn't take it seriously. It was a VERY serious business when I was at school.
I hate W8 too (I bought a new laptop in June). But don't know enough to help you sorry. I also go back to my old laptop (W7) just to see how Windows used to be!
Education should get the best out of everybody no matter what the ability. Everyone should work equally hard. The less able have most to gain proportionately I think from that but ultimately I do not think we should be surprised if the most able do the best in life.
Of course people can do well without an education. You just have to be somewhat sociopathic, say a successful criminal, or barrow boys in the business of oooh commodity trading.
1P 1A 1R 1I 1T 1Y
2E 2Q 2U 2A 2L 2S
Subtle
http://iceagenow.info/2014/11/antarctic-sea-ice-thicker-previously-thought/
The ISPs could do the same but it would take money and resources.
BTW Emily Maitlis is a useless interviewer.
Even then, I'm not sure they could bully an independent member state into giving up something symbolic like that. It's more likely that they'll make some kind of procedural workaround so that they don't have to go to Strasbourg any more, like sending one lonely bloke down there to bang a gavel while everyone else "attends" the session remotely from Brussels...
My last windows computer methinks.
And the adverts masquerading as apps - Jeepers. I feel I'm fighting against those bloody moving/random windows and fiddling about trying to get a *charm* thingy in the top right corner to appear. Just give me an icon to click on!!!
My new laptop may be 3x as fast - but I was waiting 4x as long waiting for the graphics to finish moving about or wondering WTF is going on. I absolutely detest it. And trying to use a mouse is just so annoying - I don't want to be rubbing my fingers on the screen when I'm typing something else. It really feels like a messy confusion of W7 and an iPad.
I keep getting lost where I am and made the mistake of agreeing to allow MSoft to use my real name at one point - now it uses my name as my server title - No No No. And it's forced me to have a screen password???? And then texts me if I want to do anything as part of its bloody *protecting your privacy* protocol. So I have to have my mobile next to me to say I accept.
I really don't think it could be worse - but then I heard Vista was appalling - and ME was dreadful, so who knows!
TSE = Apple Whore.
and on that note, good night.
I prefer W7 myself.
As Cromwell realised: "I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else."
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/weather/topstories/white-christmas-unlikely-as-met-office-predicts-milder-than-average-winter/ar-BBfOBCG?ocid=iefvrt
And then this shower of a government go and allow them to spend £97 million on more garbage in garbage out - you couldn't make it up!
So essentially the S's were on average 6 months older.
Tax thresholds have been raised and at the same time higher earners have had theirs lowered to make sure they do not benefit.
You are just another spouting from prejudice and ignorance. Latest stats show inflation of the major staples either falling or stable and stuff like video games going up. So yours is a pretty poor definition of being 'done' over. The fact that you are so ignorant that you cannot find a decent reprintable word to coherently express your stupidity just emphasises how stupid you are.
And its a pretty pathetic (and of course highly dangerous) philosophy which has to rely on such crass hysteria to prop up its misbegotten message.
Also, seasonal forecasts are probabilistic, not deterministic, so it's impossible to say whether an individual forecast is wrong or right in the way that you can with a forecast of a cyclone track - such as the excellent forecast four days ahead of the St Jude's day storm, for example.
The Met Office is a genuine British success story, better than any of the other national met services, even the Yanks.
Your criticism in this case betrays only your own ignorance.
Really?
Any surprise that the ting tong party should win that competition?
Windows Media Player doesn't work - and I've got 2.5k tracks all categorised and autoplaylisted so I can't swap it out without weeks of work. And it can't talk to my multi-media Smart TV and it doesn't have any DVD player or RW features unless I spend ANOTHER £99 to buy their bog standard Media Centre Pack.
Oh and no idea editing video editing SW, or graphic equaliser or or or or or.
It's appalling. I've checked out the returns policy and can send it back - but there are so few W7 laptops about now new that they cost a bomb, I don't think it's much of an option. I may as well wash my hard disk and start again even if it takes me 3 days to do it. If all else fails and I brick the HD, I'll buy a new HD and just start again - like my own OEM. I'll have bust the warranty way before then so have nothing to lose!!
I can't believe I've spent £500 on something so crap that I'm basically using it for spares with 72 hrs.
Great to see you on Friday night.
Banks and solicitors probably have an inkling which people are wanting to launder money. The government doesn;'t have to inflict the rest of us with that shit
The protestant work ethic is an endangered species in this country. Plenty of people want to be rich, but they do not see why they should have to work for it. True of education, but also of much else.
http://towerhamlets-ukip.org/tag/ppc/
There were people like you naysaying at Admiral FitzRoy when he started the Met Office up in the 19th century. Now they can make excellent forecasts four or five days ahead. The frost on Monday morning, for example, was clearly forecast on Thursday. Similarly, about a year ago, the Met Office made excellent forecasts of the path of the tropical cyclone that hit the Philippines.
I remember seeing a Met Office forecast for snow in London a few years ago which even managed to get right that it would snow north of the river, but not to the south!
As a point of pedantic accuracy on the famous "barbecue summer" forecast, the actual forecast was for it to be warmer than average. That summer was, just barely, warmer than average. Where the Met Office went wrong was in putting a bit of absurd spin on their own forecast.
Everyone makes mistakes, and the Met Office appear to be a lot more cautious about their seasonal forecasts, apparently learning from theirs.
Do you learn from your mistakes?
Are you making a prediction about this winter's weather that you can check after the event, or are you more a "forward-looking person" when it comes to being self-critical about past errors?
The reason the forecaster expects the change in the jetstream is because... the computer models are predicting that to happen. Duh.
Admitting to uncertainty is not the same as admitting to a complete lack of ability. Your ignorance extends to the English language too!
Unfortunately, Macs were effing awful [OS2 or something] and crashed 15x a day. Every day. And they couldn't sync on the network with the PCs and their documents wouldn't open.
So I used to write a document, then print it off 50x and walk it from one desk to another to send a memo to my own team.
It was ridiculous. Given I worked for a telecoms firm - that we couldn't even get one network to talk to another was just unbelievable. It was the same when I joined BT in 96, same issues again. Thankfully, they binned the Macs.
Good night all.
There were people like you naysaying at Admiral FitzRoy when he started the Met Office up in the 19th century. Now they can make excellent forecasts four or five days ahead. The frost on Monday morning, for example, was clearly forecast on Thursday. Similarly, about a year ago, the Met Office made excellent forecasts of the path of the tropical cyclone that hit the Philippines.
I remember seeing a Met Office forecast for snow in London a few years ago which even managed to get right that it would snow north of the river, but not to the south!
As a point of pedantic accuracy on the famous "barbecue summer" forecast, the actual forecast was for it to be warmer than average. That summer was, just barely, warmer than average. Where the Met Office went wrong was in putting a bit of absurd spin on their own forecast.
Everyone makes mistakes, and the Met Office appear to be a lot more cautious about their seasonal forecasts, apparently learning from theirs.
Do you learn from your mistakes?
Are you making a prediction about this winter's weather that you can check after the event, or are you more a "forward-looking person" when it comes to being self-critical about past errors?
I would agree with you except for one small point. You can easily exceed the met office prediction accuracy of weather simply by predicting rain every day. When your forecasts with all that equipment can be beaten that easily then frankly I think you have a bit of a cheek asserting yourself as a scientific body
20/11/2014 13:44
Look what my mum found - we think it was given to my dad when he left the Navy in 1948. Love the words at the bottom! pic.twitter.com/C1FzC132EX
Good night for the 2nd time!
Assuming she runs, will Anna Soubry be reelected as an MP? Hard to say. David Cameron be reelected as an MP? Yes. Will particular voter John Smith in David Cameron's constituency vote for him? Also hard to say.
No it really isnt when they have so many unknowns. If a statisical model cannot even get near predicting the past which their models cannot then they have no f**king business confidently predicting the future.
They know little of how clouds affect climate.
They seem to have little idea about how solar forcing and solar cycles impact
As two examples
They cannot explain the present and why it has diverged from their model yet think we should spend billions based on their predictions of the future.
I agree climate change is happening, it always has.
I agree mankind is probably contributing to that to a greater or lesser degree.
Where I disagree is that they have a clue where its going or whether on the whole it will be a beneficial of malign change. These people really don't have the faintest clue and I cite the fact that they had to change the term "global warming" to "climate change" to illustrate that. They are no better than the snake oil sellers of the mid west of america. Time and again their predictions have proved to be bullshit. Why do supposedly intelligent people continue to support them is beyond me.
Spend money on research I heartily agree. But don't come around with your doomladen predictions till you have a model that can run forward from any arbitrary date we have sufficient data to use as a start point and accurately predict the steps along the way to now. When they have that I will consider listening to what they think will happen in the future. While they don't I will continue to consider them bull shitters who care more about grant money than anything else.
I don't know if this link about Windows 8.1 compatibility mode will be of any use or you might already have tried it.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/older-programs-compatible-version-windows
http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=9386
And if she is going off the idea, imagine all those investors that are going off the idea.
The MetOffice is one of the few success stories we have in this country - the right-wing loony bias we have on this blog will instinctively dismiss their achievements...
PS - my winter forecast will be ready soon...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
Really cannot understand why people use the "do you know who I am" card.
http://tapnewswire.com/2014/06/haarp-is-being-used-to-make-you-think-global-climate-change-is-happening/
http://www.morleyobserver.co.uk/news/local/prospective-morley-mp-gets-a-degree-1-6863429
The ability to forecast weather is one of humanities greatest achievements. We've gone from looking at the sky and having a vague idea of the likely weather over the next few hours, to being able to predict, with increasing accuracy, the weather a few days in advance.
That's pretty incredible given the complexity of it all.
The nutjobs would find fault with spending money on an earthquake predictor that was only 50% successful, because it was 50% unsuccessful.
Eejits.
It's quite interesting that 13% of the over 60's haven't had sex with the opposite gender. That really surprised me. It would be great to use this yougov as a resource in PSHE lessons for teenagers, to give them an accurate idea of what a normal sex life for an adult looks like. I'd hazard a guess that the reality is very different to what they imagine it to be.
oh, and a bit more evidence-backed-science for you (psychology this time);
http://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion
"A new study from Duke University finds that people will evaluate scientific evidence based on whether they view its policy implications as politically desirable. If they don't, then they tend to deny the problem even exists."